From: michaelf <at> LAVA <dot> NET
Date: 1 may 1998
Subject: Re: Post- U.S. Championship ratings

At 02:06 PM 4/30/98 -0400, you wrote:
>     The U.S. Championship and Team Matches have been rated by the D.C.
Shogi Club, which functions as the national rating agency for the U.S. in
the absence of a national organization.  The handicap tournament has not
yet been rated pending receipt of the crosstable.  The participating
players are listed below in order of post-event rating.  Please note that
although final agreement on all details of a  Pan-Atlantic rating system
has not yet been achieved, we have implemented key aspects of the proposal
for this list, most notably using the proposed starting ratings for ranked
but unrated players, and using the Logistic formula as already is done in
Europe.  It is my hope that these ratings will not be too far out of line
with Europe.


As for the accuracy of the ratings, I guess they are reasonably accurate,
at least for those who have played enough games against a diverse pool of
opponents. Still it seems obvious that increasing the number of people
participating and the number of games rated can only be beneficial. As for
the question of U.S. versus European ratings, it likewise seems desirable
to increase the number of rated games being played between Americans and
Europeans (as well as players from anywhere else in the world). With that
end in mind, I wonder if it would be possible to set up something whereby
games played via the internet could be rated. This would also allow those
who don't have the luxury of living in either Washington, N.Y., L.A. etc,
to participate. I still like Ryo Neyama's Java site the best for playing
games, but even that site is less than ideal. For example there is the
problem of what do when a game is interrupted due to someone losing their
connection. Still it seems that something could be worked out. Anyway I
would like to see some discussion  about what others think about rating
internet games.