A Word about Chess Ratings

A word about the USCF Rating

As stated on the flyer for the IAC tournaments, which are usually USCF rated, "USCF membership is required for all sections. It is recommended that memberships are purchased in advance at www.uschess.org to facilitate onsite registration and check-in.

In addition, three month discount USCF memberships may be purchased onsite. The membership includes a three month subscription to Chess Life magazine."

The Star of Bethlehem tournament is USCF rated.

I recommend the annual membership which you can sign up to on the uschess.org site, then just bring this number to the tournament (or you can look it up online again with a smart phone if you forget).  The rating is something you carry from year to year.  A beginner is usually about 100 after first tournament.  A master is 2,000+.  A solid high school player will be around 1,500.  Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, recently achieved a 3,000 rating.

Interestingly, our own Mr. Dan Gomoll has created an "app" called "chess rating" on Apple's App Store which you can download for free if you have an iphone.  It lets you look up a player's USCF rating.

The WSCF Rating - Discovery World

The Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation, run by Bob Patterson-Sumwaldt, has its OWN rating system, similar to the USCF.  When you play in a WSCF rated tournament, you automatically get a WSCF rating.  Many of our players have one on Bob's books from previous years.  It doesn't cost anything, but is meaningless outside of the WSCF events.

At Discovery World, the tournament is based on a combination of grade level AND rating.  If a player has both USCF and WSCF ratings, the rating that is used is the HIGHER one.  If a player has only one of the two, that is used.  If a player has neither, then only the grade matters.  K3 U300 means "Grades K through 3 AND the player has rating Under 300."  If a 2nd grader for example has a rating of 500, then they would not qualify for this division and would have to play K6 U600 division (it may accidentally say "WSCF U600" on the registration page, but it is a K-6 only division).  Similarly, if a 5th grader had a rating of 1000, they would not qualify for K6 U600 and would have to play in WSCF K-12.

Let me know if you have any questions about ratings.  USCF is the more useful (and universal) measuring stick.