Certifiable

Last weekend, as I mentioned in a previous post, I played in the Silicon Valley Challenge, a tournament that offered free entry to National Masters. This posed an interesting question: Would they give me a free entry, even though my current rating is 2102? The minimum rating to become a National Master is, of course, 2200, but I have always heard that once you achieve the title, it’s yours. “Once a master, always a master.”

The TD, Charles Sun, asked me, “Are you a Life Master?” No, I’m not a Life Master — I did not accumulate the requisite 300 games. “Do you have a paper from the USCF that says you are a National Master?” Well, yes I do, but … er, ah, I’ve stashed it away somewhere, probably in my attic, and I don’t know where it is.

Because he’s a nice guy, and maybe because they had enough room, and maybe because it’s easy enough to look up my rating history, he accepted my claim anyway. But this got me wondering: Where the heck has my National Master certificate gone to?

Well, as it turns out, I should have asked my wife, because she knew all along! Kay has a special drawer full of framed things of one sort or another that we don’t have enough wall space for. Sure enough, the certificate was in there. So here it is (belatedly) — proof that I really am a National Master:

I thought some of you might be interested in seeing what one of these looks like.

There is a place in the movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” where Bruce Pandolfini (portrayed by Ben Kingsley) motivates Josh Waitzkin by showing him one of these certificates, but if I remember the story correctly it’s actually a bogus certificate — Pandolfini was just using it as a motivational ploy.

In reality, who could be motivated by this? It’s just a piece of paper that someone typed “DANA MACKENZIE” and “NATIONAL MASTER” onto. It’s what that certificate represents that really matters — lots of tournaments, lots of studying, lots of fun times, a lot of bitter disappointments, a few exciting triumphs. Maybe most of all, what it represents is setting a goal and actually accomplishing it.

By the way, here is my rating graph. (Any USCF member can print out a graph of their rating like this at www.uschess.org.)

I find this graph very depressing. It runs from 1991 to the present, and it shows how very brief was the period of time when I was in the Promised Land known as Mastery. An instant in 1992, then a pleasant few months in 1994 when I hit my peak of 2257, and then one more month in 1995. And ever since then, it’s just been on a slow and steady downward trend. If this were a stock, I would not bet on it going back over 2200 again.

That’s why I really like that saying: “Once a master, always a master!”