Chessbase published an article with the FIDE junior rating lists and the main headline is about a kid named John M. Burke, born in 2001, that is now rated 2601 FIDE, making him the youngest ever to reach 2600. He's also the second highest rated U21 player in the United States behind Sam Sevian. I checked his USCF page and his USCF rating is 2455, which is strange because USCF ratings rarely lag behind FIDE, and especially not by 150 points.

BJJ, what is going on? Did that kid have some monster performances with an outrageous k factor? Does he even have any GM or IM norms?

Chessbase article

USCF rating history

https://chessnumbers.wordpress.com/2...ember-updates/

As for his FIDE rating versus his USCF rating, before these four tournaments he was 2258 FIDE and 2393 USCF, so pretty normal differential. However this put his USCF k-factor at 15 and his FIDE k-factor at 40, making a 343 FIDE rating point gain the equivalent of a 129 point USCF rating gain. Adjust further because his opponents' ratings weren't all equivalent between FIDE and USCF themselves, and because the USCF actually recalculates ratings after every tournament slowing down the pace of gains, and it turns out that he only actually gained 80 USCF rating points.

So in four events:
FIDE 2258 > 2601 (+343)
USCF 2393 > 2473 (+80)

Then he also had the Barber K-8 tournament where he struggled and lost back 18 of those USCF rating points, but I believe that event was not FIDE rated so it didn't hurt him there. Kind of cool (or maybe not) for Evan Meyer who is an expert rated 2128 with no FIDE rating, who can say he just beat a 2600 FIDE opponent!

I wouldn't hedge this at all. His rating is completely bogus right now and an extreme longshot to be justified not just now but in the near future. More FIDE nonsense, nothing to see here.

I should have known you were on top of this. Really do appreciate the update, thank you sir. I need to start reading your blog more regularly

Well, now that I looked at his USCF results and saw the Barber K-8, yeah, I agree the hedge was kind of silly.

At the time I was thinking that while he's obviously not actually 2600 strength right now, he might actually be 2450 strength, and if he posts a 2450 performance rating in a 9 round event now (with his K down to 10) he'll only lose 18 rating points. He's also young, so if he's "actually" 2450 strength now, and if he plays FIDE events sparingly over the next year, his rating might only drop to 2550 by the time his strength gets up to the same level and he stabilizes. If he never drops below 2550 again, and then his rating starts to go back up a year from now, it will be hard to argue he didn't "justify" the rating pretty well.

He did score 3/5 against GMs and 8/13 against IMs, in this span, too. Of course he's overrated now... but some quick improvement and sitting on the rating a little could possibly hide that.

On the other hand: 4/6 with a loss to an expert at the Barber K-8... maybe he ran a little hot to post that 2450 performance rating and is actually sub 2400 strength, and maybe he won't improve much in the near future. The rating is likely "bogus" enough that the hedge was pointless, you're right.