I am going to Puerto Rico for a month or two and play in some tournies. I was surprised to discover that PR has its own Chess Federation and that it uses FIDE ratings.
Would they recognize my USCF rating (2024)? If so would they convert my rating to an approx. FIDE rating for pairing purposes? What would it be?
I’m sure this has been covered before, but I’m just getting back into the game and am ignorant of most chess issues of the last 30 years.
Thanks – Dan
Do you have a tournament ad that we could see?
Alex Relyea
Interesting that Puerto Rico can be a territory of the United States, but can be a separate affiliate or a “nation” under the rules of FIDE. Could one of our states, like Texas or South Carolina, with their secessionist tendencies in national politics, become an affiliate of FIDE?
The Canadian Federation has its own rating system which is congruent with FIDE ratings. The TD would not accept my USCF rating (2200+) when I played in a tournament and used my lower FIDE rating instead. There were a couple of complaints when I won an expert prize, but rules is rules. Maybe you can play in PR as an unrated player?
I had read somewhere that an unrated player gets a fide rating of 2000 for pairing puposes.
In re PR as separate from the US, it has fielded its own participants in the Olympic Games for many years and I believe it once beat the US Olympic Basketball team.
Likewise in chess the US Virgin Islands has fielded a team in the Chess Olympiad.
Except you’re not unrated since you have a USCF rating that could be translated into a FIDE rating for pairing purposes. So it’ll be up to the TD which rating to use. (EDIT: yes yes I’m sure there will be an FA or IA or both jump on me with the right rule…then again we all know that FIDE officials outside of the USA [and sometimes even within the USA] pretty much do whatever the h e l l they want anyway).
As far as the Olympics go, the IOC and the United Nations consider PR a separate country in spirit. PR is an unincorporated territory of the USA…if they wanted statehood and full USA citizenship and voting rights, they would’ve voted for it long ago. Another referendum is coming in November 2012.