USCF Rating Distribution

By Steve | June 6, 2008

I used the USCF membership rating database to compute the rating distribution for “active” players with established (that is, not provisional) ratings. My definition of “active” is at least one USCF tournament result in the last year. The graphs are below.

I’m thinking about writing a script to automatically harvest the data and regenerate these graphs regularly. In my “copious spare time,” of course.

3 Responses to “USCF Rating Distribution”

  1. Dave Says:
    June 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am

    Very interesting! It seems that the US has a lot more players down the lower rated end than the UK. This I guess shows that chess is more popular in the US at the grass roots level.

    http://www.bluehorizonweb.com/blog/2008/03/general/ecf-grading-statistical-distribution/

  2. Steve Says:
    June 6th, 2008 at 9:24 am

    Hi Dave,

    Thanks for commenting! I was intrigued to see that someone else had the same urge that I did to look at the rating distribution.

    I plan to post some additional comments about the USCF distribution when I get a chance.

  3. Steve Says:
    June 6th, 2008 at 9:30 am

    I think the high number of low ratings in the USCF distribution is because of the relatively large number of scholastic players.

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My game against a future U.S. Champion

By Steve | May 15, 2008

I was getting rid of some junk yesterday, and I was about to toss an old score book that I’ve had since I first started playing tournament chess in high school. But I decided first to look up some of the names of my opponents, and that’s when I made an interesting discovery.

In the fourth round of the 1979 Atlanta Scholastic Congress, I was defeated by unrated player named Stuart Rachels. My rating at the time was 930 (provisional, based on 6 rated games). I was 14, and Stuart was 9.

Well, Stuart went on to become a somewhat better chess player than I ever did. About two years after this game was played, Stuart set the record for becoming the youngest National Master in U.S. history. Later he became an International Master, and he was the 1989-1990 U.S. co-champion. He retired from chess in 1993 and is now Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama.

2 Responses to “My game against a future U.S. Champion”

  1. ZwaartePaard Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 6:11 am

    Superb revelation !

    I came across the scoresheets where I first played League OTB chess in the mid 80’s.

    I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at a few of them.

    I ended my season at 50%, so still feel good about it.

    They fared better than my chess computer that I bought at the time (after trialling it at the club ). My Fidelity Excelsior ( I think ) lost its lights and ended up on dumped in Amsterdam two years ago ( I hoard :).

    My Morphy still works !

  2. Steve Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 7:54 am

    Zwarte—I had a Saitek chess computer from the 80s that I recently tossed. It still worked! But it played a lousy game of chess. :-)

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Team 45 45 T37 Round 3

By Steve | May 11, 2008

I have a three-game winning streak in the Team 45 45 T37 tournament.

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End-of-game variations in ChessBase 9

By Steve | May 10, 2008

My previous post had a number of variations that explored possible continuations following the last move of the game. ChessBase 9 unfortunately makes it pretty difficult to do this. For my future reference, and to possibly help others, here is Mig Greengard’s workaround:

At the last move, press T and enter any random move as a new variation. Then promote that move to be the main line. That makes the real last move of the game a variation. Now with the last move of the new (spurious) main line selected, press T and enter the real last move again. Now you will have the real last move twice as variations. Promote one of them to be the main line, delete the spurious variation and there you have it.

From Mig’s November 2004 “ChessBase Cafe” column at chesscafe.com

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MCC May Swiss Round 1

By Steve | May 8, 2008

I was back at my club Tuesday for the first time in a while, and I had a nice upset win.

In particular, I was pleased with my 15th move (as White). I was worried that my kingside pressure was draining away, and that the initiative might turn in Black’s direction. My solution was a square-clearing pawn sac. That’s not the sort of thing I can usually find during the game!

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