On your site, setting out the history of the
FIDE, you say -
"The method of grading Chess players was
invented and codified by a
professor of mathematics Arpad Elo, retired in
Wisconsin, U.S.A."
That's not correct. As Professor Elo
specifically acknowledged in the
introduction to his report to FIDE, the
method was invented by Roger
Cook, a Chess player and mathematician,
who had earlier used it to
devise a grading system for the New South
Wales Chess Association.
It was derived
from principles that Cook had developed in his
graduate thesis on
measuring (logarithmically, as it happens) the
significance of
changes in rated events. Elo made a few changes
to the way it was
employed but he didn't invent, and he didn't
claim to invent the method.
Duncan McIntyre
Sydney, Australia
