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From: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.games.chess
Subject: Re: Chess grading system
Message-ID: <953@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Dec-85 12:31:04 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.953
Posted: Tue Dec  3 12:31:04 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Dec-85 14:25:10 EST
References: <373@ubvax.UUCP> <13581@rochester.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 53
Summary: clarification of national vs. international ratings

Just a bit of clarification to an otherwise excellent summary:

Ray Frank writes:
> Between 2200 and 2400, you are called a chess master.  But,
>you are not even close to being alowed to tie the shoe laces of the likes
>of Bobby Fischer, Spassky, Kasparov, etc.  Between 2400 and 2600 (maybe 2500),
>you are a grand master.  It is now that you go hunting for big game.  After
>2600, you are an international grand master. 

As far as I know, the title "grandmaster" is not used by any
national chess federations (USCF, CFC, etc.). The only grandmaster
is an IGM, international grandmaster. IGM and IM (intl. master)
are titles which don't depend on having a specific rating, but
on achieving high scores in particular tournaments. (For example,
to become an IGM you have to score over N points in each of
three round-robin tournaments, where N is determined by the
number of IGMs in the tournaments.)

The international titles are granted by FIDE, the Federation
Internationale des Echecs.  They're life titles - even if your
rating goes down, you don't lose the title.  For example,
Geza Fuster, former champion of Hungary, received his IM
many years ago (in the 50s, I believe). He's still active
in Toronto tournaments, where his rating has been in the 2000-2100
range for at least 10 years. He has no published FIDE *rating* any more,
since he hasn't played in FIDE-rated tournaments in a while.
(FIDE publishes ratings along the same scale as the national
ratings; a player's USCF, CFC and FIDE ratings are likely to
be quite close to each other.)

Ray's comments about the effort involved in playing in a
tournament are right on the money. I haven't played tournament
chess for about 9 years, but I can remember it vividly.
The best word to describe it is DRAINING.

By the way, I wouldn't say the difference between a 2200 player
and an IGM is *that* large. Certainly the IGM will win the
majority of games, but take this example: in the 1976 Canadian
Open, I was rated 1438 (although my performance rating in
the tournament was 2105 and my rating went up to 1763.)
In round 5, with 3.5/4, I played a Larry Evans (no, not *the*
Larry Evans, a different one), rated about 2200. His only half-point
lost was against Arthur Bisguier, an honest-to-goodness IGM.
Bisguier's no world champion, but is (or was, haven't heard
about him recently) a perfectly competent grandmaster.
I drew against Evans.  So I drew a guy who drew an IGM, in
serious tournament play. Let's just say IGMs are better - a whole
lot better - than "other" players. But they're not worlds apart.

Dave Sherman
Toronto
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