A Milestone was passed some weeks ago when it was announced that the world now has 1,201 grandmasters.
When the grandmaster title was first established, only 26 players received the title. All of them were or had been serious contenders for the world championship. There were also 94 players with the International Master title.
Nowadays, however, all sorts of random people that nobody ever heard of have the grandmaster title. The title has become virtually meaningless.
Perhaps it is time to establish a new title such as “Super-Grandmaster”, held only by the top elite the way that the original titles were.
An anecdote, years and years ago, told of a player who had just become a grandmaster speaking to World Champion Petrosian, “Now I am a colleague of yours.” And Petrosian said, “You are no colleague of mine. You are a colleague of Damjanovic.” It is a long time since the Czar told a handful of true contenders that they were grandmasters.
I am quite certain you are substantially wrong about inflation in the title of GM. Today there are for many opportunities to play, access to more information and use of computers. There was also a diaspora from the USSR of players. The first GMs appointed were very much who you knew as they were voted on. Even very weak players play the openings better than some GMs of 50 years ago.
In Dresden I tried to get the title of Elite Grandmaster introduced. The basis was TPR 2800 against a field of at least 2580 and finishing first or second in the tournament. It received very little support.
I want to assure all members that I am personally doing my part to keep the ratio of Grandmasters to non-Grandmasters as low as possible. And Mr. Petrosian can rest in peace - I will STILL not - yet - claim to be his colleague.
But I am intrigued by the possible expansion of titles that was broached. Will Super-GrandPatzer be attainable??
Isn’t the Grandmaster title contrived? Where is there evidence for it?
Alekhine said‘ I have played chess since the age of seven and when I was 14 I was named a master by the Tsar himself when I won the national tournament in St Petersburg.’. He was never referred to as a grandmaster in his lifetime.
I believe that was not one of the title names the Ratings Committee recommended for use in the new titles system, that will be implemented Real Soon Now.
OK, I’ll bite… i who is ‘Stewart Reuben’?[/i] And depending on the answer, (b) Why does ‘Stewart’ use Sam Sloan’s forum account, or (c) why does Sam Sloan sign-off as ‘Stewart’? Is this a RSR, FSR, or perhaps another insight into the FSS? Does RSS=FSR, or FSS=RSR, or FSS=FSR=??? Or maybe RSS=RSR, as either split personalities, or Siamese twins? The intrigue is consuming me.
Stewart Reuben is an International Arbiter from the UK and active in the organizational structure of FIDE. He wrote The Chess Organizer’s Handbook…the FIDE equivalent of the USCF Handbook. It’s useful to a point, but not much detail due to its international nature.
My conjecture is that Sam also posted this out on the web-o-sphere and that SS was posting Stewart’s response. Below is a summary posted by Chessbase last year.
To add a new top title to the chess ladder you need to do it in such a way that the “Grandmaster” title is not devalued, in order to be fair to those who’ve earned it but have never reach the very top. Titles like “Super Grandmaster” or “Elite Grandmaster” imply a regular Grandmaster is inferior and are bad.
Perhaps a better way is to do it with “degrees” of the Grandmaster title, as they do in the martial arts in different degree levels (dans) of the top title “black belt”. This allows the concept of “black belt” as the “highest grade” in the mind of the general public to remain intact, while still allowing for more subtle differentiations of interest to whom it is important.
So in chess you could have the same basic title Grandmaster and then rules for awarding different advanced degrees of GM strength that a GM could earn later… becoming a second- or third-degree GM, etc. If the rules for earning the new title were simple enough and framed in a relative way (i.e., a GM becomes a 2nd-degree GM upon having a published rating within 100 points of the top rating on the list) they could be applied retroactively to past decades without too much trouble.
This is similar to what’s done in the go world. Amateur-level players are ranked in kyu (“steps”), with 1-kyu being the strongest and larger numbers indicating lesser strength. Master-level players are ranked in dan (“grades”), with 1-dan being the lowest master rank and 9-dan the highest. A “grandmaster” go player would be between 5-dan and 9-dan. (A 1- or 2-dan “master” would be more akin to the Expert level in the USCF.)
Not so - he was one of the original five proclaimed “grandmasters” by the Czar after qualifying for the finals of the St. Petersburg tournament of 1914 (Lasker, Alekhine, Capablanca, Tarrasch, and Marshall).
After Alekhine’s death, FIDE awarded the title to 17 players (the first “official” awarding of the title since its creation 35 years before), and 27 more in 1950. It wasn’t until the 1970s that a system of performance standards was established - before that it was just by vote of the FIDE General Assembly.
The title is no more “contrived” than that of “master;” masters must achieve a set rating over a minimum number of games, while grandmasters must achieve a set number of specific performances against opposition of a minimum strength.
The first is possible; there is debate about the story of the Tsar naming those five “Grandmasters.” Edward Winter has written about it. The latter claim strains credulity, since the term was in common use as early as 1907 (see Hooper & Whyld). In the unlikely event that it’s true (and how would you prove it?), it would only be because “World Champion” is a higher title.
TOM