The Rating Of Chess Players, Past & Present (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: Arco Pub.; 1st edition (July 3, 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0668047216
• ISBN-13: 978-0668047210
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,858,175 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ratings wisdom from the horse's mouth, May 3, 2000

By	Bill Smythe (Chicago) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This work was written in 1978 by the Old Man himself, Arpad Elo. Chess players remember Elo as the cantankerous professor of physics from Marquette University, and as the inventor of the rating systems used by the United States Chess Federation (USCF) and the International Chess Federation (FIDE). Who better to explain the mathematics behind the rating system which, according to a letter Elo wrote to Chess Life several years ago, "is, after all, MY system". The explanations are semi-technical, but understandable by anybody with a mathematical inclination, regardless of their education in that field. There is even a chapter in which ratings are calculated retroactively, for grandmasters of bygone days. The book was written B.K. (before Kasparov), so of course Bobby Fischer comes out on top, with a rating of about 2780. His closest competitors are Lasker, Capablanca, and Botvinnik, each of whom peaked at about 2720. The average rating of tournament players in the U.S., by the way, is about 1500, several classes below the stars. Interesting reading.