Team Mackenzie

by admin on March 10, 2010

Recently Mark Ginsburg had a post in his blog with the USCF ratings of everybody named Ginsburg. It was a pretty strong group, featuring a GM that I had never heard of (Gennady Ginsburg, rated 2527) and a strong Midwestern master (Jeff Ginsburg, rated 2331) in addition to Mark himself, who is an IM rated 2432.

So this gave me the idea of looking up all the Mackenzies on the USCF rating list. Alas, Team Mackenzie turns out to be rather feeble compared to Team Ginsburg:

USCF ID   St   Exp Date    Reg   Quick      Member Name
--------  --  ----------  ------ ------ -----------------------
14289814 (PA) 2010-11-30  1495P  1594P  MACKENZIE, ALDEN 
14175231 (NV) 2010-03-31   102P   102P  MACKENZIE, AMANDA 
13153548 (NV) 2008-02-29   305P   297P  MACKENZIE, ANDREW 
12765246 (MD) 2000-03-31   292P   Unr   MACKENZIE, ANDREW J 
12479498 (NC) 1991-11-30  1526    Unr   MACKENZIE, BRIAN J 
12606416 (  ) 1994-10-31   Unr    Unr   MACKENZIE, C R 
12574690 (NJ) 1995-04-30  1052P   Unr   MACKENZIE, CHERYL 
12871153 (DC) 2004-05-31   Unr    Unr   MACKENZIE, COOPER 
12892164 (MN) 2004-01-31   845P   Unr   MACKENZIE, CURTIS P 
10277604 (CA) 2011-08-31  2139   2018P  MACKENZIE, DANA N 
12657348 (MA) 1999-08-31  1210   1295   MACKENZIE, IAN 
13619687 (PA) 2012-01-31  1700   1715P  MACKENZIE, IAN ANDREW 
14396260 (OH) 2011-03-31    *      *    MACKENZIE, JAMES R 
12910572 (TX) 2004-08-31   100P   100P  MACKENZIE, KEN J 
14289767 (PA) 2010-11-30   Unr    Unr   MACKENZIE, LOGAN 
20133121 (NV) 1996-02-29  1153P   Unr   MACKENZIE, MARC 
21020824 (WA) Non-Member   287P   Unr   MACKENZIE, P IAN 
14289794 (PA) 2010-11-30   941P   956P  MACKENZIE, QUINN 
12506472 (MI) Non-Member  1151    Unr   MACKENZIE, RAY 
13850207 (NY) 2011-02-28  1467P  1436P  MACKENZIE, RICHARD 
14289788 (PA) 2010-11-30   647P   667P  MACKENZIE, ROY 
13354814 (IL) 2008-01-31   821P   787P  MACKENZIE, SAMUEL EDWARD 
12852942 (CA) 2002-12-31   Unr    Unr   MACKENZIE, SCOTT 
12537016 (NM) 1990-12-31  1524    Unr   MACKENZIE, SEAMUS H 
20054239 (NE) 1992-03-31  1072    Unr   MACKENZIE, TIM 
13654315 (VT) 2010-05-31   Unr    Unr   MACKENZIE, TODD 
12935065 (RI) 2008-06-30   Unr    Unr   MACKENZIE, WARREN K 
12840348 (NY) Non-Member    *     Unr   MACKENZIE, WAY 
12702806 (MS) 1998-02-28   430P   Unr   MACKENZIE, WILL 

No mystery GMs, alas. If we have a fantasy chess match against Team Ginsburg, I’ll have to play against Gennady Ginsburg on board one. The highest-rated Mackenzie after me is Ian Mackenzie, who will have a tough battle against Mark Ginsburg on board two.

I also note one player on this list (Ken Mackenzie) with a rating of 100. Is that the lowest that ratings can go? I don’t remember ever seeing a rating lower than that. Perhaps it is the Absolute Zero of rating, the rating floor of all rating floors. Team Ginsburg also has a 100 player, Lily Ginsburg. This might be one of the best matchups of the Ginsburg vs. Mackenzie smackdown.

Another fun game to play with this list is to look at USCF ID numbers. You can tell people who were USCF members back in the mid-1970s when they first computerized their membership list, because we have ID numbers that begin “10.” Alas, I am the only surviving Mackenzie from the pre-computer era.

In fact, really savvy old-timers know that the original USCF ID numbers were assigned geographically. So a member whose ID number begins 1027, like mine, lived in Ohio or Indiana in the mid-1970s. This created some puzzlement when I moved to Ohio in 1989, after many years of living in other places. I won my very first tournament in Ohio, and some people wondered who was this “mystery master” who had just shown up with an OLD identification number that seemed to show he was from Ohio, yet no one could remember him. The answer was that I used to live in Indiana, and I had a different name then. (I changed my name from Dana Nance to Dana Mackenzie when I got married.)

Team Mackenzie does have one thing that Team Ginsburg doesn’t have: a former (albeit deceased) U.S. champion, George Mackenzie. Note that Team Ginsburg is NOT allowed to claim Isidor Gunsberg, who according to one calculation was the world’s #2 player in the late 1880s and probably could have beaten George Mackenzie. But as Mark clearly explains in his blog, “berg” is not the same as “burg” and therefore Gunsberg is not a variant of Ginsburg.

Also, I’d like to point out that we become a lot more competitive when you allow Mackenzie as a first name, because we can then play Mackenzie Molner on first board. Unless he is disqualified on the technicality that the USCF misspells his first name!

USCF ID   St   Exp Date    Reg   Quick      Member Name
--------  --  ----------  ------ ------ -----------------------
12662506 (NJ) 2011-01-31  2454   2287   MOLNER, MACKENIZE S 

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Jim Krooskos March 10, 2010 at 11:02 am

I feel left out…I’m the only Krooskos that plays chess…

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admin March 10, 2010 at 4:46 pm

Hi Jim,
Well, there are some good things to having a unique name. If you look up the comments to Mark Ginsburg’s post, you’ll find a reader whose rating was computed incorrectly after one tournament because the wizards at the USCF thought he had been paired against a different Ginsburg! Also, Mark wonders whether he was mis-rated for the same reason. At least you don’t have that to worry about.

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Marc July 14, 2010 at 10:15 pm

Check out Team Fridel:

Josh Friedel (CA) – 2575
Tom Friedel (FL) – 2342
Henry Friedel (??) – 2001
David Friedell (PA) – 1775

Quite a team. Interestingly, none of these guys are from NH, Josh Friedel’s home state. Only Lynn Friedel, rated 1132, is listed from NH.

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