Candidate Master, Uschess

Does anyone know the requirements, and the how to's to achieve a candidate master for USCF?

You need to earn 5 CM norms.

More details here: http://www.glicko.net/ratings/titles.pdf

Wow that's some complicated math

???

Unless things have changed, there is no Candidate Master title in USCF. At one time (long time ago) that's what a 2000+ rating was called, but they changed it to Expert.

2200+ is Master

@Shadowknight

What do you mean by 60% in your previous previous post?

Of course, once upon a time in the US you could even be a Candidate Expert...

They need a title for when you break 1000, because a 3 digit rating to a 4 digit is a pretty big deal.

Consequently, an 800 rating earns you the candidate patzer title :p

Once you talk below 2200, titles start to lose any special meaning in my opinion. There's just something about that 2200 point that seems to demonstrate a rock solid understanding of the fundamentals. I know it's relative, but in my case for example, even though I know there are always people leagues better than I am, I still feel like my play is more... professional than I did when I was 1600.

I still say it's all pretty relative, Elubas. 

Of course, the point at which the basics are mastered (or what even is defined as the basics) is totally subjective. To me, though, 2200 feels good. Even my 1900 rating feels sort of close to the point where my opponent can no longer rely on me making a basic mistake but instead being forced to play really imaginatively if he hopes to fool me. I didn't feel like that at any point prior, not even when I was 1800.

For me, it's like mood swings.  Some days I feel good about my chess, and other days I play foolishly.  I helps to hear after game comments from Kramnik, Anand, et al about how "I simply missed that my rook was under attack after this 2 move sequence, so I got a terrible position"

Well, I like 2200 too, but then, that's probably because I managed to make it there once upon a time.   If the powers that be had arbitarily decided that 2300 was the benchmark for master, then I'd've probably been kinda pissed.

Are you saying they have abolished the Expert/NM titles and gone for a slightly modified Soviet system (LM instead of CM; Senior Master instead of Master, lower requirements)?

Even if I got a 2000 rating and the candidate master title, I wouldn't really feel like I was exceptional enough to have people pronounce two more words before my actual name.

Well, I think the term "master" is a bit silly actually...you're only a master until you play a GM (then you realize you might as well be playing checkers). 

LOL, totally made my day.

I don't know about having 2200 as a set benchmark. I think 2000 should also be a good title, since like waffllemaster said about a 1000 mark, IT IS THE NEXT DIGIT FOR THE THOUSAND'S PLACE!!!!

I disagree. Isn't the only requirement for a CM norm to get a 2000 performance rating against a certain pool of players, i.e., achieve the same results that a 2000 would be expected to get? Even if you are playing guys over 2000, if you really are of 2000 strength, the results should reflect that.

A case where it would be hard to get an accurate performance rating would be if you were in a super-lopsided pool of players -- maybe you're playing all 2500s. In that case, since statistically you are not expected to win unless you have played dozens of such games, it would take a long time before you would get a good result against one of them. Of course, if you score 0-4 against 2500 players, the system can't tell a 2000 apart from a 1400 for example, because in both cases, I believe both levels of play are expected to yield that result.

Your performance rating for 4/21/2012 was over 2100 according to the rating estimator on the USCF website. So I'm a little confused about the requirements for a CM norm.

I agree though that, whatever the requirement is, it would certainly be easier to attain if you had a higher rating. So indeed, one might find it much more common to see candidate masters as more in the 2100 area.

In any case, I guess the most important thing is to play as well as you can

How do you see when you achieved norms?