From: Larry Kaufman <lkaufman <at> WIZARD <dot> NET>
Date: 20 jan 1999
Subject: No Subject

     The first rating list of the newly formed United States Shogi
Federation is now complete.  To make this list, we began with the D.C. Shogi
Club rating list and rated all the official games of the New York Shogi Club
played over the past two years, plus one tournament in Ohio.  This list
includes all official games reported as of Jan. 20, 1999.  We have not yet
started to rate games played at the Los Angeles club, except for the U.S.
Championships.  We made some changes from D.C. club policy in the interest
of making the ratings more in line with European ratings and in order to
make the rating calculations easier.  Specifically, we are now using the
European Shogi rating formula exactly as it appears on Eric Cheymol's page,
except that for handicap games we subtract a "handicap value" from the
rating difference.  The new set of handicap values we are using is : Lance
50, bishop 200, rook 300, rook & lance 400, two piece 550, four piece 700,
five piece (right) 900, six piece 1100.  We also moved all the ratings 5% of
the way towards 2100 (up or down) in view of the slightly reduced handicap
values and to agree better with European ratings.  We now maintain separate
lists for players residing in the U.S. and for those abroad, since we have a
great many players who play in our events while temporarily in the U.S. but
who have returned to their native country (usually Japan).
     The full list will appear in our first newsletter and possibly on the
web soon.  The top fifteen players on the list of players currently in the
U.S. are : Larry Kaufman (D.C.) 2358, Ta. Asada (L.A.) 2355, Rob Uechi
(Seattle) 2235, M. Yoneoka (L.A.) 2234,  Takahashi (L.A.) 2228, Y. Tsuruoka
(Chicago) 2223, Martin Koyama (D.C.) 2215, H. Egoshi (D.C.) 2211, M. Ono
(L.A.) 2206, Troy Conner (D.C.) 2206, Murayama (L.A.) 2205, George Fernandez
(N.Y.) 2202, Te. Asada (L.A.) 2194,  Morijiri (Indiana) 2188, and Y. Sato
(N.Y.) 2184.  The first two are five dan, the others all four dan.  The top
junior players are the two Asada brothers, followed by my son Raymond
Kaufman (1616).
     As for players on the list of those living abroad,  the top spot is
naturally held by the only professional player to appear on our list (by
virtue of having played in two tournaments here), Mr. M. Sugimoto, Pro 5
dan, at 2646.  The other top players are M. Kotera (the 1998 U.S. Champion,
who has returned to Japan) at 2532, T. Inoue at 2525, M. Watanabe at 2415,
K. Nakazawa at 2388, and S. Kawaberi at 2381.  They are all Amateur 5 dan
players who have returned to Japan after living here for some years.
     For anyone interested in comparing American and European ratings, the
following players appear on both lists.  I give the American ratings, the
European ratings can be found on Eric's page.  Larry Kaufman 2358, Pieter
Stouten 1956, Fassil Bekele 1924, Raymond Kaufman 1616.

                                                                     Larry
Kaufman, Ratings chairman of USSF