United States Chess Federation

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The United States Chess Federation (USCF) is a non-profit organization, the governing chess organization within the United States, and one of the federations of the FIDE. The USCF was founded in 1939 from the merger of two regional chess organizations, and grew gradually until 1972, when membership doubled to 60,000 due to interest in Bobby Fischer's rise to the World Championship. USCF membership dipped after Fischer's withdrawal from public competition to just below 50,000, and didn't surpass its 1974 peak until 1992. Strong membership growth in the past decade has been spurred by the increase in scholastic chess clubs and the spread of chess computers.

The USCF also publishes the magazine Chess Life, which is advertised as the "most widely read chess magazine in the world". Chess Life for Kids is a bi-monthly insert in Chess Life designed to reach the scholastic market, which represents just over half of USCF membership.

The USCF was incorporated in Illinois in 1939. It later became a 501(c)(3) after it established a headquarters in New York City.

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USCF membership almost doubled during the 1990's and early 2000's, due to a boom in scholastic chess players, from approximately 50,000 to almost 100,000. This boom resulted in dramatic growth in scholastic chess throughout the country, as well as financial pressure on the organization, as the low dues charged to scholastic players did not cover the costs of servicing their memberships and the USCF could not grow sponsorship dollars quickly in response to the increased membership. Current membership is about 80,000, and USCF operations have recently returned to a break-even basis.

The USCF provides the main rating system for tournament chess in the United States in conjunction with approximately 2,000 affiliates, mostly chess clubs and local chess organizations. Earlier, the USCF used a rating system that was invented by Arpad Elo, a college professor who played chess. Elo worked for USCF for many years, and the system is utilized in a variety of other games and sports, including USA Today's college football and basketball rankings. Recently, the USCF has transitioned to a rating system that was proposed by Mark Glickman. Glickman is currently the chairman of the USCF Ratings Committee. Similar to Elo, he is a math college professor who plays chess and has written numerous papers related to rating systems. The current rating system as implemented by the USCF is still an Elo rating system, but with a sliding K factor. The sliding K factor feature makes it similar to the Glicko rating system. This current USCF rating system has been an improvement over the original Elo system. There is an ongoing discussion within the USCF Ratings Committee of going to Glickman's Glicko-2 system in the future. The Glicko-2 system is an enhanced version of the Glicko system that would better allow for rapid jumps in ratings by young and upcoming scholastic players whose ratings might improve dramatically in a short period of time.

USCF also sanctions over 20 national championships, including the U.S. Championship that is sanctioned in conjunction with America's Foundation for Chess and was most recently held in San Diego, the U.S. Open, and U.S. Junior Championship.

Its most popular events are the three National Scholastic tournaments, held annually in different parts of the country. Every four years, the "Supernationals," an event combining all three Scholastics in one tournaments are held in one city. The last Supernationals drew over 5,000 players to Nashville, Tennessee and drew worldwide media attention.

The USCF moved its operations in 2005 and 2006 from New Windsor, New York to Crossville, Tennessee, in a failed attempt to lower labor costs. USCF was recently forced to announce that labor costs actually rose with the move in Tennessee. During the move, then USCF president Beatriz Marinello proclaimed in the annual report that a key reason for the move was to make USCF "a national organization, not a New York organization." USCF did receive free land from Crossville to make the move, and approximately 20 employees work at the Crossville office.

USCF was at one point the largest seller of chess books and equipment in the country. The USCF now outsources their sales to ChessCafe, who subsequently reneged their contract and caused the USCF to lose out on $100,000 they were owed due to ChessCafe's mishandling of the operation. Click here to read more.

In 2002, the USCF made a controversial decision to remove former world chess champion Bobby Fischer from its database and revoked his membership, based on his anti-American political statements. In 2006, that decision was summarily vacated by the same board, possibly due to concerns that the 2002 decision appeared to be retaliation against free speech and counter to American ideals.

The USCF works with the U.S. Chess Trust, a chess-related charity organization that remains in New York, and provides funding for scholastic and prison chess, among other activities.