Dialog Box: Rate Section

The "Rate Section" dialog is popped up when you do an operation which computes ratings: either Section>Compute Approx Ratings for computing approximate post tournament ratings or Master(Player)>Update From Tournament for updating local ratings on a master file.

Formula

You have to decide which of the three rating formulas you want to use. We recommend the 2P formula for maintaining a local rating system, US Chess for computing (approximate) post tournament ratings for US Chess-rated tournaments and FIDE for (approximate) post tournament FIDE ratings.

Average rating for unrateds

You can accept or modify WinTD's estimate of the average strength of the unrateds (this is computed by seeing how the unrateds do, on average, with their games against rated players). One way of handling this is use a standard value for sections of a particular type, where the players would be a relatively common age.

Note that if a small percentage of the players (fewer than 1/3) are unrated, the computed ratings won't be very sensitive to the prior ratings assigned to the unrateds.

Lowest Rating Allowed

Under the US Chess rating system, the Lowest Rating Allowed is 100. You might find that you need a smaller value if you have players starting even younger and weaker than would be typical for a US Chess-rated tournament—if you stick with the 100, you may end up with a large number of players at that point, even though some have demonstrated better results than others.

The lowest rating in the FIDE system is 1000, though it works differently than US Chess—someone who doesn't achieve a 1000 rating is considered to be unrated which is different from having a 1000 rating.