USCF Rating

Has the USCF changed their rating system over the years?  I'm a solid 1500 player in 30 min rapid.  I'm 72, play chess for fun and to escape the humdrum, but in my college days when I took chess much more seriously, I was in the 1900-2000 range in OTB games.  This is clearly not my strength now.  I have no interest trying to regain this OTB rating.  It seems, based on topics here, that achieving higher ratings in OTB would require a much more significant amount of effort than I I ever put into the game.  Has the way games  rated changed, or are current tournament players much more knowledgeable and prepared than I ever was?

Probably your rating changed. If you don't play for a long time, you get rusty. If you are rusty you start to become overrated.

Players train better today, know more, and are better at tactics.

A.I. changes everything. I started seriously learning chess at 50, never had a coach, and have reached 1700 here at chess.com in 2 years (probably 1400-1500 USCF). This is unimaginable without the help of AI. In the good old days, if a low-rated player didn't see a tactic, he would never see it, until a high-rated player/coach showed him so. Nowadays, I just put the situation into computer and AI will show me all the available tactics. So, everybody has got so much better than when you were a kid.

Ratings are relative measures versus others and as the general knowledge base increases then so does the actual strength to reach a rating. The rating committee uses the bonus points formula to keep the average ratings fairly constant for 35-45 year-old players regardless of how much skill is currently required to attain that rating.

When I took a few years off from regular club play (in my 20s) my strength declined and it was about about two years before I recovered my strength and started moving up. What helped then was being part of a regular club and collaborating with other players in analyzing games (my specialty was holding positions that were supposedly lost, so players 200 to 400 points would analyze a position to a win then call me over to see if their analysis was correct - I refuted their conclusions often enough for them to continue calling me in for final verifications).

Now that I'm in my 60s one thing I've found is that a lot of players today do not really know endgames and do not realize what endings they need to try for when exiting the middle-game. Calculation works fine for tactics but strategic decisions require experience.

The rating system was slightly different 50 years ago, but not significantly. I started playing in the late 70's. The biggest difference is the available training aids these days. It is easier to become stronger more quickly now because there is an abundance learning resources -- including this site.

You're a little bit ahead of me -- I will be 64 at the end of this January. The Perpetual Chess Podcast has popularized a term "Adult Improver" but I consider myself an "Adult Sustainer" trying hard to maintain my strength as I age.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you can keep up with some of these youngsters!

BTW, if you haven't listenrd to the Perpetual Chess Podcast then I highly recommend checking it out.

Frank-- I played in the 70's stopped for 40+ years and started again in 2019. ( I had to scale back again last year as I found chess so absorbing my work suffered. I'm 67.)

It is way easier to train tactics and to play 1000 games now than then so of course people get better faster and with experience their 'fighting spirit' improves. With that said, I find that I can still compete against people around my rating-- maybe not crush them but have interesting games. In the 70's beating someone 1800 was often a matter of waiting for them to make a tactical mistake. Not so anymore. Also, in the 70's in the US everyone played Fischer's openings so preparation was easier.

In comparison, now against an 1800 often I can just wait until they err in an equal endgame. In the 70's I'd play to attackattackattack!!! Now I had to learn patience. They are often super well prepared in mainlines of their opening, often Caro-Kann's and accelerated dragons and English these days, but err in sidelines quickly. Where I spent time studying middle games long ago from Pachman, I think improving young players now study openings and tactics. I also find it effective to play classically vs hypermodern systems and visa versa.

Overall, my goal in chess is to slow my decline, play interesting games and have fun. If I finally retire I'll play more and comfort myself by looking at the USCF lists of top 100's over 70 rather than my rating. That is my experience so far. Tomorrow it may all be different!

Bill

Currently the Over 65 list has 36 people tied for 62nd-107th at 2200 (likely floored Life Masters). Of those 107 players, 26 are 70+ years old and 2201+ rated. Another 23 are 70+ and exactly 2200.

There are fewer floors in Blitz and 100th is rated 1859 , with the top 100 including 37 at least 70 years old.

I don't see a 70 and over list.

I didnt check the lists age brackets before posting [obviously] With the boomers aging, I can hope they will have over 70 lists in time. ( I did briefly make the top 100 over 65 in blitz- likely I'm dropped from it from not playing.)

I can aim for 2200 but getting there is highly unlikely (and getting more so every day). I guess my best realistic hope is to stay above 2000.

Bill

AI ain't got nothing to do with it. Internet does.

Some possible reasons:

OTB games are often much longer than 30 minutes so you have more time to think, when compared to 30min it's much different.

Haven't played in a long time

Age

People are much stronger at tactics and openings nowadays, many people around the mid 1000s do enjoy obscure lines with traps and stuff. And boy are there plenty of them

If you haven't played any games since then, then I think I know the reason. I'm pretty sure that your USCF rating will drain if you haven't played any games in a certain amount of time. That would be because they would assume you are getting rustier, and don't want to make you super overrated. However, I am not sure if they have made any significant changes to the system since I created my USCF account about 3-4 years ago.

Lol... guess I'm the youngest by FAAARRRRR (I am nine)

Once rated, always rated. If your last rating was four decades ago then that is what will be used for your next tournament.

If your last rating was four decades ago, the USCF lost your data. I learned in the 1990s that they no longer had my rating from the 1970s. It was only a correspondence rating. OTB might be different.

There are still microfiched or scanned copies of old rating lists. For that matter, old copies of the December magazines had rating lists.

With a person's name and state and rough estimate of the last tournament played it is often possible to find ratings from the 1980s or even the late 1970s. The 1985 end of year supplement included everybody they had records on, not just the ones that changed that calendar year. Anybody active before 1985 would have been included unless the physical records were purged for a player thought to have died. Then you look at the December lists for 1986 through 1991 if they are not in the on-line ratings.

My rating from the 70s and 80s carried through. OTB.

Maybe it was only the correspondence records that they lost. Maybe it was because my rating was provisional. I played in two postal events 1979-1981. When I resumed postal play in 1996, they had no records of my earlier play or rating.

Thx for the helpful replies. I'm not planning on any OTB tournaments, too much for me at my age. I enjoy what I do. My highest rapid rating was, I think, 1687 which I think I can obtain again. Reading over some other threads, I'm always curious why people ask if they can ever become a master. I think natural talent comes into play along with a lot of work. My last tournament was in Vancouver in 1975, the tournament GM Paul Keres played and then died on his way back to Estonia. He won the tournament. I got a chance to play GM Duncan Suttles in speed chess. He was playing speed chess with us patzers, but it was fun. I also got to watch a very young Yasser Seirawan play. Yasser showed a natural talent, and talent with work makes a master.

I may have to play in some on-line rapid tournaments. Meanwhile, I'll just have some relaxing fun.

Duncan Suttles. Haven't heard that name for awhile. He was great with the Pirc and Modern Defense. I wonder if he is still around.