In the past 10-15 years, the FIDE rating and title system have inflated a great deal. Two of the reasons are Technology and Internet play. Players now have more access to information and practice.
However, because of some of these changes, the FIDE title system has lost its luster. On top of that, some of the rules change made it even easier to get the title. Once upon a time, it was very difficult to become a GM. Now, some do not even need to be 2500 or 3 norms to get the title. One does not even need a round robin norm either.
Should FIDE change the current system? What is the solution? What are your suggestions? 
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Either make it difficult to get(and maintain) GM title or scrap all the titles and give importance to rating only.
The title still has some meaning – there is a discussion about this in the current issue of Chess Life, Andy Soltis column covers the concern about GM inflation.
I’d like to think that the GM is like a doctorate of chess – you should be able to explain and demonstrate all of the known aspects of chess: openings, middle game ideas, endgames.
are there titles in tennis?
only rankings … tennis seems to do ok without titles.
why do we need titles, we only need rankings or in our world, ratings.
It is good to have titles. A Grand Master title will indicate that he/she is an accomplished player.
There is dilution of titles now and Fide must take some steps to restore the importance and prestige of a GM title.
One suggestion is to confer GM title to people who have reached the Candidates cycle, like it was in olden times. Rest of the people should be given only a time-bound, result based title.
It is true that the GM title has lost its lustre. However, I am sure that todays GMs would all compare favourably with the first grandmasters and even with the old world champions. When reading through the games of the old champions (Capablanca, Lasker and Alekhine) you can see that they made mistakes that would be punished by most top players today.
However, such a comparison is unfair, because they were true champions of their day.
I have played against a few “GM”s on ICC who are strangely weak players and I suspect that there are some titles that probably should be weeded out. A rating cut-off of 2500 is not a bad idea.
The problem of course is that players have got better – much better. For that reason, we need to have a new title, not scrap the old one. It needs to be a classy title (not Super-GM, which is a bit trite). I would favour the title: “Senior Grandmaster”. And maybe require a rating cut-off of 2700.
What do people think?
Maybe only those above 2600 should be considered GMs
It is not the GM title that has faded, its the chessworld that has grown, bigger and especially better. With quality of play much increased it is natural that more and more GMs appear. GM is a milestone conquered and should not dissapear nor have its rules changes. Before it meant you were a chessplayer capable of being worldchampion and now it means you can make a living out of chess(didn’t say wealthy living). What we need now is the milestone that defines what a candidate to world champion is. I read somewhere something about creating another milestone on 2700elo pts with 3 norms of 2800. makes all sense to me. the name for it…I guess it would be what everyone already calls them – Super Grand Master – SGM
Although titles are merely honorific, I would not dispose of them. Despite title inflation, it is still awfully difficult to become a GM, and even the lowliest GM is an extremely good player.
I believe John Nunn once pointed out that the number of Ph.D.’s awarded annually by the world’s universities is greater than the number of GMs that have existed in history. So a GM is far more exclusive than just a “doctorate” in chess.
The easiest fix would be to increase the rating requirement to 2600 or even 2700. A bunch of previously awarded GM titles would have to be “grandfathered,” but over time the title would once again become very exclusive.
The biggest problem, which Susan didn’t mention, is that title recipients have to pay a fee to FIDE, and FIDE doesn’t want to lose all of that revenue by reducing the number of titles awarded.
it seems someone suggested a better name while I was writing my own post 😉
I also favour Senior instead of Super
Cut off at 2600. MI cut off at 2400 ?
Please, don’t start to name them Senior GM, Super GM, Junior GM, Minor GM or ND-GM (Not Deserved GM)…..
One poster hit the nail right on the head: There are more GM’s because there is more players and a higher quality of play at the higher levels.
There is nothing wrong with the title system in chess today. No changes are necessary. There is no dilution; that is a perception brought upon by comparing todays player pool with yesteryear – something you cannot do fairly.
Perhaps add a title:
ArchMaster (AM)
Players who maintain a rating over 2800 for 100 rated tournament games.
Chess Training Blog
1950 when the title Grand Master came into beeing it really meant something.
It was given to persons who devoted their life to chess in such a way that other people could look up to them.
Susan is such a person.
At least one GM said that today it is more difficult to win the title of GM, than 40 years ago!! How about that? Earlier you could get it from one tournament only!! There is no inflation of GM titles, there is only inflaton of humans playing chess and humans living on planet Earth. Problem may be that some older GMs are jelaous of new GMs. GM is not the only thing you look at, there is some rating after it. GM with 2500 is not the same as GM with 2800, right? I’d rather discuss inflation of FMs.
“However, because of some of these changes, the FIDE title system has lost its luster.”
I respectfully disagree. There would be no tournaments for GM titles, if it were so. And there are so, so many.
The is an inflation – of players who will never become GMs, myself being one of them.
I agree with some of the anons…actually there are a lot of GrandMasters and this title means less than yeas ago.But if you think seriusly about that… most of them know more about chess(of far) than the Grandmasters of 50 years ago.
If they are stronger than the Grandmasters in the past is only because chess is more popular and we have computers and a lot of informacion about games played worlwide.
And don´t ask for cancel titles,this is absolutely unfair.Titles are ok,they show how good are you,and nobody had his/her title doing nothing,but working hard and studying.
I think,like others, that we need other title,just for people really,really strong(2700 and better).I vote for SGM(Super GM)
Everyone who got their title after the 1960s is one of those ‘fake’ GMs. In his book ‘My life and games” he refers negatively to all the “newly minted” grandmasters. This is not new.
Why do people constantly think that something they did in the past is unattainable by others after them?
I’m guessing this will not only go unanswered but also be deleted.
I am not really sure……i havent given this a lot of thought. But history changes and with it, all aspects. I do not think the GM title should be so sacred to the point it should harder to get. But i dont know what rules have changed either…..but if More GM’s means more publicity for chess in general Im all for it. God knows id like to achieve this title someday, but I also know this is probably not a very attainable goal and one should make more achievable sensible goals, and always work hard. Results, titles will take care of themselves.
Blogger inflation!?
Korchnoi is jealous of all new GMS, fake or not.
There just is no problem at all.
An ordinary GM now knows as much chess as an ordinary GM of the past, maybe more.
It is still extremely hard to become GM – look at all the talented people stuck on IM because they can’t quite get through the next level.
And for those suggesting a GM should be 2600 or 2700, what is the point? Everybody would agree that Susan is a top quality GM, yet she has never been over 2600.
Susan doesn’t play. She hasn’t played serious chess since 1996. Since then, she played in only a few events and her performances were over 2700 in most of them.
Why do women have their own titles?
Susan is way underrated. She plays like 2650.
“are there titles in tennis?”
They don’t need titles. The older they get, the weaker they are. Chess is an intelectual game, tennis is not.
Ratings are meaningless too as they inflate and deflate, just give everyone a percentage number. For example your rating is 2400 and you are higher than 99.55% of all players in your rating pool then just use that number – 9955. Grandmasters must be at least 9999.
It’s more impressive too, “he’s 2800” “What’s that?” “He’s 9999 percentile” “Oh! Wow! I want to go watch!”
About future Nomenclature:
If you don’t like: Super GM
just try: Hyper GM
Alternatives:
Kilo KGM 2600+
Mega MGM 2700+
Giga GGM 2800+
Tera TGM 2900+ (Hope to see that one day!)
Peta PGM 3000+ (Some players have played PGM Performances!)
Next would only apply to Computers:
X, Y, Z…
“”He’s 9999 percentile”
Here, here. Or is it hear, hear? This is a noble solution. Please send your idea to someone who can do something about it.
Is anybody up to the challenge to give ratings to all the chess blogs?
“are there titles in tennis?”
Tennis i not a sport, just because IOC says so. It’s running up and down, left and right, with no time to think and make reasonable decisions. It is a step towards chaos.
“Either make it difficult to get(and maintain)”
If you’re a (medical) doctor, I hope you lose your title, too, one day.
All you people are just jealous because I mail-ordered my GM title from the FIDE.
Maybe one should introduce a final exam before awarding the GM title to an aspirant. Difficult questions like “how do you checkmate the lone king with king, bishop and knight?” or “when are you not allowed to castle?” or “are five knights stronger than three rooks?” would make it more difficult to become GM.
😉
How about relating GM titles to rating? As long as rating is above 2500, a person will have GM title. Once rating goes down he will become IM and so on…
With all respect to you, Susan, but inactive players should lose their GM title!
Titles could go with ratings, if the rating is +2600, you become GM, if it goes below, you lose the GM title! Simple as that!
Attaining the GM title is not as rare as it used to be, but that doesn’t mean that it has lost its luster. In fact, now that many more people are getting to meet and know GM’s, we understand better what an extraordinary achievement it is. As recently as the 1970’s, you could only find world class basketball players in the USA. Now, they are appearing all over the globe, as evidenced by results in international competition. The same thing is happening in chess, and it is a good thing for the game.
IMs still make up the top 0.25% of tournament players. GMs are still more exclusive. There are only still about 1000 GMs and 3000 IMs and I do not believe the titles are diluted. Now it could be argued that the rating system is diluted, because as per FIDE statistics the average rating of top 100 players has gone up over the last 5 years atleast. But that is another topic.
What I wanted to ask Susan was, what does she mean when she says that “Now, some do not even need to be 2500 or 3 norms to get the [GM] title. One does not even need a round robin norm either.”
I am not aware of any change in regulations: you still need 3 norms AND your ratings have to be above 2500 at the time to be awarded the GM title. Of course, I am aware of ONE exception: a player winning the World Junior Championship is awarded a GM title. But that is IF he does not already have one :-). How many players without GM titles have ever won the WOrld Junior? Seems to me that is easier said than done, especially in today’s competitive scenario. And I don’t think this really hurts – if only, it serves as an added incentive and throws down the gauntlet to some prospective IM (or an amateur!) to dare win the World Junior in a string field.
typo – last line – strong field
Peng is 2400 and Kosteniuk only got 1 GM norm and they got the GM title.
Don’t insult the women who legitimately earned their GM titles the same way as men:
Susan Polgar 1/1991
Judit Polgar 12/1991
Cramling 1992
Stefanova 200?
Zhu Chen 200?
Humpy Koneru 200?
From:
http://www.fide.com/ratings/topfed.phtml
Su can see that there are: 1031 GM’s, 2723 IM’s and 10046 Total Titled.
I don´t think there are that many GM´s in the world.
I think that even if a man or a woman has completed all the FIDE requirements they should not have a GM title with less than 2600.
I agree that titles should be related to ratings.
One proposal could be:
2500 – 2599 International Master
2600 – 2699 Grand Master
2700 – 2799 Great Master
2800 – 2899 Elite Master
2900 – 2999 Divine Master…
It’s rather simple
GM -2500 and 3 norms (as it is now)
SGM (super gm) – 2650 and 3 norms.
There will be 100+ 2650 rated players inside 3-5 years. Rather make it 2750 and three 2850+ performances in roundrobins otherwise we will have this same problem very soon.
The initial term “Grandmaster” was given to the finalists of the great St. Petersburg tournament 1914 by the Russian Czar.
It has suffered a bit of inflation since then.
I hope that FIDE eventually drops their rating floor of games that they choose to rate to zero. I’m willing to pay the extra $$$ for a FIDE rating, even if my Cdn rating is ~2/3 estimated of what it should be, and less that, internationally. A single standard ratings database to operate out of would be ideal, now that many countries have heard about electronic computers.
The real problem with FIDE is that when one selects a player at random on their site, the finding is that many have played fewer than 30 rated games per year or so, on average. This is a complete corrupion of the ELO rating system that would say that one should have a large, not small, database of rated games to pool from for the calculation.
Of course, the GM / IM norm calculation system is guaranteed to eventually approximate exponential growth, if the numbers of players/year were also growing exponentially, so there’s not much that is wrong with that formula, mathematically.
Instead, it was the works of the likes of Botvinnik’s pro-Communist mentality that kept our Zonal’s former Soviet greats, Bohatirchuk and Yanofsky, from actively competing in the ’40’s, 50’s & 60’s, for fear of the passport stunts they tried with Korchnoi.
As a consequence, a next generation of strong players, led Spraggett, Day (I’ve heard previous arguments that strongly support the possibility that if Day were more actively competing in International events in the 70’s & 80’s, that his IM title would’ve been a GM title…), etc had obviously had their rating tilted down intentionally by a few hundred points, in the fear that the Canadian Zonal might become too active for FIDE to control, since they only really operate out of Europe. Today, Canadians such as Spraggett and Lautier have had to head to Europe to play, Kevin’s strength being a lot stronger 1 or 2 decades ago, but only now currently after 10 years has started to shine in real FIDE ratings points. If non-pros such as Charbonneau can routinely give Anand a spanking without catching him in a six move Petroff blunder, then it goes to show how undersetimated Cdn. chess is, as set forth by FIDE policy.