Originally Posted by
Fred McKim
Bill there are so many kids playing now in tournaments, that I think that starting them at 1000 would lead to some real inflation in certain areas (especially elementary children - might be OK for junior high and high school)). I've run kids tournaments for 30 years and I can tell the sifference between a 400, 600, 800 and 1000 player.
Rule 716 Applies to low rated players. Established players won't ever go below 800 once they get there and will never go below their highest rating if below 800. Provisional players will never go below 200.
At one time we had a rule that
a) if a player below 1200 had a performance rating (on 5 games or more) of 1200 or above their pre tournament rating would be considered 1200.
b) if a player below 1200 had a performance rating (of 5 games or more) above their pre tournament rating (but less than 1200), the performance rating would be their new rating.
These rules only applied to permanent players, but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't apply to provisional players also.
I think we should increase the minimum rating to 400 (this would equate to someone who has just learned the rules).
Again, we're not even sure we can modify the rating system at the moment.
It would be possible to manually increase all of the modifed ratings each week to some minimum (besides 200), but I think 1000 as a start is too high...