Rating from way back when

Back in 1985 ish, I played in my first chess tournament, and got a USCF rating of 1775 ish.  I stopped playing soon after.  Then in the last few years I started playing chess again and with alot of work and suffering I got back up to a rating of 1100.  So is that just because Ive become stupid, or ratings massively changed, or what?

You won't get an established rating from one tournament.

I had one tournament-ISH and dont remember the particulars from back then, but somehow I achieved 1775 ish. Im just wondering if the lower rating is just ratings inflation, or a diff organization giving the ratings, or if my brain is drying up.

You need more practice to do tournaments all the time tho

I have a rating from way back, too and it carries over.

You need 25 rated games to have an established rating. That would be 5 tournaments if you played 5 rounds in each. If you played less than that then your rating was provisional.

Have you looked on the USCF web site for your rating information?

A rating based on one tournament means nothing. If you played in the top section of a large tournament, you could lose every game and end up above 1800.

You can look at your tournament history on the USCF website. It will only show your tournaments after 1991, but your first tournament after 1991 will show what your rating was in the past.

For example, I had an established rating before in the late 70's and early 80's then stopped playing for many years. I can look at my first tournament in 1994 to see that my rating was 1765 when I started playing again.

https://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?199409043090-12542731

I am player 2 in section one of the crosstable above.

I think I was promoted from "provisional". I may have played some local quads at the club and a couple players there were also tournament directors. Just wondering If its odd that I dropped by so much. Maybe players are better now?

Thanks mouseslip, I didnt think of that

Your rating is provisional until you have played 25 rated games.

If you send me your name or USCF ID I can look into it.

Actually, I think your rating is established on your 26th rated game.

We seem to be friends on FB

Yes we are!

I'm pretty sure I have no games played after 1986. My first tournie was the PanAm collegian team championship. I was on the Penn State team. Our first round was against Baruch - which was a surprise victory for me and the whole team (Go Penn State!). Second round we played Yale. I lost horribly against Mikael Wilder. My teammate on first board played Joel Benjamen and did very well (I think he refused a draw from Benjamin and ended up losing). I think both Benjamin and Wilder went on to be US Champs or Grand Masters or something. I wish I still had the score card.

Have you played in any USCF tournaments since 1991?

Never mind. I see that you have not played since 1986. You should still be able to contact the USCF and get your rating from 1986.

Have you searched your name on the USCF site? It may still show you some information.

I wasn't worried about the ratings. They seem to come and go very quickly. I Just wondered if players are just better now, or there's inflation, or maybe my brain doing brain things as well as they used to.

Big question:

When you started up again did you renew using your old USCF ID or did you create a brand new one?

If you renewed the old one then it would update your rating based on that. If you created a new one then all of your old information is ignored.

If you had a provisional rating from one good tournament then it might have been as much as 400 points higher than the highest rated opponent you had (maybe a 1375). That doesn't mean you were 1775 strength, just that the rating system had almost no information to work with and it took its best stab at it.

If you know your old ID then you can contact the Federation's offices to merge them.