The Addition of Adults to the NWSRS

As most of you are aware, the NWSRS was changed last year (2006) to add a grade code (N) to allow for adults. A number of adults were added to the database as a result of playing in some of the events last year where there were parents and kids together, or an adult section in a scholastic event. This caused no problems with the NWSRS and with our expanded capacity, we can now easily handle the additional numbers.

It occurred to me this past summer that the total number of active adults playing USCF chess in the four state/province area of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Idaho, was not that large and we could easily add them all. When I took a look at the total number of people that had actual USCF ratings, and expiration dates of 2006 or higher that were not already in our database, it was less than 2000. Compared with the 10,000 players already in the NWSRS, it was easy to add those names and give them unique IDs.

Here are some advantages to this system:

Now when an adult does play in a NWSRS event, we have their actual USCF rating, without having to look it up, or letting them play as an unrated.
It allows the registration program to be used by a TD who is using SwissSys, but running an adult event. As long as I keep it up to date, the NWSRS will always have the USCF IDs and current supplement ratings. It's true that the registration program will enter the NWSRS ID as the primary and the USCF ID as the secondary, but SwissSys now allows you to flip those. Obviously, this is of no use for large national events where there are people from out of the area, since it only has the four state/province listings, but for local events, it might save the TD some look-up time if they are using SwissSys.
Now when a player who has a USCF rating and history, but has not previously played in an NWSRS event, shows up at one of our events, he will not have to play as an unrated, nor will his opponents have to sit down against an experienced player, thinking he is an unrated.
It enhances the community feeling of the chess people in the northwest by including all the northwest players together in one place.

There are a few disadvantages, other than making the database about 20% larger:

Some kids who have not previously played in a NWSRS-rated event, but have a USCF rating, will be mistakenly listed as adults. I suspect this issue will be greatest in places like Idaho, where few of the kids have played in NWSRS events. I think this can be corrected on a case-by-case basis, if and when one of these kids has the opportunity and/or desire to play in an NWSRS event. TDs should always be on the lookout for kids with incorrect school codes or grade codes anyway.
There may be the occasional duplicate that gets entered this way. This could happen because a kid's name in the USCF system is sufficiently different from the name in the NWSRS system, that we have previously been unable to identify the USCF ID for this player. This problem can be handled on a case by case basis, and I expect the numbers to be pretty small.
OK we do have a few noteworthy chess players, like Yasser Seirawan, who are unlikely to show up at your local quad (although he could and has an NWSRS ID of ADUNF632). But the important thing is that all those people's USCF IDs and current ratings are in the database so you can access that information quickly and efficiently.

On the whole, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, so I have gone forward with it. Here are the rules I used in adding the adult players:

In selecting which USCF names to add, they had to meet the following criteria:
1. They had to have a state of residence as either WA, OR, ID or BC in the USCF September 2007 Golden Rating list.
2. They had to have first name and last name in the USCF September 2007 Golden Ratings list
3. They had to have a rating, either established or provisional, in the USCF September 2007 Golden Rating list.
4. They had to have a USCF membership expiration date in the September 2007 Golden Rating list of 2006 or later.
For the selected additions, the first and last names in the NWSRS database were set to match the USCF names
For the selected additions, the school code was assigned as follows:
1. ADU for Washington
2. ADO for Oregon
3. ADB for British Columbia
4. ADI for Idaho
The grade code was set to N for all additions.
The NWSRS rating was set to match the USCF rating, regardless of whether USCF had it listed as provisional or not and the code identifying the source of the rating was set to U in all cases. However, since the NWSRS does not have ratings less than 400, while the USCF goes down to 100, if a rating was less than 400, the NWSRS rating was set to 400.
The ID code was assigned randomly, using the system where the first of the four characters defines the state/province of the player. Numbers and letters from A-K are Washington players. Letters from L-W (except no Os to avoid confusion) are Oregon players. The letter X is used for BC players. The letter Y is used for Idaho players and the letter Z is used for players in other states/provinces/countries.
The total number of games and games year-to-date were set to zero.
The highest achieved rating was set to zero in all cases ( Oregon uses this field for state qualification, Washington does not use this field).
The lowest rating and start rating were set equal to the USCF rating.
The last active date was set to Jan. 1, 2007.
USCF information was entered exactly as it is in the September 2007 Golden Rating list.

That's it. We hope this enhancement of the rating system helps a few of you and it should not make matters more difficult for those of you who don't need this capability.

Kirk Winges
September 12, 2007