Talk:International Grandmaster

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Contents 1 Title meaning 2 Sherzer 3 Tzar origins 4 Requirements for IM 5 Super grandmaster 6 "Russia" vs "USSR" 7 Tiviakov 8 number of norms that is required 9 Confusion 10 Surnames

[edit] Title meaning

What exactly is this title "International Grandmaster"? My certificate (awarded in 1984) says only "Grand Maitre", which, if my woeful French does not deceive me translates into English as "Grand Master". The entry is simply wrong, in my view. Nigel Short

[edit] Sherzer

Deleted Alex Sherzer because he is not a known Grandmaster (to me), so not a good example in a list of Grandmasters.

I've heard of him (he's American, rated 2486 in the April 2003 rating list), but agree he's not nearly as well known as most of the others on the list, and looks a bit out of place. I'm not sure how useful the list is at all, to be honest, seeing as we have List of chess players, and who we include here is bound to be rather subjective, but I'll leave it for now. --Camembert

[edit] Tzar origins

The Tzar did not create the term "grandmaster"; it had been used before. Why anyone would give Tzar Nicholas, who was no chess authority, the right to declare players "grandmaster" is simply because its a colorful, factual, story, a powerful hereditary political figure annointing the chess great, the same as he would creating titles of nobility.

"Grandmaster" was used popularly around the time of the Tsar to denote those masters who were so good, they were masters of the masters, beating them the way that masters beat amateurs. It also came to mean a master who had a rightful claim, based on his results, to challenge the World Champion. Hence it is wrong to limit the usage of the term to after 1914; masters in the 19th century who were of the highest caliber have a rightful claim to be called "Grandmasters"...especial as today, lots of masters are awarded the FIDE title who arn't even in the top group of masters, those who could could give the champ a tough fight. In any event, the Tzar did not invent the title. ChessPlayer 01:48, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Got a source on any of that? --Malathion 02:15, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The Oxford Companion to Chess backs up what ChessPlayer wrote. It says that the term grandmaster seems to have first been applied to chess in an 1838 issue of Bell's Life. Later Philidor was called a grandmaster among others. The Oxford Companion also says that strong tournaments in the early 20th century were sometimes called grandmaster events, including Ostend 1907 and San Sebastian 1912. It goes on to say that at that time grandmaster was used only for players who could reasonably compete for the championship, but that today the title is given to players to whom the champion could give odds. Its final observation is that in 1991 Britain alone had almost as many GMs as existed in the whole world in 1950. Quale 03:48, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like something that should go in the article, with a reference. --Malathion 03:51, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I agree. I'm looking for some more references but eventually I'll make an update. Quale 21:20, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requirements for IM

The article says that the rating requirement for IMs is 2400 (plus the required norms). Looking at the FIDE Handbook it looks to me like the required performance rating is now 2450. Is this correct?

Per 1.50c, an IM needs to attain a rating >= 2400 at least once, but a performance rating of >= 2450.5. The rules for becoming an IM and a GM are exceedingly complex; I suppose it's worth going into this in some depth, provided it doesn't unnecessarily disturb the flow of the article. Neilc 04:37, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I just created some short articles for other FIDE titles, in particular the women's titles Woman FIDE Master, Woman International Master, and Woman Grandmaster. I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to merge and redirect all FIDE over-the-board titles except GM into a single article, maybe FIDE titles. Then the norms stuff could be explained in one place. (I would recommend keeping GM separate because it has added historical significance that the other titles lack.) I'm afraid I don't understand the norms requirements well enough to write it up accurately, and of course FIDE has occasionally changed the rules. Also, related to this discussion, I'm not sure that the claim in this article that the WGM title is roughly equivalent to the FM title is accurate. I think the women are short-changed by this statement, since it looks to me like the requirements for WGM are significantly higher than those for FM and in fact are just a bit below IM. Is that right? Quale 05:15, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I think merging the articles is a good idea. This article could cover the title pre-FIDE, and the FIDE titles article could cover the period since FIDE took over the management of the title. --Malathion 09:40, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

On the WGM/FM comparison: it could be argued that the two titles represent a roughly comparable level of ability, as they both require minimum ratings of 2300; however, the WGM title is considerably harder to achieve, as it also requires norm results of a performance rating of at least 2400.5 (a result which an FM might never achieve) against other WGMs, FMs, IMs or GMs.

Incidentally, do we really want to mention Schonberg's Grandmasters of Chess in the "further reading" section? I only looked at the book once for a few hours a few years ago, but I don't think it has any special relationship to the subject of this article beyond the title; it's just about strong chess players (on those grounds, we could include any random issue of, say, Shakhmaty v SSSR ;) --Camembert

Thanks Camembert. I have updated the comparison of the WGM to the unrestricted titles to say that it is intermediate between FM and IM. It seems that nearly a third of WGMs also have the IM title so it can't be that much tougher. Regarding Grandmasters of Chess, I'm not familiar with it. Maybe someone else can comment. Otherwise I say remove it if you think it isn't germane. Quale 22:27, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Super grandmaster

I wonder if we can cut back on that list of over-2700 gm's, which is taking an awful lot of article space. I've heard the term "super gm" before, but never saw it defined as being rated over 2700. I wonder if it's sourced anywhere other than some chessbase post. I'd reserve the term for the very top players, which means there shouldn't be 38 of them. Phr 11:32, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I oppose this notion. Only 39 people have ever achieved the title of Super Grandmaster, considering that there are millions of chess players around the world that is quite an impressive feat and as long as the list remains small I say it belongs in the article. I'm wondering if there should be another classication, how about Elite Grandmaster for those who cross the 2800 barrier? Dionyseus 03:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I edited the page, as the original Super GM rating was 2600 in 1970, this seems to be forgotten knowledge... :)) This rating was considered to be Candidate level back then.

[edit] "Russia" vs "USSR"

The artcile currently says In 1972 there were only 88 GM's with 33 being Russian.. Were there really 33 Russians or were they from the former USSR? In the Super-GM list Mikhail Tal is listed as Latvian, despite only playing for the USSR. I just wonder if he (or other 1972 non-Russian, former USSR players are included in the 33). If there was a source for that list of 88 GMs then I would check myself. Nloth 02:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tiviakov

Tiviakov is presently listed as having a peak rating of 2700. According to FIDE Sergei Tiviakov's peak rating isn't 2700 but 2699, which in that case means he should be removed from the list of Super Grandmasters.

Good catch. 24.180.187.9 05:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Someone added him again. Is the FIDE website wrong? Narssarssuaq 08:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] number of norms that is required

In the article it says that to become a GM, an achievement of three 'norms' is required. However, the FIDE says clearly in item 1.50a that two norms are sufficient. So to me it seems that the Wikipedia-article is wrong here. Bob.v.R 22:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Bob.v.R 15:26, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion

It seems to me the naming of the article is a source of confusion. It is called "International Grandmaster" (presumably to disambiguate from non-chess grandmasters) but the article then begins "The title Grandmaster...". Why not move the article to Grandmaster (chess)? Ludraman 14:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Surnames

Why does the “Origin and Current Statistics” section only list people’s last names? Are readers expected to recognize them? Is it some kind of “chess-world style” to do that, even on first reference? --Rob Kennedy 04:21, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good question. It is common in chess writing to use only the last names of the most famous players. Most serious chess players (not just professionals, even informed hobbyists) would recognize nearly all the names listed in this article. It would be OK to include the full names instead, but it would make the list longer so it's a tradeoff. Since we can link names in wikipedia there should be no chance of confusion, so I think it actually works better here than it does on paper. I'm not strongly opposed to giving the full names, but in this specific instance I think I like the shorter list better. 24.240.40.145 06:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)