Chess by Bill Cornwall
March 30, 2008
What are ratings? I often refer to the ratings players have, but I have seldom explained exactly what ratings are. A “rating” in chess is a numerical value derived from using a mathematical set of formulas that can be used to evaluate the relative strengths and performances of players. The most popular system was created by Arpad Elo, an American physics professor and chess master, whose Elo rating system was adopted by our country nearly 50 years ago. In the United States, we have subdivided ratings into 200 point ranges and given them names. Top-down, they are: Senior-Master, Master, Expert, and Class A, B, C, etc.
The World Chess Federation also uses Elo and regularly publishes a list ranking top players by rating. Appropriately tied at the top of the current list, with ratings of 2799, are World Champion Vishwanathan Anand of India and his immediate predecessor Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
Here is the full article.
So which is more accurate? FIDE or USCF system?
That would be interesting to know. I don’t know enough about the USCF system to say.
I do know that there are problems with the FIDE system in regards to inflation. Plus several other problems that would be relatively easy to correct in a computer age. But, of course, FIDE does nothing about them.
Chessmetrics, by Jeff Sonas attempts to correct for inflation and has some other good ideas, but also unfortunately has deep flaws which make it untrustworthy.
It is high time that FIDE corrected its system and produced historical ratings back to the middle of the nineteenth Century.
This should be a core responsibility of FIDE as a service to chessplayers.
But of course, the current leadership of FIDE serve only themselves.
Here is a working link to the original story, btw –
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/lifestyle/sfl-fl30mchesssbmar30,0,6632236.story