As you may have noticed, the ratings for the top hardbat players on the UHRL list are lower than they were in 1998.
As stated on the details page, I reserved the right to normalize the list periodically during the formative months:
(NORMALIZATION) - At the suggestion of others (not myself), I added a provision for proportionally adjusting the entire list up or down to make the highest UHRL rating match the highest USATT rating. This was done for the initial rating list, and may be done in the future if the two rating lists become noticeably disparate.
To date I have refrained from any such normalization. However, at this the one-year mark of the UHRL, I felt it was appropriate to examine the distribution of the ratings and determine subjectively whether they looked reasonable. I decided that there was too great a disparity between the top 10 players and the remainder of the players on the list.
I decided to normalize players between 2400-2800 down to the 2400-2500 range. This was done not to bring the list into alignment with the USATT list, but to make the list more competetive. It became clear after rating the 1998 Nationals that the top players would have to lose five or six major matches before their relative ranking would change. The bell curve was simply too far extended at the top end to be statistically meaningful.
I also pumped an additional 400 points (total) into some of the players in the 2000-2400 range in order to avoid shifting the mean as a result of the above adjustment. I chose to adjust up the players most active in recent major tournaments. This benefitted mainly players in New Jersey and Georgia.
The ratings are still stabilizing, and it is difficult to determine, qualitatively an accurate ranking. Consider within the past 6 months:
Hoff beat Yip
Yip beat Seemiller
Seemiller beat Tannehill
Tannehill beat May
May beat Hoff
and it's clear that the top players should have been ranked closer than they were.
One problem the adjustment created was it's affect on the "all-time highest rating" list. I decided to apply the same adjustment to those ratings (2400-2800 adjusted down to 2400-2500), although it may disappoint some players who will notice their all-time best suddenly lower than it was. Understand that even though the numbers may have changed, the relative rankings were unaffected.
The adjustments made were done in an effort to make the list as meaningful, accurate, and useful as possible. Expect the list to undergo additional adjustments as necessary over the course the the development of hardbat as the game becomes more popular and the list stabilizes. At the very least there may be another adjustment at the end of next year
Please contact me if you have any suggestions or questions! Thank you for your continued support of the Classic game!