The US Chess League has recently announced that the rating bonus for using female players in your line-up has been eliminated.  In previous years, every female in your line-up added 10 points to your 2400 average rating cap for a match, meaning you had the potential to use some higher rated players throughout the team.

The USCL has removed the bonus clause and replaced it with a new rule that now allows you to list 9 players on your roster, so long as you have at least one female amongst the players.  All changes will take effect for the 2009 season that kicks off on August 31.

The Blitz are one of few teams to never make use of the female bonus and so this rule change will have little effect for them.  On countless times I tried to persuade Blitz management to add Boston University student WFM Roza Eynullayeva to their team, even possibly as an alternate, just to give them the flexibility of making use of the rule for a game or two.  I’m not sure if they just blew me off or whether Roza declined but it never happened.  (Maybe I just subliminally wanted a change of scenery from the regular weekly motley crew!)

Having said that, there are a couple of teams the Blitz meet this year that will definitely be affected by the new rule with our friendly neighborhood New York Knights being the team that will be hurt the most if they bring back both IM Irina Krush and WIM Iryna Zenyuk for 2009.  The Dallas Destiny, USCL Champions for the last two years will also possibly suffer with their balanced line-up system with their bottom board all-star, WFM Bayaraa Zorigt, now being worth a few points less.

One can only speculate as to the motivation behind the league’s decision to change the female rules.  Maybe it was decided that the bonus was too great and that Dallas’ run was because of this rule?  Maybe not enough teams were using the bonus and so the league decided the incentive would be better by opening up an extra roster spot?

Who knows?  Who cares?  Possibly the women now that they are treated as equals?  Did teams just use them for the bonus points?  In the absence of such high quality female players in the Boston area, I must admit it was the primary motive for my push to get the Blitz to entice Roza.  With the new rule this year, I don’t think I’ll bother bugging them again.

I guess the reality is that teams will manage, just like they already did, with or without female players on their teams.  I guess it could be interesting, at least for one brief second or two, to see which teams will add the extra roster spot, although I’m thinking 99.9% of the people following the USCL this year won’t give it a second thought.