Confessions of a Chess Addict: Fumbling Towards Fide

Original entry date 13 April

After all of these years, I'm finally flirting with the fact that I need to seek out some "real people ratings".  Playing on line for fun is a marvelous thing, but I'm now finding that when people hear you say "I'm a chess player", the first question they will ask is "Ok what's your FIDE rating?"

...and then crickets.

Because, typically I didn't care about ratings or tournaments or rankings or prestige.  I just thought about how to find the checkmates and keep my army from withering away to my opponent.

Now, something has changed in me.  Despite my insanely low status, I'm wanting to look at chess seriously and be able to participate in events like any other tride and true chessophile.

So, HOW exactly do I go about in getting this mysterious FIDE rating?  

Let's see...

It seems that you need the following: