kovalsky@spp2.UUCP (Bruce Kovalsky) (12/17/85)
There has been quite a bit of discussion and confusion recently in this
newsgroup on this topic and I thought I should attempt to clear this up.
First off, Life Master is a title awarded by the USCF and it is achieved
by holding a Master's rating (2200+) for 300 USCF-rated games. The games do
not have to be consecutive; i.e., one could go under master but then go
over again and all games played while over 2200 count towards the Life
Master title. This title, like others I will discuss, can not be taken
away even if one's rating goes down in later years.
International titles (Grandmaster=GM, International Master=IM, FIDE Master=FM)
are awarded by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). As mentioned earlier by some-
one else, they cannot be achieved by rating alone - they must be acheived by
attaining 'norms' in a FIDE rated tournament.
One must achieve 2 norms to be awarded a title by FIDE. Some tournaments rated
by FIDE, if they are strong enough, are given a 'Category' ranking to it, based
on the strength of the field. These catagories range from 1 to 15, with 15 being
the stongest possible tournament classification. The catagory assigned to a
tournament by FIDE is based on the mixture of players in the tournament, and
the players can hold GM, IM, FM titles or be untitled and trying for the norm
to get a particular title. Some tournaments, although FIDE rated, do not contain
enough titled players in it and are not strong enough to be even a Catagory 1
tournament. No norms can be achieved in these tournaments.
The exact score in order to achieve a FM, IM or GM norm depends on the Category
of the tournament. For example, in a Catagory 10 tournament, with 16 players
(a 15 round round-robin), the norm might be 11-4 for a GM norm, 8-7 for an IM
norm, and 4-11 for a FM norm. You must perform well enough to achieve 2 norms
in at least 2 different tournaments to be awarded a title by FIDE.
FIDE awards titles twice a year. Usually, most players achieve titles in a
stepwise fashion; first the FM, then IM, then GM. But a few, who have simply
sensational results over a short period of time, can skip right over a title.
Larry Christansen of the U.S. got his GM title, jumping right over the IM
title, a few years ago by achieving his required GM norms in a streak of great
results in FIDE tournaments.
There are other minor rules that FIDE requires in a tournament in order to
achieve a norm, such as the sipulation that at least 3 international players
must be entered. I'm not sure of other small details.
I hope I have cleared up some confusion over ratings and titles that seems
to have pervaded net.games.chess recently.
-----
Bruce Kovalsky
..{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,scdrdcf,ucbvax}!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!kovalsky
"Go Ahead...M A K E M Y D A Y" tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (12/19/85)
Also, I think that if you get to the Candidates Matches, you recieve a GM title if you don't already have one. I don't think they have ever had to apply this rule, though! Oh, and I think that winning the World Junior Championship gets one an IM title, but I am not certain. There might also be an IM title in getting to an Interzonal. This is from memory from the Chess Competitors Handbook, so I may have misremembered, or it may be out of date. I don't know the current rules, since I have never been in danger of having them apply to me! -- Tim Smith sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim