Mike Murray wrote:

Chess history has been destroyed. The ratings for past individuals (prior to
1990) have been destroyed. Some say it was an accident. Others say it was
done to cover up false rating reports submitted by coaches to inflate their
chess ratings in order to gain respect and money by claiming superior chess
skills (e.g., I can coach you because I am a master).

As I understand, the ratings records exist on paper and could be
re-entered if we were willing to bear the expense. I'm reluctant to
introduce conspiracy when incompetence is a sufficient explanation,
but you could be right. Paid coaching seems to me almost as
destructive of ratings integrity as large class prizes.


Unfortunately no. The old crosstables were tossed around 1991 by Jim
Meyer to save space. This was, of course, a bad idea, but suggesting
that Meyer did this in in 1991 so that Todd Miller's enemies could ace
him out for coaching jobs fifteen years later says more about Miller's
mental state than it does about the USCF. (Note that, while the
_rating supplements_ exist and could be digitized with enough effort,
the individual results do not. This would not be enough to silence
paranoid twits like Miller and Sloan.)