Chess terms: Tournaments, ratings and titles
50 terms about ratings and titles, each with a plain definition and links to related terms.
A blitz rating is a rating earned in blitz games, kept on a separate list from standard and rapid ratings, because fast play measures a different skill.
A board number identifies the table at which a game is played, and in a team match it also names a player's place in the team order, with board one for the first player.
Buchholz is a tiebreak that totals the final scores of every opponent a player met, so that between two players on equal points the one who faced stronger opposition ranks higher.
A bye is a round in which a player has no opponent and still receives points; in a Swiss event it goes to one player when the field is odd.
Candidate Master is the entry-level FIDE title for open play, awarded for reaching a standard rating of 2200, and it does not count towards the title-holder share in norm calculations.
The Candidates Tournament is the FIDE event, played by eight qualifiers, whose winner becomes the challenger in the next World Championship match against the reigning champion.
The Chess Olympiad is the biennial team event in which national teams compete in open and women's sections, ranked by match points under a Swiss-system pairing.
A double round-robin tournament is a round-robin format in which every pair of players meets twice, once with each color, so each player plays every opponent as both White and Black.
An Elo rating is a number that estimates playing strength from results: the gap between two ratings predicts the expected score, and wins and losses move each player's rating up or down.
FIDE, the Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World Chess Federation, is the international body that publishes the Laws of Chess, keeps the rating lists and awards titles, working through its member national federations.
FIDE Master is the third open FIDE title, below International Master, and it is usually earned by reaching a standard rating of 2300 over at least 30 rated games rather than through norms.
A FIDE rating is the Elo-based number that the World Chess Federation publishes each month for players with rated games, with a published minimum of 1400, and it is the rating that FIDE titles are measured against.
A Glicko rating is a rating that comes with an uncertainty value, the rating deviation, so that a player with few or old results can move faster than one with a long recent record.
Grandmaster is the highest title FIDE awards for over-the-board standard chess, earned through a rating of at least 2500 reached at some time together with qualifying norms, or through certain event results.
A Grandmaster norm is a title performance of at least 2600 against opponents averaging at least 2380, in a qualifying event that meets the FIDE rules on opponent mix.
International Master is the second-highest FIDE open title, below Grandmaster, earned through IM norms and a rating of at least 2400 reached at some time, or through certain event results.
An International Master norm is a title performance of at least 2450 against opponents averaging at least 2230, achieved in an event that satisfies the title rules on administration and opponent mix.
An invitational tournament is an event where the organizer chooses the participants, so entry depends on an invitation instead of a registration form and an entry fee.
The K-factor is the multiplier in an Elo-style rating update that sets how many points a rating can move after a result; a larger K makes the rating react faster.
In a knockout tournament, entrants are placed into a bracket and each pairing is a match or a short series, so every loss ends a player's event and the survivors meet again until one remains.
Match play is a format in which two players, or two teams, play a fixed set of games against each other and the side with the better total result wins the match.
A national federation is the chess body that represents a country within FIDE; players register through it to appear on the rating list, and it applies for titles and reports rated tournaments for them.
A norm is a tournament result that meets the FIDE title standard for performance rating and opponent mix; several norms across enough games can earn a title, but one norm alone does not.
A norm tournament is an event organized with the conditions that let players score a title norm, such as the right mix of opponents, enough rounds and a qualified arbiter.
An online rating is the number a website or app computes from games played on that platform; it belongs to that site's player pool and is separate from FIDE and national over-the-board ratings.
An open tournament accepts any entrant who meets the basic entry rules, whatever their rating or title, so that beginners and grandmasters can sit in the same section.
A pairing is the assignment of two players to meet in a round, together with the colors each will have, and in a Swiss event it is produced fresh after every round.
A provisional rating is an early estimate of strength built from only a few games, which is allowed to move quickly until enough results exist to make it reliable.
A rapid rating is a rating earned in rapid games, kept apart from the standard rating, so the same player can hold different numbers for slow, rapid and blitz chess.
A rating category is a band of ratings, often 200 points wide, that groups players of similar strength so they can be sectioned, paired, prized and described together in a tournament.
A rating floor is a lowest value below which a rating is not allowed to fall, either as a list-wide minimum or as a personal level protected by an earlier peak.
A rating list is the published table of every player's current rating, refreshed at regular intervals so that tournaments and rankings can use one fixed snapshot.
A rating performance is the rating a player seems to have played at in one event, found by adding a score-based adjustment to the average rating of their opponents.
A rating system is a method that turns game results into a number for each player, rising after wins against strong opponents and falling after losses, so that strength can be compared.
A round-robin tournament schedules each participant against every other participant exactly once from a fixed table, so the standings involve no pairing choices and an even field of n players needs n minus 1 rounds.
A scholastic tournament is an event for school-age players, usually organized in sections by grade or age, with prizes for individual students and often for school teams as well.
A sectional is a tournament section limited to players inside a set rating range, so that each competitor mostly faces opponents of similar strength and prizes are fought for fairly.
Seeding is the ordering of players before a tournament starts, usually by rating, which decides how pairings are made in the early rounds and who meets whom in a bracket.
Sonneborn-Berger is a tiebreak that adds, for every game, the opponent's final score multiplied by the points you took from them, so a win over a high finisher counts far more than a win over a low one.
In a Swiss-system tournament the number of rounds is announced in advance, nobody is knocked out, and every round pairs players who have scored about the same so far, never matching the same two players twice.
A team event is a competition in which players represent a side, individual games on several boards add up to a match result, and the team is ranked by the totals.
A tiebreak is a rule that ranks players who finish on the same score, either by a calculation from the results or by extra games, so that the final standings can be published.
A title application is the formal request, made through a player's federation, for FIDE to confirm a title on the strength of norms, a rating level or a direct result.
A title requirement is a condition that FIDE sets for awarding a title, such as a rating level, a number of rated games, a performance result or an approved event.
A US Chess rating is the number the American federation assigns a player from results in its rated events; it is separate from a FIDE rating and from ratings on chess websites, so the numbers should not be swapped.
The USCF, now branded US Chess, is the official governing body for chess in the United States, a nonprofit that represents the country in FIDE and maintains the national rating system most American tournament players are measured by.
Woman FIDE Master is the third title in the women's FIDE series, awarded to a player who has reached a standard rating of at least 2100, without needing norms.
Woman Grandmaster is the highest FIDE title in the women's series, earned through WGM norms and a rating of at least 2300, or through direct results in listed women's events.
Woman International Master is the second title in the women's FIDE series, earned through WIM norms and a rating of at least 2200, or through qualifying results at certain women's events.
The World Chess Championship is the match, run under FIDE regulations, in which the reigning champion defends the title against the winner of the Candidates Tournament.
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