With the release of the Netflix series, “The Queen’s Gambit,” there has been a huge increase in the number of new, or new to the club anyway, chess players. That has been awesome! We’ve really enjoyed getting to know everyone and adding fresh faces and perspectives to our ranks.

With these new players, some of you are already familiar with the concept of USCF “rated” play, though we’ve humorously discovered that this has been largely through tournaments as a kid. You’ve found that your rating from 3rd grade still counts and you have to start from there, even if you’re a player 1000 points stronger now!

For others, you are probably familiar with online ratings through chess.com or lichess.org, but aren’t sure what a USCF rating is or why you’d need one. The purpose of today’s blog is to let you know. Keep reading!

Disclaimer: In an effort to provide some levity, my writing may come across to some as demeaning or condescending. Trust that my intent is only to inform and please do not take offense.

Why do I need to obtain and maintain a USCF rating, anyway?

1. In the United States, the USCF standard rating is the only “real” rating. That doesn’t mean that your coveted 2000+ rating on lichess.org doesn’t count… it just means that it doesn’t count to anyone else but you. The de facto standard throughout the world is a FIDE rating and within the U.S., it so happens to be a USCF standard rating (60 minutes per side per game or more). The rest of the USCF ratings are interesting (Quick and Blitz), but they aren’t what people mean, when they ask, “What’s your rating?”
2. Standard rated USCF tournaments are the toughest competition you will face. Period. This will make you a much, much better chess player. What do I mean by this? When a player’s “real” rating is on the line, they will fight much, much harder for a win than your buddy at Mario’s who’s just spilled beer and pizza sauce on the board.
3. It’s a chess club thing. The “older” chess club members have already bought into this system and are interested in maintaining their USCF ratings. Often, tournaments are very expensive. We pay for hotel rooms, restaurants, and entry fees that are driven by significant tournament hall rental fees and prize funds. A typical tournament weekend can cost hundreds of dollars. A USCF rated tournament run by the chess club, where the players compete for a donated prize, and pay an entry fee meant to cover the rating fees for the games (yes, the USCF charges us to rate our games), is much, much cheaper, but still provides a similarly competitive experience. Our membership has historically valued the opportunity to play rated games, locally.
4. When we hold USCF rated tournaments, we don’t want to alienate our new members, especially if they have no idea what these tournaments are all about. Hence, we have offered an abundance of free, unrated tournaments, where everyone can be included.

How do I get a USCF rating?

1. Purchase a USCF membership. This can be done here. Please email us with any questions you may have about the various membership options. To summarize them, they are all either with or without printed or digital copy of the “Chess Life” magazine. You get what you pay for.
2. Play in USCF rated tournaments. After 26 tournament games, you will receive your “published” rating. Before that, your rating may fluctuate wildly. This is to get it to your playing strength as quickly as possible.
3. Although HCC or ACF (Alabama Chess Federation) memberships are not required to play casually at the club, we periodically hold events where one or both of those memberships are required. If you want to play in State Championship level events, you’ll want to sign up with the ACF. For local events, we may require a HCC membership to cut down on the cost of doing business as a club and to reward those who have graciously contributed to help maintain our operating costs. Check out our membership options here. We really, really, do our best to ensure that an HCC membership quickly pays for itself and hope you’ll agree.

Why are we even talking about this?

See #4 above. There has been a great deal of interest in holding rated tournaments again, to include our annual Huntsville City Championship. We’d like to make that happen, and we’d really like for everyone to feel included.

We plan to conduct a FREE unrated tournament on Tuesday, 9/14 starting promptly at 5:30pm. Registration will be on site at Mario’s Five Points.

The time control will be 20 minutes (for each player) with a 5 second delay. There will be one big section, containing all players and will be at least 3 rounds. No memberships to the HCC or USCF will be required. The winner will receive a prize. Hope to see you there!

Please email us with any questions.

Thanks goes out to Tomasz and Pablo for making this happen –

Jim Weiner generously donated a huge collection of chess books and magazines. His son, Alex, was previously coached as a scholastic player by Gerald Larson to a peak rating of nearly 2000.

If you’re interested in borrowing 1-3 titles at a time, please email Tomasz Nielsen at nielstom@umich.edu with the names of the books you’d like to borrow. Tomasz will bring a few of the more popular books to Mario’s Five Points tonight.

Chess Coaches Needed (Virtual and/or in-person Meetings)

If you’re interested in coaching a team of coach-nominated chess all-stars from around the district, please email us here. Note, basic familiarity with an online meeting tool, like Zoom is needed, however, if you are unfamiliar and need some assistance, please also let us know that and we can help!

If you’re interested in scholastic chess coaching, in general, and / or don’t know how to get started, please also let us know. If the school doesn’t have the equipment available, we can donate equipment, loan equipment, or sell as much as you’d need to get started at a significant discount to other online retailers. We can also pair you up with a school who is looking for a coach. There are many more schools interested (Randolph is the most recent school in need) than coaches available. Just let us know!

Visit to Memphis Chess Club

Patrick Dowd and son recently paid a visit to the Memphis Chess Club. In contrast to our club (a restaurant where we also play chess), the Memphis Chess Club is a chess club where they also happen to have a restaurant!

Chess themed pizza and desert titles are available. Drink coffee, tea, or beer while you play!

The general seating area is very cool. There was plenty of room on a Friday afternoon for pizza and chess on any of the tables. There is a quieter balcony area above the main dining room.

Alabama State Championship in less than 2 weeks!

The first (official, standard time control) state championship tournament in the past couple of years will take place the weekend of the 18th in Montgomery. If you’re interested in carpooling, please email us here and we’ll get you linked up with someone. Note, both a USCF and ACF membership is required. Please let us know if you have any questions about that, as well.

Tournament info included below:

We plan to conduct a FREE unrated tournament on Tuesday, 8/10 starting promptly at 5:30pm. To expedite the event, please REGISTER NOW using the form on this blog post.

The time control will be 10 minutes (for each player) with a 5 second delay. There will be one big section, containing all players and will be 4 rounds. No memberships to the HCC or USCF will be required. The winner will receive a Starbucks gift card. Hope to see you there!

Please email us with any questions.

Note – registration for this event has closed. In-person registration at Mario’s is still an option. Please show up a little early the day of the event if you need to register.