Milwaukee Jubilee
How do you celebrate 50 years of service to the Milwaukee Chess community? With a year-long birthday party, of course.
The Milwaukee Chess Foundation has decided to knit together five tournaments in the Milwaukee area with a single prize fund. Players can gain points toward Jubilee prizes by participating in the tournaments.
Since Marquette Professor Arpad Elo (inventor of the rating system used throughout the world for ranking chess players) was one of our founders, it was only appropriate we use a formula he devised for handicapping chess events to create our Jubilee.
First we select a "scratch" rating for the event by averaging the top three ratings for the event. Then every player participating in the event gets a "handicap" score added to his actual score for the event.
For example: The top three players in an event are rated 2300, 2276, and 2210, for a "scratch" rating of 2262. Other players will have their scores adjusted based on the difference between their rating and "scratch". For example, a player rated about 400 points below "scratch" will get an extra 0.8 points added to his score, while one rated 750 points below will get an additional 1.7 points.
One advantage of this system, and a reason behind Elo's creation of it, is that it takes into account good performances by class players, therefore eliminating the need for class prizes.