Zonal Tournaments
In the first year of the cycle, every FIDE member nation would hold a national championship, with the top players qualifying for the Zonal tournament. The world was divided into distinct zones, with the USSR, United States and Canada each being designated a zone, thus qualifiers from these three zones went directly to the Interzonal. Smaller countries would be grouped into a zone with many countries. For example, all of South America and Central America combined originally formed one zone.
Players who won their Zonal tournaments, and who had scored above a prescribed level, typically received at least title norms towards international chess titles, such as International Master and Grandmaster; sometimes, winners could receive these titles outright, depending upon the strength of the zone.
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