New rating rules

[Victor Plotkin]

From the beginning of 2022 FIDE made some change in rating rules. As most players know, if the gap between 2 players was more than 400 points, FIDE still counted it as 400 for rating calculations. Now, this "400 rule" is limited to just 1 game per tournament.

Example to show how it works. Let say 2450 player (K-factor 10) plays 5 games against 1900 opponents. He wins all 5. By old rules, he gets 0.8 * 5 = 4 rating points. By new rules, he gets 0.8 * 1 + 0.3 * 4 = 2 rating points.

Generally, I like this adjustment. By old rules, a player could get a lot of rating points by playing in very low rated events and actually abuse the system. For example, a 2300 players needed just 63 wins against 1200 players to get a rating of 2400. New rules make this "exercise" less effective.

However, in the tough reality of Canadian chess this adjustment makes it more difficult for higher rated player to keep their rating, especially if they play many games against lower rated opponents. Players like Bator or Nikolay usually play more than 1 game/tournament against 2100- opponents. Even myself played 3 games with 1900- opponents in my last event in Ottawa.