Elo's book, The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present, is
reprinted today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891277

Professor Elo's book, long out of print and almost impossible to
obtain, has just been reprinted.

Sam Sloan

I spent half an hour on the phone this week interviewing someone who wants
to bring chess ratings into the C21st, and who will additionally provide
Chessville with 4 articles on the subject. He operates an outfit in
competition to 'standard' ratings, but is still true to Elo - in fact more
true than those systems which use ratings floors and ceilings. Phil Innes


"samsloan" wrote in message
...
Elo's book, The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present, is
reprinted today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891277

Professor Elo's book, long out of print and almost impossible to
obtain, has just been reprinted.

Sam Sloan

On Fri, 9 May 2008 13:40:02 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:

I spent half an hour on the phone this week interviewing someone who wants
to bring chess ratings into the C21st, and who will additionally provide
Chessville with 4 articles on the subject. He operates an outfit in
competition to 'standard' ratings, but is still true to Elo - in fact more
true than those systems which use ratings floors and ceilings. Phil Innes

So his system cuts sandbaggers and manipulators a little more slack?

On May 9, 3:29 pm, Mike Murray wrote:
On Fri, 9 May 2008 13:40:02 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:

I spent half an hour on the phone this week interviewing someone who wants
to bring chess ratings into the C21st, and who will additionally provide
Chessville with 4 articles on the subject. He operates an outfit in
competition to 'standard' ratings, but is still true to Elo - in fact more
true than those systems which use ratings floors and ceilings. Phil Innes

So his system cuts sandbaggers and manipulators a little more slack?

Yes it is probably that Chess Express nonsense he has been touting for
some time now.

On May 9, 4:29 pm, Mike Murray wrote:

I spent half an hour on the phone this week interviewing someone who wants
to bring chess ratings into the C21st, and who will additionally provide
Chessville with 4 articles on the subject. He operates an outfit in
competition to 'standard' ratings, but is still true to Elo - in fact more
true than those systems which use ratings floors and ceilings. Phil Innes

So his system cuts sandbaggers and manipulators a little more slack?


Let's not forget that there are "lifetime sandbaggers"
as well. When I first started playing in rated tourneys,
I noticed that the winner of our state's Reserve section
sounded strangely familiar. It turned out that he was
deliberately staying below the cutoff point, so he
could win, year after year, thereby becoming world-
famous like Sam Sloan.

No amount of quibbling over K-factors or ratings
floors or ceilings can impede these "lifers". And in
addition to American "lifers", there are of course
more than a few foreigners who travel to play in our
"big money" tournaments, year after year. These
folks know that if they stay below certain cutoffs,
they will end up the richer for it, financially anyway.

Fortunately, the amount of devotion to duty and
determination to lose -- sometimes -- and never
having the ambition to become a Class A player
like me, is rare, so these "lifers" are /relatively/
few and far between.

One item which seems to be of interest is the
mathematical advantage of having the first move
in a game of chess. If this edge were found to
be almost identical at every level, it should be an
easy matter to implement a change in the ratings
system to more accurately reflect the fact that I
have been given 62.147% Blacks and only
36.853 Whites (the other 1% of the time I was
forced to play with red or green pieces, and I
hung my Queen as a direct result).

Apparently as the result of some fairly recent
ratings deflation, a lot of folks are now on their
rating floors. What can be done about this? Is
it merely superficial, allowing such players to
"save face" when in fact their /real/ ratings are
tracked and used for calculating all ratings
changes? I, of course, wouldn't know about
such things, since I am never on any floor and
am always breaking through ceilings (ahem).


-- help bot

On Fri, 9 May 2008 14:09:33 -0700 (PDT), help bot
wrote:


Apparently as the result of some fairly recent
ratings deflation, a lot of folks are now on their
rating floors. What can be done about this? Is
it merely superficial, allowing such players to
"save face" when in fact their /real/ ratings are
tracked and used for calculating all ratings
changes?

I asked this question myself some time ago, and was told that the
floor IS the real rating -- there is no unpublished rating which
reflects "real" strength and is used for calculating the results of
others.

On May 9, 12:54*pm, samsloan wrote:
Elo's book, The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present, is
reprinted today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891277

Professor Elo's book, long out of print and almost impossible to
obtain, has just been reprinted.

Sam Sloan

I'm still wondering if this book is in the public domain at this
time. It was first published in 1978, just 30 years ago. What is the
length of copyright for such works?

wrote:
On May 9, 12:54�pm, samsloan wrote:
Elo's book, The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present, is
reprinted today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891277

Professor Elo's book, long out of print and almost impossible to
obtain, has just been reprinted.

Sam Sloan

I'm still wondering if this book is in the public domain at this
time. It was first published in 1978, just 30 years ago. What is the
length of copyright for such works?


If the intitial copyright date was 1978 or later, author's life plus
70 years. If it was pre-1978, 95 years after the start of copyright.
Unless the copyright holder voluntarily put it in public domain
(possible, I suppose, since I doubt Elo was in it for the money), or
Sloan obtained permission from the copyright holder, he's violating
the law. However, it would be up to whoever currently owns the
copyright to raise the matter.

On May 9, 5:48 pm, wrote:
On May 9, 12:54 pm, samsloan wrote:

Elo's book, The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present, is
reprinted today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891277

Professor Elo's book, long out of print and almost impossible to
obtain, has just been reprinted.

Sam Sloan

I'm still wondering if this book is in the public domain at this
time. It was first published in 1978, just 30 years ago. What is the
length of copyright for such works?

And, unless I am mistaken, it was published in a second edition in
1987.

schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
On May 9, 12:54 pm, samsloan wrote:
Elo's book, The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present, is
reprinted today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891277

Professor Elo's book, long out of print and almost impossible to
obtain, has just been reprinted.

Sam Sloan

I'm still wondering if this book is in the public domain at this
time. It was first published in 1978, just 30 years ago. What is the
length of copyright for such works?

Elo died in 1992, so most likely the copyright runs until 2062. The
book was originally published in 1978 by 'Arco', which seems to
be a vanity label. If you google you find a reference to a 1979
edition by Batsford. It is possible, therefore, that Batsford
owns the copyright; also possible that Elo's heirs own it.

It is pretty much certain that Sloan doesn't own the rights
to this nor to most of the other nonsense he is
reprinting.

The book itself isn't very interesting, because Elo stretches
his point and doesn't have a solid grasp of statistical logic.
However, the basic method, which is elementary, is well
described in this book and also in 2 papers published
earlier.

What Sloan means when he says he is
'sending the book to the printers' is that he is sending
a CD with the page images to Amazon. Amazon
then runs off a copy and glues it together *after*
somebody orders it.

They don't seem to be very concerned about copyright
ownership; However, Sloan does have to state that he
owns the rights. Presumably then Amazon is in
the clear and it is Sloan who will get sued if the owner
takes notice and thinks it is worthwhile.

Another aspect of Sloan's current scam is that
he seems to have no inhibitions about copying
cover artwork for the pirated reprints.
This may well be under separate copyright.