Grand Master Norms

A GM norm must be achieved in a tournament with at least nine games. However, some tournaments are exempt from this: only 7 games are required for 7 round World Team or Club and Continental Team or Club Championships, and for for 8 or 9 round World Team or Club and Continental Team or Club Championships. In addition, a norm may be scored in 8 games in the World Cup or Women's World Championship, where these 8 games count as 9 games.


If a player has only 8 games due to a bye, but otherwise fulfills the requirements for a norm, he has achieved an 8-game norm.


If a player has met the requirements for a norm after 9 rounds of a tournament with more than 9 games, he or she may ignore the following results and score a 9-game norm.

Contrary to popular belief, you only need two or more norms to achieve the GM title, but these norms must be achieved over the course of at least 27 games (which normally corresponds to three 9-round tournaments), or 26 games if one norm was an 8-game norm as the result of a win by forfeit. So you could theoretically gain a GM title by scoring norms in one 13-round event and one 14-round event, or you could score one only by gaining four norms if by some freak occurrence every norm was a 7-game norm.

In order to score a GM norm, at least 1/3 of your opponents must be grandmasters. This, of course, means at least three GMs in a nine-round tournament.

You must face opponents from at least three federations (two federations other than your own). A maximum of 3/5 of the opponents may come from the applicant’s federation and a maximum of 2/3 of the opponents from any one federation. However, some tournaments are exempt from this rule, including:

The final stage of the national men’s (or open) championship and also national women’s championships. In the year when the Subzonal tournament of a single federation is held, then the national championship is not exempt for that federation. This exemption applies only to players from the federation which registers the event.

Swiss System tournaments in which participants include in every round at least 20 FIDE rated players participate, not from the host federation, from at least 3 different federations, at least 10 of whom hold GM, IM, WGM or WIM titles.

At least one norm must be achieved using "normal foreigner regulations".

At least 50% of your opponents must be title-holders, in addition to the requirement of meeting at least 1/3 GMs.

The minimum average rating of opponents for a grandmaster norm is 2380. For the purposes of this calculation, you are allowed to raise the rating of one opponent to 2200. (I'm unclear on whether this also applies to performance rating, but believe this is the case.)

In order to score a GM norm, your rating performance, rounded up, must be at least 2600.

And finally, as everyone knows, in order to gain the GM title, you must at some point have achieved a live rating of 2500. Note: this is a live rating, and need not ever be reflected in an official rating list.

Norm tournaments

Some tournaments are specifically designed to allow all participants a chance at a norm, purely based on their own performance. Such tournaments are typically designed such that 6.5/9 corresponds to a performance rating of 2600 or more (or 2450, in the case of IM norm tournaments). But most tournaments are not designed in this way. For example, GM-elect Nino Batsiashvili scored her third norm in the recent Isle of Man tournament with only a score of 4.5/9. She faced incredibly tough opposition, including a win and a draw against 2700s. This strong performance meant that even scoring just 50% gave a rating performance of 2643. The minimum required score for a norm is 35%.

Direct titles

GM/IM norms are not the only way to score FIDE titles. Some tournaments give automatic titles or norms depending on results. Here is the current exhaustive list of tournaments that may award direct titles or direct norms, outside of the normal requirements.

For example, Indian prodigy Praggnanandhaa has a few months left to steal the title of youngest grandmaster ever from Sergey Karjakin. If he had been the sole winner of the recent Junior (U20) World Championship, he would automatically be awarded the GM title. If he had shared first, he would have gained a norm. As it turned out, he finished fourth, half a point behind the winner, and this was sufficient to score his first GM norm based on the usual requirements.

The winner of the women's world championship is also automatically awarded a GM title, and the runner up, a norm. These regulations are rarely invoked for the World Junior Championship, as it's been a long time since anyone who didn't already hold a GM title, but several recent World Women's Championships gained their titles directly through their tournament win.

In the past

If you need to play 3 grandmasters to gain a norm, where did the first grandmasters come from? Of course, the requirements have changed over time. The first FIDE titles were awarded in 1950 to players who were universally recognized as being among the very best in the world, or active players who were acknowledged to have been so when they were at their peak. FIDE does not reward posthumous titles, and thus, world champions who died before 1950 were never officially recognized as FIDE GMs.

The requirements changed several times over the years. For example, by the 1957 rules, any player who qualified for the candidates tournament, or who would have qualified if not for the restriction on the number of players from a single federation, or who for any reason did play in the candidates tournament and scored at least 33.3%, was automatically awarded the title; as well as the world champion, if he for some reason was not already a recognized GM. Candidates for grandmastership could also be suggested on an ad hoc basis. Needless to say, under these rules, it was much harder to become a GM than it is today. No Elo requirements were present, as the Elo rating system had not been invented yet, and wasn't implemented by FIDE until around 1970.

In summary... for a tournament to qualify for a norm:


The tournament must have at least 9 rounds.


1/3 of your opponents must be a GM, and 1/2 must have a title.


Their average rating must be above 2380, and be from 2 other federations.


You must have been rated 2500 before, and perform at 2600+.