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Chess Sun, Feb 13, 1972 – 21 · The Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine) · Newspapers.com
The United States Chess Federation has recently released its latest rating report, a listing of all the active tournament players in the country. To no one's surprise, Bobby Fischer heads the list, but his rating is an astounding 2825 points. A few players who try hard bring up the rear of the list with about 500 points. The rest of us, Grandmaster or Grand patzer, are somewhere between these extremes.
The lowest classification on this scale is Class E, below 1200 points. Then there are divisions every 200 points: D (1200-1399), C (1400-1599), B (1600-1799), and A (1800-1999). Above Class A are Experts and 3 classes of Masters. Naturally, there are fewer and fewer players on each step toward the top.
In general, if players are separated by 200 points on this list, i.e., by about a class, the higher rated player should win about 3 games out of 4 from the lower. Opponents within 100 points of each other are pretty well matched.
Class C is average strength for tournament player, and tournament players are generally a class or two stronger than those who play the game only socially.
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These excellent ratings locally, however, are puny next to Fischer's incredible 2825, which indicates that he could toy with us as we could with a raw beginner. In the history of chess, only three other players, all World Champions, have ever reached even 2700 points. Emmanuel Lasker, Capablanca, and Botvinnik all peaked at about 2730, which means Fischer's current performance is about half a class better than their best!
