Fun With Ratings History

There's a nifty little program that will allow you to extract all your tournament history from USCF's Member Services Area. You can download the program from http://www.gpcf.net/MSA/msatest.htm. I am a statistics junkie. I have a 35 page Excel workbook with my entire tournament history dating back to 1972. It's keeps yearly and cumulative stats with my win, loss, draw records for every tournament I've ever played in. It also contains rating changes. However this data extraction program is even more cool because it gives me assorted breakdowns such as combined record against individual opponents, a running tally of opponent, biggest upset win, loss, draw. It also has longest winning streaks and losing streaks. The only limitation is that it only works with MSA data that is from 1991 forward. Since I've been playing since 1972 it misses out on my early years. (Maybe given the quality of that game I posted yesterday, it's better left alone.) It misses out on my lowest rating of 1029, but more importantly it misses out on my high rating of 1945.

Here is a summary that the program generated on my ID:


This is data from 01-01-1991 to 09-10-2007

Current Official rating is 1700 Current UnOfficial rating is 1700
Best Unofficial rating = 1899 Best Official rating = 1899 Lowest rating on record = 1700

1054 Opponents Total Rated Games = 2174 ---> 625 Wins 344 Draws 1205 Losses


Best Upset = 515 points -- FIDEL DE LOS SANTOS -- 2230 NY DECEMBER ACTION! 12-03-2005
Best Draw = 529 points -- RODELAY MEDINA -- 2229 ORIGINAL 4 RATED GAMES TONIGHT 01-13-2005
Worst Loss = -894 points -- PETER WASILENKO -- WESTCHESTER CHESS CLUB CHAMPIO 05-30-2007


Highest Rated Opponent Win = FIDEL DE LOS SANTOS -- 2230 NY DECEMBER ACTION! 12-03-2005
Highest Rated Opponent Draw = ILYE FIGLER -- 2239 YOUR LAST BLUNDER IN 1997!!?? 12-31-1997
Lowest Rated Opponent Loss to = PETER WASILENKO -- WESTCHESTER CHESS CLUB CHAMPIO 02-17-1997


Most Recent Wins in a row = 8 ending on 12-28-1997 at 1997 NY STATE WOMEN'S CHAMPION
Most Recent Draws in a row = 4 ending on 06-17-2002 at BRONX/YONKERS SUMMER ACTION GA
Most Recent Losses in a row = 10 ending on 06-12-2003 at ORIGINAL 4 RATED GAMES TONIGHT


Results against 1018 higher rated players: Wins = 97 Draws = 102 Losses = 819
Results against 6 equally rated players: Wins = 1 Draws = 2 Losses = 3
Results against 1150 lower rated players: Wins = 527 Draws = 240 Losses = 383

Results against 810 players rated + 100 : Wins = 57 Draws = 63 Losses = 690
Results against 454 players rated +/-100: Wins = 111 Draws = 91 Losses = 252
Results against 904 players rated - 100 : Wins = 456 Draws = 188 Losses = 260

You can run the program on anyone's ID, so it's an interesting insight into the development of some of our young masters. Here is the same data for Hikaru Nakamura. I picked him because as a very young kid he played in many of the tournaments I directed, and I remember when he had a 3 digit rating.

This is data from 01-01-1991 to 09-10-2007

Current Official rating is 2749. Current UnOfficial rating is 2738
Best Unofficial rating = 2762 Best Official rating = 2762 Lowest rating on record = 684

972 Opponents Total Rated Games = 1594 ---> 906 Wins 285 Draws 403 Losses

Best Upset = 633 points -- ALEX EYDELMAN -- 2013 2ND SAT STAMFORD TOURNAMENT 07-13-1996
Best Draw = 661 points -- JAY BONIN -- 2439 ORIGINAL 4 RATED GAMES TONIGHT 02-11-1997
Worst Loss = -713 points -- CHRISTOPHER PANNA -- 1084 US AMATEUR TEAM EAST CHAMP 02-17-1997

Highest Rated Opponent Win = ILYA SMIRIN -- 2812 FOXWOODS OPEN 03-27-2005
Highest Rated Opponent Draw = ILYA SMIRIN -- 2816 32ND ANNUAL WORLD OPEN!! 07-05-2004
Lowest Rated Opponent Loss to = COLIN MARREN -- 607 WHITE PLAINS SPRING SCHOLASTIC 11-19-1995

Most Recent Wins in a row = 12 ending on 11-05-1995 at 1ST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH QUADS
Most Recent Draws in a row = 4 ending on 07-17-2007 at ST. JOHN'S MASTERS AT THE MARS
Most Recent Losses in a row = 5 ending on 05-26-1996 at MANHATTAN CC ACTION OPEN

Results against 545 higher rated players: Wins = 150 Draws = 117 Losses = 278
Results against 5 equally rated players: Wins = 3 Draws = 1 Losses = 1
Results against 1044 lower rated players: Wins = 753 Draws = 167 Losses = 124

Results against 372 players rated + 100 : Wins = 87 Draws = 66 Losses = 219
Results against 370 players rated +/-100: Wins = 158 Draws = 109 Losses = 103
Results against 852 players rated - 100 : Wins = 661 Draws = 110 Losses = 81

The fun part about looking at the history of a young grandmaster is seeing that the lowest rated opponent he lost to was 607. However one has to remember that his rating at the time was 718 based on 10 games. His biggest upset win came as 1400, and his biggest draw as an 1800. His biggest upset on the losing end was against a 1084 when he was around 1800. Yes, even future grandmasters fall victim to those massive upsets that we mere mortals succumb to.

I can say I had a better first rating then Hikaru, but the similarity ends there.