What is the difference between a grandmaster and international master?



In America there is another title that can't be taken back. A Life Master is a player who has held a master rating for a total of 300 or more games.

I was unaware. Thank you for the info.

For rating purposes,
Is it true that a grandmaster has to be above USCF 2500?
How about an international master?
Is there a difference between the Women GM/IM title to the regular title for men?
There seems to be some confusion here. The USCF does not award the GM, IM, or FM titles. Also, USCF ratings are separate from FIDE ratings (FIDE being the organization who awards the aforementioned titles).


In searching for norm requirements for the women's titles, I came across some exceptions to the minimum ratings. Below is a list of titles conferred to players by tournament results alone. This is far from a complete list. The complete list can be found in the FIDE Handbook, section 1.2.
World Championship
1-16=GM
Qualifying over the board=IM
World Junior Championship
1=GM
2=IM
World Senior Championship
1=GM
2=IM
Womans' World Championship
1=GM
2=IM
3-8=WGM
Qualifying over the board=WIM
World Girls' Junior Cup
1=WGM
2=WIM
Womans' World Senior Cup
1=WGM
2=WIM

They can't be called "male" titles since women can also earn them.

They can't be called "male" titles since women can also earn them.
Good point. They're called unrestricted titles.

Being a grandmaster isin´t just about having over 2500 rating points. What makes them a cut above the IMs is not only their stregnth but their CONSISTENCY which means they will always perform at a very high level regardless...on the other hand an IM might be as strong as a GM but doesen´t have the consistency they can blow a GM off the board one day and not hold their own against a strong club player the next it means they still lack the ever illusive ¨pacience¨ skill that the cold blooded GMs have. Also most GMs have chess as their profession while a great deal of IMs have jobs to sustain themselves and chess is just a hobby. So you could imagine that GMs have to be on their toes to survive learning new opening novelties and staying in form...while most IMs don´t have to do that necessarily.

That's not true at all. You're right that GM's, for the most part, are better than IM's, but the rest is nonsense. Any IM out there would have no trouble disposing of a club player. And there are plenty of IM's who play professionally, while there are plenty of GM's who derive income from jobs outside of chess. Also, saying that IM's don't have to stay "in form" and be "on their toes" is just plain ridiculous. IM's need to keep up with theory as well (unless they want to get blown off the board).
