Kentucky Chess Association

I played William Fuller a 2-game match last night. I lost both games. Now that the rating report has been submitted, I see that I lost 13 rating points, and William gained only 9 points. This is a net loss of 4 ratings points from the pool. Is the USCF deliberately deflating player ratings in order to eventually align more closely with FIDE ratings? Anyone know?

No that is not the case at all.  The k factor is different for players at different rating factors.  That means once one reaches certain rating levels, the impact of a single game on the change in the rating is lessened - especially wins against lower rated players.  This change was made several years ago to prevent high rated players from quickly building up their ratings by only winning against lower rated players.  But the ratings system has not been structured so that the ratings points lost by one equals the ratings points won by the other.

The reverse can also happen.  A much lower rated player will gain more points with a win against a much higher rated player than the higher rated player will lose.

You had a similar situation in your match with Rico -  he lost more than you gained since you were in separate rating bands.

Matches also have the rating impact dampened as some have used matches as ways to either dump rating points to sandbag or to add a few poitns to reach a level for an invitational. Shocking I know.;)

Further the system has bonus points built into it for event performances that are above expectations based on the average ratings of opponents.  So an exceptional event result garners the player additional rating points unrelated at all to points lost by others.

Very enlightening - thank you, Allen.

Good descriptipn Allen. And, of course, there are rating floors, so overall there is actually rating inflation, even though you can't prove it by me.

indeed.  Rating floors are inflationary at every level where they exist.   They are in the system as a PR item.

There is also an anti-sandbagging component to ratings floors as well, but it is also a move to keep players active who would quit if their ratings dropped below a certain level.