The Ratings Committee (RC) this year was involved with a few major tasks. The main issues involved responding to a proposal to increase the absolute rating floor, revisiting the formulas for changing USCF ratings based on results in foreign FIDE tournaments, addressing the correspondence between quick chess ratings and regular ratings, and monitoring the rating system to decide whether changes need to be made to the rating formulas. A number of minor issues arose as well. The RC was asked to consider a proposal by Bill Smythe to address a perceived pile-up of scholastic players at the absolute floor of 100. The gist of the proposal was for each player to have their own absolute floor that started at 100, and to raise the absolute floor by one point per win up to a maximum of a floor of 150. Several variants of this proposal were also suggested, including increases to the absolute floor based on drawing games, and on completing games. The consensus opinion of the RC was that while the proposal is not likely to cause any noticeable inaccuracy in the rating system, it continues to send a message to membership that the rating system can be tinkered with in ways that have nothing to do with the main purpose of the rating system, which is to measure playing strength. As of the middle of March, to our knowledge the Executive Board is still considering the proposal. An ongoing task over the last couple years has been how to address concerns that Quick chess (QC) and regular ratings are out of alignment for players having both. Last year, the RC proposed to replace the QC system by one that rates all events (and calling the system something else, like the "universal" system), while keeping the regular system which rates events with time controls G/30 or slower. The proposal was accepted by the Executive Board. In the Fall of 2007, our board liaison informed us that they had a change of heart and would prefer to have a solution that keeps the time controls of the QC system. We have been asked to revisit this issue. In order to explore the divergence of QC and regular ratings, Mike Nolan has been asked to perform a simulation in which QC ratings were reset to unrated at the start of 2004, and then ratings would be computed as normal going forward. We are currently working with Mike to obtain the results of this simulation before exploring formulas that would more directly connect the regular and QC systems. The RC has had in place a set of formulas since the early 1990s that have allowed the USCF office to update USCF ratings from the results of foreign FIDE events. The formulas make use of crosstable summary information from the FIDE web site that allow for a reasonably simple set of computations. Early in 2008, after the World Youth Championships had taken place, a number of complaints were received by the USCF office that players' ratings were not changing to their satisfaction. The chair of the ratings committee explained that the implemented formulas recognize the imprecise correspondence between USCF and FIDE ratings for players that have both, so that the formulas are intentionally conservative and tend not to produce large rating changes. Bill Goichberg decided it was preferable to see larger rating changes, and asked the office to implement a method which updates each USCF player's rating by (1) converting the opponents' ratings to the USCF scale using the current conversion, (2) calculates the player's rating change using a 1-pass version of the established rating formulas, (3) multiplies the change by 0.8 (which recognizes some of the imprecision of the FIDE-USCF conversion), and (4) adds in bonus points using the current bonus formulas. The USCF office is in the process of implementing this revised system. Related to the preceding task, a new FIDE-to-USCF conversion formula has been derived based on the correspondence of USCF and FIDE ratings among 838 players that have recently published ratings in both systems. The formula to determine a USCF rating from a FIDE rating is given by USCF = 720 + 0.625*FIDE if FIDE < 2000 USCF = -350 + 1.16*FIDE if FIDE >= 2000 These formulas are to be used in adjusting USCF ratings from the results of foreign FIDE events, and for imputing initial ratings for USCF-unrated players with foreign FIDE ratings. The ratings committee was also brought in to address several smaller concerns. One issue that arose in August 2007 was whether to create a blitz rating system which would govern games with time controls faster than G/10 (currently the QC system applies to games down to G/5). The issue has been shelved for the time being. Also back in late August, there was some discussion about the imminent implementation of the title/norm system that was approved back in 2003. Unfortunately, it seems that the title system implementation has once again taken the back seat to other projects. Each year the RC performs a set of diagnostic analyses to monitor trends in the rating pool. Overall rating levels have deflated from the mid-1990s through 2000 when rating floors were decreased by 100 points without a counteracting inflationary mechanism. With the new rating system implemented in 2001, ratings started to re-inflate. The RC has the goal of restoring rating levels back to where they were at the end of 1997. The focus of RC work has been on players with established ratings who have been active over the current and previous three years and who are aged 35-45 years old in the current year. The results of this year's analysis have revealed that the average rating for this group has dropped by about 11 rating points, and the lower rated players in this group have had ratings that dropped by closer to 50 rating points. Because of the rating decline, the RC wanted to explore the effects of reducing the bonus point threshold (currently set to B=10) in the standard rating formula as a means to increase ratings more aggressively. We asked Mike Nolan to re-rate all games from November 1, 2006 to October 31, 2007 testing bonus thresholds of B=8 and B=6. The outcome of the re-rates was that for the group of players aged 35-45 years old who have played in the current and the previous three years that ratings on average increased by about 5 points for B=8, and another 4 points for B=6. From examining rating changes in other age groups, the conclusions were similar. After some discussion, the ratings committee recommends to lower the bonus threshold to B=6 and monitor rating levels carefully over time. We will work with the USCF office at having this change implemented expediently. From correspondence with Mike Nolan, it appears that this change (and the revised FIDE-to-USCF conversion formula) is scheduled to take effect in June 2008.