The Rating and Ranking Systems Revisited  
By Gilbert Simons, Founder of SDTTA  
E-Mail: gilbert@gsimons.org 
Web page: http://www.gsimons.com 

THE PROBLEM. The USATT uses a hybrid rating system, taken from the USCF (U.S. Chess Fed.). The outer shell uses the Event Rating System, determining winners and runner-ups in tournament events. E.R.S. Draw Sheets are used throughout. But within the events, the guts of the E.R.S. have been removed, and replaced by the bizarre  and singular Chess Match Ranking System, winners taking points away from losers. Under the M.R.S., 50% of all players lose points. In an integrated Event Rating System, not only are the two finalists rewarded, but so are up to 40% of competitors advancing to later rounds. Which system encourages participation, which discourages it?
     In the $6 million Golf Players Championship of March, 2000, Hal Sutton won and collected $1.08 million. Tiger Woods, second, received $648,000. Seventy-eight other players won lesser amounts from $270,000 down to $10,980 for four players at 13 over par (the 80th ranked player received over double the prize money won by the 2,000 U.S. Open Table Tennis Champion). That is an Event Rating System, shell and substance.  
    Competition is an individual journey by each player, progressing upward as far as his efforts and abilities take him. Practice and coaching are rewarded.  
    In the USCF and USATT scheme, the Match Ranking System converts competitions into conflicts. Rutgers Professor David Popenoe explains: “In competition, persons or groups struggle to reach the same goals, but they focus on the goals being sought, not on the competitors ... defeating the competitor is not the main aim.” "                 Conflict, on the other hand is, “the process of social interaction in which two or more persons struggle with one another for some commonly prized object or value.” This is a critical difference between the Match Ranking System and the Event Rating System.  
    The Ranking component becomes, for the vast majority of players, the sole focus, subverting the Event Rating System. A handful of players vie to win the event; all other players concentrate on maintaining or upgrading their ranking, only important to their ego.        
    The win-loss component of the USATT’s  peculiar Ranking System, (not shared by any other sport other than Chess),  attempts to fix players’ final Rank as soon as possible. This runs counter to two human desires. Players want to chart and control their own progress. But the Match Ranking System in essence establishes a player’s rank according to the skills and efforts of others, fixing a player’s Rank between higher and lower ranked players. Secondly, players share a universal desire to advance, progress, achieve. The Match Ranking System frustrates this yearning as well. Once he has reached his final Ranking, he can only regress. What motivation to continue? 
     While some win more than they lose (particularly the young), thwarting the Raters, sooner or later the win-loss formula makes them hit the wall of players better than they, and they fall into their dead-end slot. On their journey, points they garnered cost established players (who had not lost skills) numerous points and made thousands such players lose interest in tournament play and USATT membership. 
    The only responses to the Match Ranking System by players are to sandbag and dump, purposefully losing matches to drop down to a lower category so as to win another trophy, or to quit once they realize that they can progress no further. Players drop out in large numbers each year, causing table tennis to lag far behind other sports.      John Prean, ETTA Chairman from 1986 to 1991, put it succinctly in an article entitled,  “Death Wish,” in Table Tennis News of  March, 1993:  “There never was much of a case for having ranking lists at all, unless these added fun to the game and generally advanced the sport. The opposite is now the case ... The current scheme punishes losses quite severely ... and players have a great chance of returning from long, expensive trips with fewer points than they set out with and probably lower ranking.  It should have been obvious long ago that the present scheme is enormously discouraging and ultimately damaging.  
    As the ghastly implications sank in, more and more players decided not to go to tournaments ... A positive incentive exists NOT to play ... The English ranking scheme is now a disaster area ... The death wish of the sport seems to know few limits.” 
     The USCF suffers the same fate, most juniors leaving the sport upon reaching adulthood. Jack Peters, L.A. Times Chess Columnist, wrote of “the nationwide slump in adult tournament attendance,” and about  “weekend tournaments which used to fill the local chess calendar, are now held only occasionally.” (Dec. 3, 2000)  
    SOLUTION:  The simple solution is to expel the Ranking malignancy from the Event Rating System. Both shell and contents are then in harmony. Rankings do have their very limited use for seeding and team selection. Tennis, golf, and virtually all other sports achieve this task using the normal Rating System.  
    A pure Event Rating System permits the introduction of an official USATT Classification System, providing the sport badly needed prestige. Martial Arts obtains status with its 20 official belt colors and ranks. All sports with any standing have official classifications. Table tennis does not. Local directors choose to have U1275, U1525, U1140, U2050, etc. Players have no established goals to shoot for. The sport is in its infancy.

      The following is a suggested Classification System with its related Point Spread between Classes:  

     As USATT gains hundreds of thousands of new members, tournaments for specific player populations (such as children, seniors, women, recreational, elite, and professional players) will need to be held. No ceiling to the number of points obtainable exists, where the higher the level, the harder it is to gain points. If a large number do reach the ceiling shown above, further levels are easily added.  The ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) experienced this phenomenon due to its 250,000 members, and increased its Levels from 8 to 12. The following is a suggested Rating Chart for awarding points in Tournament Events, conforming to the above Classification System:  

    Additional levels can easily be added as thousands of new players join the ranks. Only players qualifying for the particular event are counted in the entries column. Players from lower classes winning points have such points doubled or tripled, based on their class. Excess points are awarded at face value. Players thus quickly reach their current true level. Points are never lost. Sandbagging and dumping are eliminated. 
    Players easily determine the number of points in contention, and how many points they have won. Established players start at their highest level. Entry-level players can easily be assigned accurate ratings by the use of standard tests, using Robots, or tests conducted by USATT Certified Raters.

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