I have an inquiry from an unrated new USCF player who would like to play in our local tournament next month. He is asking how he would go about getting a FIDE rating.
I know he cannot do that at our local tournament, but I would like to be able to answer his question or tell him where to look for the answer.
You can try the FIDE Handbook on the FIDE site, but the regulations are a bit complex, hopefully I’m still up-to-date on them.
Normally you have to play nine games against FIDE rated opponents, with at least three games in each event that is included. (You could get all nine in one event, but there aren’t very many events like that, especially for players who don’t have a FIDE rating yet.)
In the first such event, you have to score at least a half point against FIDE rated opponents, in subsequent events there is no minimum score.
Most non-invitational FIDE rated events held in the USA are listed in Chess Life.
Once your friend has a USCF rating, and if he’s a strong enough player, he might be able to get an invitation to an event designed to help players get a FIDE rating.
You could even try to run such an event yourself, but you will need someone who is qualified to serve as the Arbiter, and normally several of the FIDE rated players in those events expect to be paid to play.
Another way is the RR event.
Get 10 people together close in terms of rating strength. 4 of them will need to have established FIDE ratings. 6 can be unrated in terms of FIDE rating. Play the RR event. So long as the 6 unrated (FIDE) players score 1 point or more (a single win or 2 draws) against ANYONE in the field (rated or unrated), the 6 unrated (FIDE) players will get a FIDE rating.
You’ll have to make sure you have an arbiter and also follow the proper time controls and number of rounds allowed per day. If you keep the ratings to be under 2200 FIDE (so 2199 and below), you can use a time control like G/60 + 30/sec increment. Many of the futurity events are using the traditional G/90 + 30/sec increment, but if you want to do this in a single 3-day weekend you could do 3 games per day with G/60 + 30/sec increment and you can do 3 games per day and be done in one 3-day weekend.
The simple answer is that you play in FIDE rated tournaments against FIDE rated opponents and perform sufficiently well. These events fall into two major categories: invitationals and the top section of weekend tournaments. Most FIDE rated players in USA are rated 2000+ USCF (although the minimum FIDE rating goes down to 1600).
Michael Aigner
The simplest way of obtaining a FIDE rating is to enter the open section of major chess tournaments like the World Open, then beat and draw against players with FIDE ratings. At least, that is how I got my FIDE rating.
Steven Craig Miller
I disagree that this is the simplest way of getting it. Especially for class players.
Minimum rating goes down to 1200 currently.
I believe in Khanty-Mansiysk this year it’s being considered to drop down to 1000 though I can’t remember.
In the US we have 399 players (both active and inactive) with a FIDE rating of below 2000, of which 70 are inactive and 329 are active.
The last I heard, the minimum FIDE rating was still scheduled to go to 1000 in 2011, but based on the number of low-rated FIDE players on the July list, so far lowering the minimum FIDE rating hasn’t produced a flood of lower rated players.
And that’s due to the method of establishing a FIDE rating. Give this time and this will change especially with more organizers putting together futurity events.
Okay, you caught me, “simplest” was a little tongue-in-cheek.
Steven Craig Miller
The simplest is to just go to Oklahoma. There are so many FIDE-rated players who regularly play in Oklahoma that the U1800 section of the Okie Open is FIDE-rated this year.
Alex Relyea
Or you can build things in ones one local area so we can have many Oklahoma type events. Kudos to the Brothers Berry for their event. We need more like that around the country.