HELP! Membership requirement question

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I just got an email from someone who is a foreign diplomat asking about playing in my tournament. (1st: Yes, he is legit. At first I thought one of my local friends was playing a joke, but his embassy website lists the same contact info that I am using. 2nd: No, I don’t know why someone in DC would want to drive 2 1/2 hours to a small tournament like this.)

I know that we allow foreign GM’s to play without USCF membership. Do we have any reciprocal agreements to let someone who is a member of their country’s chess organization play in the US? (Sort of like how we sometimes require state membership, but other state’s are acceptable?) Or is my best bet to tell him that the new tournament membership will let him play for the day?

Rob

2

There’s a thread with some similar questions.

The courtesy membership only applies to IMs and GMs.

You would have to use the Tournament Membership if he wants to play once and lower costs. If he’s staying in the US for a while, you might want to let him know about Regular Memberships.

3

Foreign GMs, IMs, WGMs and WIMs can play without having to become USCF members. However, they receive none of the other benefits of USCF membership The way we check this is to look their FIDE information up, they must be coded as titled and not as playing under the USA flag.

In order to be eligible for Grand Prix money, foreign titled players must pay USCF dues.

US Grandmasters (including those who emigrate to the US) receive a complimentary membership and full USCF membership privileges.

4

Can you document this policy? This is the first time I’ve heard of it applying to any players other than GMs.

5

I believe this has been in the ‘Bits and Pieces’ section of the ratings supplement for many years. I found it online in the ‘Bits and Pieces’ from several ratings supplements, such as uschess.org/tds/bits&piecesfeb06rs.pdf

6

Thanks for the replies.

The person in question has decided to join for a year, so everything is happy on my end.

Rob

7

BTW, when I was re-reading ‘Bits and Pieces’ I noticed that the match rules given there only permit matches between players with established ratings.

I KNEW I had read that somewhere, but other sources had slightly different rules.

It’s probably somewhat academic now, because I believe the Board passed new match rules in NJ that include requiring that matches be between players with both established and published ratings.

We will work to get all of the places that state the match rules updated so they are consistent with the new policy.