On former lists only players with at least 20 evaluated games and a rating of 2,000 were published. In the past not all international promotion tournaments were rated. Now 12 games are sufficient and no minimum value is necessary.

Higher class is considered since a startdate in 1994, I. and II. classes since 1998. This includes World- and comparable continental events. Thematic tournaments were not and will not be evaluated. They are an area to carry out experiments without any risk for your rating. Some national tournaments are included, but only championships and other top events which require a qualification.

If you stop playing for more than five years you are considered as inactive and will disappear from the published list. Nevertheless the old rating remains valid and will be used again as initial value when restarting play. Players of whom I know that they have passed away are no longer on the list.

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We do not wait for the end of a tournament. This would not be reasonable if you think of the long duration of international CC events. So we collect all results from a certain period to produce a list, from 2000 onwards this period is half a year, January-June and July-December, respectively. The corresponding lists are released on October 1st and April 1st and valid for half a year beginning with those dates.

It is not always clear for me when a game ended. I have to take what the TDs report. Sometimes games with an end in June or December were not reported on time and sometimes early results from the new period were assigned to the previous one, partly on purpose to prevent the unfair behaviour to drag out a loss in view of saving rating points.

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When a tournament starts, values ("weights") are assigned to every participant which remain unchanged in the course of this tournament. These values are taken from the currently valid list if a player appears there, that means if he has at least 12 evaluated results before. Inactive players though not on this list get their former values which are still common known by Eloquery. All other players get an assumed value derived from the tournament level, e.g. 2,200 for a M-class event. For more details see the rating rules.

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The games finished before the substitution are assigned to the original player as usual. Any game taken on by the substitute player is only counted for his rating if this brings advantage to him, that means if he wins or if he draws against a higher rated opponent. Otherwise the game is charged to the original player. For the opponent the game is counted as being played against that player with the higher rating.

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You will find all registered players with their current and former ratings, you may sort or select groups of players or print lists in many ways. Also included are all evaluated tournaments (since 1990) as well as the currently running ones with crosstables, and last not least there is a forecast facility which allows you to predict the changes on your and other ratings depending on assumed results.

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Download the PDF file form from the ICCF homepage, go through it on your screen or print it out with the free Acrobat Reader. Amongst the lists you will find there a chart showing your approximate ranking.
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