This Week: Plan to Boost Your USCF Chess Rating or Get a Rating on March 8!

Dear SiIverdale Chess Club Friends and Families,

Regular chess play resumes this week at your Silverdale Chess Club.

In two weeks time, we’re very happy to announce, that the first USCF-rated chess tournament for the Silverdale Chess Club will take place. On Saturday, March 8, 2025 beginning at an earlier time than usual, the first round of the day will start at 12 noon for the Dan Marshall Silverdale Chess Club tournament, named for one of our donors.

If you've been waiting for a chance to boost your chess rating, renew your U.S. Chess membership and reactivate your rating, or join USCF for the first time and create a Provisional rating on the road to chess mastery, this could be your event.

The event is an open-format Swiss System Event in four rounds.

A Swiss System chess tournament is a non-elimination format where players are paired each round based on their current score, meaning they play against opponents with a similar number of wins and losses, ensuring everyone plays every round regardless of their previous results, with the player accumulating the most points across all rounds winning the tournament; essentially, winners are paired with other winners and losers with other losers, preventing anyone from being knocked out early on. 

The first round pairings may be based on player ratings to ensure a fair distribution of strengths. 

Four rounds will be played on Saturday, March 8, beginning two hours before the usual start time. Please make a note of it.

Round One:  12 Noon

Round Two:   1:15 PM

Round Three: 2:30 PM

Round Four:   3:45 PM

With this shorter, 4-round format, no byes will be awarded.

Game/30+5:  (30 minutes plus a 5-second increment for each move.)  Each player has a minimum of 30 minutes to complete their game with a 5-second  increment between moves. This time control is the minimum time limit for USCF “Q" and “R" rated game, including any increments added.  Please bring a chess clock if you have one. The Club currently has 8-10 digital chess clocks so more may be needed.  Clocks may but required for junior players. However, if a round is near completion, a clock set for G/10 minutes   may be placed on the game.

For New Members: Since this is a  USCF-Rated tournament, membership in the U.S. Chess Federation (aka USCF) is required.  We encourage you to join the USCF on their Website at https://new.uschess.org/form/first-time-member-new-player- in order to receive a USCF Member ID which is required to play in the tournament and receive a rating..  The membership form will ask for your mailing address which is necessary to get a printed copy of the official  US Chess Magazine, either Chess Life or Chess for Kids. (A digital copy is free). Other information may be requested on the sign-up form to set your privacy and notification preferences..

For Current or Renewing Members:  To locate your US Chess ID number and./or to check your current USCF rating, do the following:

On uschess.org, hover over “Ratings” and then click on “Player/Ratings Look-up”. Then enter your name in the search field. For our example, I entered “Jennifer Yu” and received this result which includes the member ID numbers for each member whose name matched my search criteria.  Please note:  At Game/30, your result will be shown as a Rapid or Quick Rating (Rapid Chess is considered a megatrend in the chess world.)

An entry fee of $5 to cover registration, rating costs and certificates of participation is requested. Entry fee can be paid at the event.

When you consider the cost of “lift ticket" for a single day of skiing, a ticket to an MLB or NFL event, or other sporting goods, a year-long membership to support USCF is a pretty good deal.

The following dues vary by age group and are required to maintain an active annual membership in the USCF.  Dues include a free, digital copy of the bi-monthly magazines Chess Life and/or Chess for Kids.  For a printed copy of these publication mailed to you, add $12 to the dues below for each.

19-24     $33.00 for one year

25-64     $54.00 for one year

65+       $48.00 for one year

18-Under  $24.00 for one year

On March 8th, please have your USCF Member ID and $5 entry fee with you. We will have a laptop available should you need to sign-up at the last minute for which you will  also need a credit card.  Once again, if you own a chess clock please bring that with you as well since we may fall short.

To get a USCF chess rating, you need to play at least four rated games. You can get a rating in Regular, Quick, or Blitz Chess.  You can find your USCF rating in a monthly ratings list, which is published every month. The USCF chess rating system uses an "expected score" to predict the likely outcome of a game based on the players' ratings. 

Allen B. and Larry S. will be the judges. All decisions by the judges will be final. Time limits subject to change.