I have the idea of playing in the Master section of the International Chess Festival in Biel this summer. My USCF rating is 2240, but I have no FIDE rating. It’s been several years, as well, since I played chess OTB (for a while, I have been primarily a correspondence player).
The Biel website says that I have to have a 2000 FIDE rating to play in this section. Does anyone know if they will accept my USCF rating, or how I could get them to do so?
Mark, I doubt anyone here will know the answer or possibly even know the organizers in Biel. You may have to contact them yourself. (Jerry Nash in the office may be able to help you contact them, his email address is jnash@uschess.org.)
My suspicion is that the limitation to FIDE 2000 and above may apply more to players with a FIDE rating below 2000 than to those without a FIDE rating but with some other readily acceptable proof of strength, but only the organizers of the event can answer that question definitively.
It sounds as though the restriction to 2000 and over is designed to increase the possibility of norm eligibility for the players. So, to intelligently guess at an answer to your original question, you might want to look up the FIDE rules regarding the effect of having non-FIDE-rated (but nationally rated) players in the tournament.
Bill Smythe
I don’t think there are any references in the FIDE ratings procedures to ratings systems other than FIDE’s. An unrated player is just that, unrated.