Duif Answers Your Chess Questions:
A Guide for Fans and New Tournament Players

Questions about Playing, Tournaments, and Ratings

How do I get a rating?

1. FIDE and other Official Ratings
   1. Playing in Rated Events
   2. Rating Distributions, or, "What's an Average Player?"
   3. Rating Lists Available on the Web
   4. Different Kinds of Ratings (Speed, Correspondence, etc.)
   5. Rating Organizations by Country
2. Internet Chess Ratings
3. Titles vs. Ratings

How Can I Find a Local Club in My Area?

Any Tips on Starting a Club at My School?

What's a real chess tournament like?
Duif's photo essay for chess.net on the NY Open is no longer on line. However, Gene Venable at Chess Watch points out some photos from a local Spanish tournament that look pretty much like a big Swiss tournament anywhere. See the photos here.

How can I play chess on the Internet?

What are "time controls"?

How Do You Read Chess Notation?

What's a Standard Size/Color/Style for a Chess Set?

What does touch move mean?

Do you have any information on upcoming tournaments?

Most of the individual federations keep lists of their tournaments. (In the US, try the United States Chess Federation at http://www.uschess.org/)

Where can I get information on current international events?

We provide in-depth coverage of some important events on our Features Page. For crosstables and game scores, see Mark Crowther's fantastic THIS WEEK IN CHESS, available from our Links Page.

Questions about Playing, Ratings, and tournaments

Questions about Improving

Miscellaneous

Return to the Guide

How can I send you a question?