Universal Rating System announced...

http://grandchesstour.org/press-release-news/grand-chess-tour-introduces-innovative-universal-rating-system

Any thoughts?

1. The existing Elo system is sound enough that any new system isn't going to make a huge difference in how players get ranked. As Khodarkovsky mentioned in his interview on YT, you end up with the same players, just in a different order.
2. Having a single number to reflect performance across differing time controls is necessary for GCT since the tour is now mixed time controls, and so seeding should be based on performance across those controls. Even if they didn't create another rating system, they would have had to take some weighted average across the FIDE classical, rapid and blitz ratings.
3. I imagine that the new algorithm is something that takes into account that rapid and blitz results have more statistical noise than classical. Thus, beating someone of equal rating in classical will get you slightly more points than in rapid or blitz.
4. What we don't know (and won't until they publish details in January) is whether that's basically it (an Elo/Glicko derivative, and purely a performance rating based on results) or whether they will make any additional claims (like being resistant to inflation/deflation) or use other data inputs (like average centipawn loss.)
5. The real story is, if I heard Khodarkovsky correctly, that they intend eventually to allow all chess organisations to submit results so that anyone who plays in a sufficiently "official" tournament will get a URS rating. That smells like the first step to turning the GCT into a parallel structure to supplant FIDE. Which given Kasparov's involvement, would make perfect sense.

It's a (major) step towards creating an alternate chess organization. A rating system is a (very) important pillar for such an organization.

Supplanting FIDE might not be a bad idea in the long run, but the short-run disruption will be rather significant.  Back to the days of two world champions?