In another thread, the question arose: who devised the rating system
for postal chess used by Chess Review magazine, and later adopted by
the USCF?
I have long been under the impression that it was Kenneth Harkness,
who was managing editor of Chess Review when the postal rating system
debuted in the January 1942 issue. Harkness also later designed a
different system for over-the-board chess, adopted by the USCF in 1950
and used until it was replaced by the Elo system in 1960.
Sam Sloan insists that the post system was designed not by Harkness,
but by Jack Straley Battell. This is possible, but Batell did not
become Chess Review's postal chess editor until October 1943, nearly
two years after the system's debut.
Can anyone offer clear evidence of who did design the CR postal
rating system?
(Earlier discussion from other thread appended below)
Sam sloan, on Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:03:50 -0700 (PDT):
> <samhsl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >The director of postal chess at Chess Review was Jack Straley Battell.
> >When the USCF bought Chess Review in 1969, Battell moved to Newburgh
> >where the USCF was headquartered and continued to work on postal
> >chess.
> >I am certain that Harkness never had anything to do with postal chess
> >or the postal chess rating system.
> >Sam Sloan
Mike Murray, on Mar 31 2008, 1:47 pm:
> You may be wrong, Sam.
> The first instance of Chess Review's rating of postal players occurred
> in January, 1942. At that time, Battell appeared nowhere on the
> masthead and Managing Editor was Kenneth Harkness.
> "For a long time we have promised to rate our correspondence players.
> We have finally got around to doing it and the results appear on the
> next page...Our rating system is fair and accurate, will eventually
> ****tray a player's ability compared with others. The number of points
> with which you are credited or debited for each finished game depends
> upon the rating of your opponent..." ("Chess Review", January, 1942,
> Page 18).
Taylor Kingston, on March 31, 2008: 3:54 PM:
Mike, if you check page 47 of the February 1942 issue you will see
table of points gained/subtracted for a given game based on the
rating
differential of the players. It is virtually the same table as was in
effect in the 1980s, with K=50, and points to be won/lost ranging
from
2 to 100, in increments of two.
The only significant difference from the 1980s is in the class
ranges, which were:
Class A: 1052 and up
Class B: 950-1050
Class C: under 950
No mention is made of Class D, expert or master titles then. The
class intervals seem to have been adjusted over the next few years;
for example in 1944 it appears that Class A starts at 1200, B at
1000,
C at 800, and a sub-800 Class D has been added.
As you noted earlier, Harkness was on the masthead as Managing
Editor throughout 1942, and there was no editor for correspondence
chess during that year. I see Jack Collins listed as postal chess
editor as of January 1943, then Batell takes over as of October 1944.
Since it's clear that the basic Chess Review postal rating system
was in effect *_before_* either Collins or Battell came aboard,
Harkness seems the most likely author of it, barring more conclusive
evidence.
This does not necessarily rule out Sloan's claim that it was
designed by Battell, but he will have to present more evidence to
establish it.
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