10B) Discussion: Foreign Ratings - Paul Leblanc

[Pierre Dénommée]

Paul, this is the important sentence.

A few year ago, a foreign player try to register in the Quebec Open lowest section as an unrated. The TDs have been notified that this "unrated" guy has defeated Alexandre Lesiège in a blitz tournament. The player was transferred against its will to the Open section where GM norms were possible. The unrated player scored 50% of the possible points and got a National Master level first rating. That is the situation that the CFC Code of Ethic is targeting. It is a very bad form of sandbagging. The FQE Code of Ethics also contain a similar rule.

Pierre, are you pointing out the sentence that says that players with foreign ratings must disclose them to the TD?
Is there anything else in the GL you linked to that I should read?

[Lyle Craver]

The Vancouver Keres Memorial now routinely allows unrateds only in the Open section for this reason.

Some years back our U2000 section was won by a player who had a provisional rating but midway through the tournament we the TDs heard a rumor that he had a masters' rating in a country outside North America. We felt we were helpless to act at that point and he in fact scored 5.5/6 with a last round draw to clinch. He is now a strong master and is FIDE rated 2200+.

I think this sort of thing comes with offering moderate to large guaranteed prize funds in class sections.

I note en passant that issues of this sort are going to be more and more endemic as time goes on and tournament play becomes more fragmented - CFC, USCF, FQE, FIDE, ICC, FICS etc. etc. the point being is that there are plenty of venues outside our domain where players can play where their gain in rating strength is not going to be recognized by the CFC. I've faced juniors with low ratings who have returned to CFC play after playing 1000+ games on the servers. Obviously such players feel they've learned from their server play (if they didn't feel they had learned anything why would they be eager to return?) and are likely to be much stronger than before.

I know the case of the American GM who last played in Canada when he was 11 is one data point but one does not have to cross international borders for this sort of thing to happen!

[Aris Marghetis]

Perhaps we can separate the two issues involved:
a. the CFC has to decide what rating to give a foreign player
b. the TD has to decide what rating to use for pairings and prizes when players have multiple ratings.

Probably b. is best left up to the TD

For players who do not have a "current" CFC Regular rating, I usually use their top rating, including me searching for them online. If need be, I move them up for round 2.

[Jonathan Berry]

Wow, as a non-governor, I can post here. My goodness. Maybe permissions were copied from the Arbiter forum, which I no longer see.

The vagueness in the existing clause never caused problems, it simply allowed the Rating Statistician to find the correct decision, whatever it needed to be, to use common sense. For example, a player might have a well-established and current USCF rating but an old or sketchy FIDE rating. Use common sense. There is no formula for conversion between systems because the relation between systems changes over time and may be complex. If parents are lobbying to get their children higher CFC ratings, you can tell them to smell the coffee, not inject it.

I remember losing future-GM Yasser Seirawan as an entry at Vancouver 1975 because I wouldn't agree to put him in the section indicated by his CFC rating, which may have been only a year or two out of date. But we're friends today.

[Paul Leblanc]

Again, I want to emphasize that this particular article isn't there to mandate anything to organizers and TDs. The code of ethics certainly is the place to provide guidance to players. This article exists simply to allow the published CFC ratings to be as accurate as possible for foreign players. At least, that's the way I read it.

[Pierre Dénommée]

Many tournaments prize structure state that unrated players cannot win any price except the unrated class price and the prices of the open section.

[Paul Leblanc]

That is a sensible policy and totally up to the organizers and TDs.

[Valer Eugen Demian]

IMHO, only FIDE (international) and USCF (neighbor) ratings should be considered on a 1:1 base.

For other ratings (British, German, what are other countries who have own ratings?):
* money-prized events (places) and rating calculations - unrated
* for pairing purposes - a TD makes a decision transposing the player's level or class to an appropriate rating.

After one year of the CFC inactivity: readjust FIDE and USCF, all others unrated again.

Several European federations run domestic ratings in parallel with the FIDE one!