U1600 tournament for US Qualifier results

Can someone explain some things to me about the results of the U1600 qualifier. There are several people missing as compared to the number of participants in the event, such that my own placement is several spots higher on USCF. Also, I only see 7 rounds and even from those seven rounds, many people have U's instead of a game there. Finally, it looks like the winner of the bracket was an NM? I don't understand why a national master was able to participate in the U1600 bracket on a brand new account. I didn't know where to pose these questions and I'm sure other people would like some clarity on these matters as well.

I don't know what you are looking at. An NM did not win that event and all 12 rounds show. You have to scroll to the right.

https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/u1600-us-championship-online-qualifier-1723761

Ah, based on your MSA proflile, you are talking about the 5|0 tournament on the 16th. That wasn't the Qualifier but a regularly scheduled club event.

Martin, As someone who finished in the top 8 of the U1600 tourney, I took note of the names of the other top finishers. While playing in the U2000 I saw Subramanyamsripada started off 5-0 against U2000 competition and I believe in the top 15 overall. As a player with a similar ELO to Subramanya I was thoroughly impressed with his U2000 performance since I only won 3.5 games against such tough competitors. I wasn't aware that a 1550 could rise to 1950 that quickly. Good motivation for me, I guess.

That player has an almost 1900 OTB regular rating. You can't really look at chess.com ratings as any kind of comparison, unless it is based on a lot of recent games. So, in general, a 1550 isn't going to raise that rapidly, unless they are really underrated in the particular pool.

I guess you didnt recognize the sarcasm. Let me simplify... What is an 1900 OTB doing playing in a U1600 USCF event?

The Chess.com Rapid rating was under 1600, that's how. Chess.com ratings are being used for events here.

Can the rules be changed next time such that you can play in a category with equal or higher rating points than your OTB rating, while keeping chess.com ratings for pairings? With the current format, people are coming to lower categories and sweeping them.

That's unlikely to happen. We have over 3,500 members in the club and over 8,000 accounts that have been verified (some expired, some not) and the site isn't going to boost ratings of people that have a difference between OTB ratings and chess.com ratings during events, in most cases.

OTB and chess.com ratings should be different and not in my opinion.  The reason is because chess.com ratings are obtained by playing ANYONE, especially when they are not USCF rated.  For this nonsense, just play over the board against a player who decides to rematch you 10+ times to raise your rating 75+ pts that is counted as an official rating, according to USCF online tournaments, but obtained outside of a tournament setting or USCF rated game. 

I really dont see a way for rules makers to create a system where fairness can always be reached. I think as long as players lack integrity, there will be unfortunate occurrences, although I believe they are rare. I am sympathetic with Martin and others that have to police such activity. 

At minimum there should be a way to flag/warn players when questionable behavior occurs.

Ratings on chess.com are mostly higher than OTB ratings. There could be a rule where entry to a tournament is based on USCF rating bracket ( equal or higher level than USCF rating) and pairings could be based on chess.com rating. This can atleast ensure that higher level players dont play in lower brackets and win them with ease.

My USCF rating is 1900 (when I was 10 years old, 15 years ago) and my chess.com rapid rating is 2400, so the other scenario exists. The frequency of my particular scenario is questionable though. Just thought I’d put in my two cents. 

The system is not set up for anything like that. That situation would require multiple clubs based on ratings and managing members for each club. 

I don't see that ever happening for events related to this club. 

It is funny how both of my 1500 opponents posted in here. I beat one of them and lost to the other. I am just saying I am surprised I saw my round 1 and 2 opponents here.

why is that surprising? 

Python, we've already been down this road. Read the trailing exchange. The guy had an OTB rating of 1900+ but a rapid rating of U1600 apparently. No matter how you slice it, Subramany has some serious integrity issues but how can Chess.com legitimately police such nefarious activity. The answer given is that... they cant. As unfortunate as it is that a genuine U1600 lost out on a spot, it is what it is at this point. 

Lots of people just don't play much, or particularly seriously, chess.com.  If I was a strong player who wanted to participate in the US championship, and my chess.com rating happened to be 1400 because I didn't play much, or hadn't played in a long time, or didn't play very seriously, I had *no choice* but to start in the U1600 section to have a chance to qualify.  There's nothing nefarious or lacking in integrity in doing that - it's simply the requirement of the format.

I think they should consider ratings floors that take into account multiple organizations and formats. Sandbagging is a fair play violation, so some efforts should be taken to enforce it.  

For the avoidance of doubt, no one got an advantage in terms of making it easier to qualify for the US championship by having a low rating.  If a player who, in your words, "should" have had a 1900 rating had a 1400 rating instead, they had to play through an additional tournament to earn a spot in the U2000 round.  If they had a 1900 rating, they would have automatically qualified for the U2000 round.  

The point has been made again and again that chess.com does not have the connectivity to update and floor the ratings of thousands of players across dozens of organizations, nor are there people available to manually keep thousands of players' ratings up to date.  

The member you're talking about has been a chess.com member for over three years, during which their rapid rating never exceeded 1600, despite playing a couple hundred games.  If you believe this player has spent the last three years intentionally losing games in preparation to give themself a more difficult path to qualifying for a US Championship in a format that only exists because of a pandemic that was unforseeable three years ago, you should be reporting them to the chess.com fair play team.  You should in any case not be making accusations of fair play violations in public, which is itself a violation of the chess.com fair play policy.