"BTW, Floor Mop, you could do like the rest of us do and travel to
tournaments - many of us live 200-300 miles from any real
tournaments" (jamesrynd)
===========
What, Old Haasie travel 200 miles to a tournament? Pay $49 USCF
dues? Pay beeeg EF, maybe $50 to $100? Pay hotel $89 p/day? Play for
some class prize of only $200-$300?
Not Old Haasie

wrote:
What, Old Haasie travel 200 miles to a tournament? Pay $49 USCF
dues? Pay beeeg EF, maybe $50 to $100? Pay hotel $89 p/day? Play for
some class prize of only $200-$300?
Not Old Haasie

Maybe take up another hobby, but never losing chess. Take up poker. I'm
sure that a chessplayer can learn poker in a minute. They say that it
takes a lifetime to master but this applies only to regular players. It
can only take a year for a chessplayer to master the No Limit Hold 'Em,
and will be a millionaire after that.

Keep playing chess in the process though as a mind exercise. It's
needed in poker.

Lance

" writes:

What I find odd is that you get floored at 2000 if you win more than
$1000 in an U2000 *or* an U2200.

As I understand it, class prize floors ONLY apply to people who win $1000
or more as an Under/2000 (or lower) prize. (That includes place prices
in sections restricted to Under/2000 etc., since those are also considered
class prizes.)

There was a misunderstanding of the rules for class prize floors at the
USCF office last month and they put in a few 2200 floors from the World
Open, but those have since been deleted.

I don't agree with the rationale for doing that, but it is or was the
rule. I really think floors are sort of stupid, and that titles make
more sense, but I suggested to USCF that they should at least floor at
2100 anyone who wins an U2200, but that never got any attention from
them - but what does?

Class prize floors used to go all the way up to Under 2400, which is still
the way the rule is printed in the rulebook. If you don't like the fact that
the cutoff is at 2000 instead of 2200, I suggest you contact Bill Goichberg,
I believe he was largely responsible for class prize floors in the first
place as well as for dropping them for those rated between 2000 and 2399.
--
Mike Nolan

With all this talk about rating floors, how about rating ceilings?
Jude Acers was frozen at 2399 by Ed Edmondson a generation ago. Jude
would buy a patzer a membership and then play him a match, which he
would sweep, and then collect the minimum rating points for such an
endeaver. Jude was about 2150 strength, but he inched all the way up
to 2399 doing that. Edmondson, the ED at the time, told him that if he
played in an open tournament and turned in a Senior Master performance,
he would remove the ceiling. Of course Jude couldn't do it. He didn't
even try.
Mike

On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 21:18:17 -0700, "Tom Klem"
wrote:

Does this proposal include Goichberg?

Tom Klem
"If he could, Elo would turn over in his grave"

Yes. It would include Goichberg, but he is not on his floor or
anywhere near to it.

Sam Sloan

As I understand it, class prize floors ONLY apply to people who win $1000
or more as an Under/2000 (or lower) prize. (That includes place prices
in sections restricted to Under/2000 etc., since those are also considered
class prizes.)

That is not what happened to me. When I won an U2200, and before I
earned the 2200, I was floored at 2000 for winning the U2200 by USCF.

" writes:

As I understand it, class prize floors ONLY apply to people who win $1000
or more as an Under/2000 (or lower) prize. (That includes place prices
in sections restricted to Under/2000 etc., since those are also considered
class prizes.)

That is not what happened to me. When I won an U2200, and before I
earned the 2200, I was floored at 2000 for winning the U2200 by USCF.

When did that occur? How the USCF has handled floors (both class prize floors
and 'earned' floors) has changed over the years. What I am describing is
what I understand to be the CURRENT policy, ie what has been programmed into
the new ratings software and what the ratings staff has been instructed to
do with regards to class prizes oF $1000 or more.

However, any floors set under past policies are still in effect, even if there
are few records of what was done or when it was done.
--
Mike Nolan

On 3 Aug 2005 13:32:02 GMT, (Mike Nolan) wrote:


However, any floors set under past policies are still in effect, even if there
are few records of what was done or when it was done.
--
Mike Nolan

My floor used to be 2000. It was dropped to 1900 when the bottom of
floors was dropped from 100 points to 2000 points in 1996.

Is that correct?

Sam Sloan

When did that occur?

It was during the last year Ernie Schlich worked there.

Now, if I understand you correctly, under current policy -

A player rated 2000 might win a thousand bucks in an U2200, and just by
luck of the draw, have his rating go from 2000 to 2099 - he may have
been published at 2000, but dropped to 1950 due to bad results, and his
floor is 1800.

In the same tournament, an 1800 wins a thousand bucks in the U2000,
goes to 1900+ by rating, but is then floored at 2000?

If that is true, it surely shows the stupidity of floors and how the
USCF handles them.

But I also realize that players want floors, for some reason. The same
people who argue that winning a "Class C title" is stupid and demeaning
seem to have comfort in the fact that their rating remains floored in
Class C. I suppose that is an unwillingness to admit that strength can
decline for a variety of reasons.

wrote:
But I also realize that players want floors, for some reason.

I always thought that floors were intended as an anti-sandbagging
measure. Is that not the main reason players wanted them, to prevent
strong players from deliberately lowering their own ratings to qualify
for big prizes in lower class sections?