Chess expert
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Chess expert is a rating and title given by the United States Chess Federation. It is awarded to chess players rated from 2000 to 2199. Players rated above that are masters while players below that are class players. Approximately 400,000 chess players have USCF ratings, of which approximately 4000 are rated 2000 or better. Thus, chess experts are in the top 1% of all USCF tournament chess players.
The title of chess expert is not awarded for life. Every time a tournament chess player plays a game, his rating goes up or down depending on the game's outcome and on how strong his opponent is. If the rating of a chess expert falls below 2000, he is not a chess expert any more. This is in contrast to international titles awarded by FIDE, which are awarded for life. In European countries the term of "expert" is not used. Instead, players of that level are called "candidate masters".
The first USCF rating list was published in December 1950. On that list, experts were players rated from 2100 to 2300 and masters were players rated from 2300 to 2500. However, within a few years, it was discovered that the ratings were rapidly deflating. As a result, the classifications were dropped by 100 points so that since then experts were rated between 2000 and 2200. In 1960, the USCF adopted the new Elo rating system replacing the original Harkness System. There have been continuous adjustments to that system ever since, with the primary purpose of stabilizing the rating system against the forces of inflation and deflation, so that a chess expert today will be approximately the same strength as a chess expert was 20 or 40 years ago. The highest chess rating in the world belongs to Gary Kasparov whose peak rating is 2851.
This information stated here also applies in Canada, under the auspices of the Canadian Federation of Chess (CFC), and may apply in other national chess federations as well.
