First Fiddle: USCF Executive Board modifies Fiddle Points Plan

Preliminary reports from the USCF Executive Board meetings presently going on in Miami are that the USCF Executive Board has backed down on its fiddle points plan and yesterday passed a watered-down plan.

Doris Barry moved to reconsider the activity ("fiddle") bonus points. This passed 7 to 0.

Tim Redman and Doris Barry then moved for adoption of a modified approach: Fiddle points with a 20 game limit.

The Redman/Barry motion to adopt the fiddle point version with a 20 bonus point limit then passed 5 to 2, with Smith and McCrary voting against.

According to an observer, Redman, Warren, Pechac and Barry were absolutely upset and concerned by Sloan's recall petition and it moderated their actions.

The meeting continues today. No word yet on whether they addressed the two other major points in the Sloan Recall Petition, namely No Financial Reports and Spyware in US ChessLive.

One question they may not have considered is the problem of how they are going to write the computer program to implement their modified fiddle points plan.

I imagine that it is not terribly difficult to set a limit of 20 or 40 fiddle points, but it will have to be integrated with the program that calculates the new rating system.

I would imagine that any programmer is going to charge the USCF at least a few thousand dollars to write this program. They cannot count on Tom Doan and the other members of the USCF Ratings Committee to write it for free.

Sam Sloan


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