Life Achievement Awards Executive Summary USCF recognizes Life Achievement by a series of awards. There is one award for each rating Class, ranging from Senior Master to Class J. Awards are based on maintaining an established rating in the Class for a significant number of games. The number of games required depends on the Class. Awards are automatically sent by the USCF office if the Life Achievement award is for a Class no more than one Class below the player's current rating. Other (lower Class) awards may be issued upon specific written request. This system is an extension of the Original Life Master award; requirements for the Original Life Master award remain unchanged. Details It should be noted that this proposal makes absolutely no changes to the Original Life Master award program. The office currently maintains a counter for games towards the Original Life Master title. When a player's post-event established rating is greater than or equal to 2200, then the number of games played in that event is credited towards the Original Life Master title. When this counter reaches 300, the Original Life Master title is awarded. This proposal extends that process to every Class recognized by the USCF (currently Senior Master through Class J). A separate counter will be maintained for every Class. When a player's post-event established rating is greater than or equal to the lowest rating for a particular Class, the counters for that Class and all lower Classes will be incremented by the number of games played in that event. The counter is incremented before the player's rating floor is applied in the rating calculation. Thus, a player with a 1600 rating floor whose rating drops below 1600 prior to the floor raising it back to 1600 would not have the Class B (see below) counter incremented. Players with provisional post-event ratings do not have their counters incremented. Each Class has a different number of games required for the award, according to the table below: Class Name Rating Range Games ---------- ------------ ----- Senior Master [2400.. ) 300 Master [2200..2399] 300 Expert [2000..2199] 250 Class A [1800..1999] 200 Class B [1600..1799] 150 Class C [1400..1599] 100 Class D [1200..1399] 50 Class E [1000..1199] 50 Class F [0800..0999] 50 Class G [0600..0799] 50 Class H [0400..0599] 50 Class I [0200..0399] 50 Class J [0100..0199] 50 When the counter for a given Class Life Achievement award is reached, the award is automatically awarded ONLY if the player's current Class (as defined by current rating) is no more than one Class higher than the award level. For example, a player qualifies for the Class B Life Achievement award by posting 150 games in events with a post-event established rating greater than or equal to 1600. If, at that time, the player's rating is 1900 (Class A) then the award is automatic. If the player's rating is 2100 (Expert) then the award will only be made upon specific written request by the player. The intent is to avoid "insulting" players by offering awards which they view as insignificant. Reporting Progress A player's current established rating indicates his current Class. Once a Life Achievement award has been made, it is appropriate to publish a one-letter code (S,M,X,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J). It may also be useful to report the number of games accumulated towards the next (or first) title, or even the number of games remaining until the next title. The office should design a reporting scheme, appropriate for mailing labels and/or rating supplements. Minor points The interpretation of the Life Achievement awards necessarily varies somewhat over the range from Senior Master to Class J. At the lower end of the scale, the award can be seen as a "participation" award, recognizing a significant number of games played. At the top end, the Original Life Master award remains as recognition of a significant number of games at a very high standard of play. It is possible that slowly improving, but very active, players may collect a series of Life Achievement awards as they improve. Life Achievement awards are not intended to be "terminal". However, it is expected that most players will receive at most 2 or 3 such awards, with the final award recognizing the effort required to maintain their individual peak standard of play. Just as with current players striving for the Original Life Master award, it provides an incentive for a player at his plateau to continue playing. Choosing a consistent, informative set of names for the Life Achievement Awards requires considerations beyond the scope of the Ratings Committee. The direct link with USCF Ratings Classes suggests the use of the name of the Class in each corresponding award. The use of the word "title" may be appropriate, but may also be confusing. To ease the transition to this system, the counters for every current player should be initialized by scanning tournament records from 1991 forward. Original Life Master counters should *not* be changed (some may well include games played before 1991). Initial awards should be made based on this retrospective scan of the records. New players have their counters set to zero and start accumulating games in the first event in which their post-event rating is established. The proposed system applies only to "standard" time-control events, and not to Quick Chess or correspondence events. Other variants of the proposed system include the possibility of incrementing the Class Achievement counters for players competing only in Swiss System or multi-player Round Robin events, or when a player competes in fewer than 3 games in an event. Another variant is for the Class Achievement counters not to be incremented when a player withdraws from an event or forfeits any game within an event. These are issues that are beyond the scope of the Ratings Committee.