If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar
Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 11:55 pm
What if becoming a Grandmaster had remained as difficult as it was in the 50s? What if the GM title didn't purport to measure absolute ability, but indicated that the holder was a) to be found in the world top 10 at some point in their life, b) the best player born in a certain year, give or take, and c) at least an outside bet to qualify for the Candidates' process - which is roughly what it indicated in the 50s?
As a fun thing, I tried reallocating GM titles Hall Of Fame style. One new GM per year, with a cap of 60 living GMs. (Since new super-GMs emerge at about 20 and people live to about 80, 60 living GMs is about the right number to ensure that they're replaced as quickly as they pass away, and indeed I never actually hit the cap.)
I deferred to FIDE for 50 of the initial 60 names, which takes us from the initial cohort in 1950 up to Korchnoi in 1956.
Seats 1-10: Mieses, Maróczy, Rubinstein, Bernstein, Duras, Vidmar, Tartakower, Kostic, Levenfish, Gruenfeld.
Seats 11-20: Saemisch, Euwe, Stahlberg, Ragozin, Flohr, Najdorf, Lilienthal, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Bondarevsky.
Seats 21-30: Kotov, Fine, Keres, Szabo, Boleslavsky, Smyslov, Bronstein, Bogolyubov, Gligoric, Eliskases.
Seats 31-40: Pilnik, Averbakh, Geller, Taimanov, Petrosian, Pirc, Rossolimo, Tolush, Trifunovic, Stoltz.
Seats 41-50: Kashdan, Barcza, Pachman, Unzicker, Filip, Matanovic, Ivkov, Panno, Spassky, Korchnoi.
1956: Ratmir Kholmov, seat 51. Over Larsen, Tal, Bolbochán.
1957: Mikhail Tal, seat 52. World top 10, no argument.
1958: Fridrik Olafsson, seat 53. Over Benko, Larsen.
1959: Lev Polugayevsky, seat 54. Over Fischer (Benko and Larsen have dropped off).
1960: Bobby Fischer, seat 55.
1961: Evgeny Vasyukov, seat 56. Over Lombardy, Portisch.
1962: Leonid Stein, seat 57. Over Benko, Portisch.
1963: Lajos Portisch, seat 58. Over about 10 reasonable candidates, Portisch wins for getting there first.
1964: Bent Larsen, seat 59.
1965: Raúl Sanguineti, seat 60. Over Ulhmann, Antoshin. Penalised in real life for not playing in Europe.
Seats vacated: 1-10 (Mieses, Maróczy, Rubinstein, Bernstein, Duras, Vidmar, Tartakower, Kostic, Levenfish, Gruenfeld), 14 (Ragozin), 28 (Bogolyubov), 40 (Stoltz).
1966: Wolfgang Uhlmann, seat 1. Over Lutikov, Hort, Shamkovich, Antoshin.
1967: Vlastimil Hort, seat 5. Over Lutikov.
1968: Pal Benko, seat 2. Over Krogius, Matulovich, Suetin. Lifetime achievement award for Benko.
1969: Alexey Suetin, seat 9. Over Krogius, Lutikov, Sakharov.
1970: Milan Matulovic, seat 8. Over Kuzmin, Savon, Huebner.
1971: Vladimir Savon, seat 14. Kuzmin has deflated.
1972: Robert Huebner, seat 28. Over Karpov, who has only just overtaken Huebner in the yearly grading list.
1973: Anatoly Karpov, seat 3. Suddenly world #2!
1974: Robert Byrne, seat 4. Over Smejkal, Kuzmin, Kavalek, Ljubojevic. 3rd place at the Leningrad Interzonal gives Byrne a lifetime achievement case.
1975: Ljubomir Ljubojevic, seat 6. Over Smejkal, Kuzmin, Mecking.
1976: Henrique Mecking, seat 7. Over Smejkal, Andersson, Romanishin. Romanishin is an interesting case with his tournament victories, but doesn't have the rating.
1977: Oleg Romanishin, seat 10. Over Ribli, Balashov.
1978: Zoltán Ribli, seat 40. Over Balashov, Timman.
Seats vacated: 11 (Saemisch), 13 (Stahlberg), 23 (Keres), 25 (Boleslavsky), 37 (Rossolimo), 38 (Tolush), 57 (Stein).
1979: Jan Timman, seat 11. Over Balashov, Gheorghiu.
1980: Alexander Beliavsky, seat 23. Over Kasparov, Andersson.
1981: Garry Kasparov, seat 25. Over Andersson, Balashov, Tseshkovsky, Smejkal.
1982: Ulf Andersson, seat 13.
1983: Rafael Vaganian, seat 38. Over Miles, Nunn, Tseshkovsky, Smejkal.
1984: Jan Smejkal, seat 57. Over Balashov, Tseshkovsky, Nunn, Miles, Seirawan, Psakhis, Sosonko, Yusupov. One of the hardest decisions, as there are probably 10 players from the past decade with similar peaks, but Smejkal has the flattest curve and was possibly unfairly denied by Robert Byrne in 1974.
1985: Artur Yusupov, seat 37. Over Sokolov, Agzamov, Nunn, Miles, Seirawan. Yusupov timed his surge well.
Seats vacated: 12 (Euwe), 15 (Flohr), 20 (Bondarevsky), 21 (Kotov), 31 (Pilnik), 35 (Petrosian), 36 (Pirc), 39 (Trifunovic), 41 (Kashdan).
1986: Andrey Sokolov, seat 15. Over Short, Nikolic, Seirawan, Nunn. Sokolov also timed his surge well.
1987: Nigel Short, seat 12. Over Nikolic. Short and Nikolic are tied in the last two grading lists, but Short was good slightly earlier.
1988: Valery Salov, seat 20. Over Ivanchuk, Speelman, Nunn, Gurevich.
1989: Vasyl Ivanchuk, seat 21. Over Gurevich.
1990: Mikhail Gurevich, seat 35. Over Gelfand. This is difficult as Gelfand has rocketed up the grading list into 3rd, but it's a marathon not a sprint.
1991: Boris Gelfand, seat 41. Over Kamsky, Bareyev, Nikolic. Sometimes it's a sprint.
1992: Evgeny Bareyev, seat 36. Over Anand.
1993: Viswanathan Anand, seat 31. Over Shirov, but not really - Anand has always been better.
1994: Alexei Shirov, seat 39. Over Kamsky, Kramnik.
Seats vacated: 18 (Botvinnik), 19 (Reshevsky), 22 (Fine), 42 (Barcza), 52 (Tal), 54 (Polugayevsky).
1995: Gata Kamsky, seat 19. Over Kramnik. Tough on Kramnik who has clearly overtaken Kamsky, but only in the last 6 months, Kamsky having whopped him in the Candidates in 94.
1996: Vladimir Kramnik, seat 18. Was briefly tied for world #1, which is quite good.
1997: Veselin Topalov, seat 22. No argument, neither Svidler nor Adams has gotten within 50 points of him this year.
1998: Michael Adams, seat 42. Over Svidler. Adams has been around much longer.
1999: Peter Svidler, seat 52. Over Morozevich. Morozevich has hit 2750 from nowhere but needs to stick around longer.
2000: Alexander Morozevich, seat 54. Over Leko. Morozevich has a higher peak.
Seats vacated: 9 (Suetin), 16 (Najdorf), 24 (Szabo), 30 (Eliskases), 33 (Geller), 60 (Sanguineti).
2001: Peter Leko, seat 24.
2002: Judit Polgár, seat 16. Rewarding the first woman to hit 2700, to avoid making a decision on how good Ponomariov actually is.
2003: Ruslan Ponomariov, seat 9. Over Grischuk. Ponomariov got there first.
2004: Alexander Grischuk, seat 33.
2005: Etienne Bacrot, seat 60. Over Aronian, Dreev, Akopian, Khalifman, Nikolic. Until Aronian won the World Cup in December this year, he was always behind Bacrot on rating.
2006: Levon Aronian, seat 30. Over Mamedyarov, Radjabov.
Seats vacated: 14 (Savon), 27 (Bronstein), 43 (Pachman), 44 (Unzicker), 51 (Kholmov).
2007: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, seat 14. Over Radjabov. Fine margins but Mamedyarov pulled away by the end of the year.
2008: Teimour Radjabov, seat 51. Over Carlsen.
2009: Magnus Carlsen, seat 27. Wow.
2010: Sergey Karjakin, seat 43. Over Wang Yue, Eljanov. Karjakin finished strongest, plus he previously cracked the top 15 in 2008.
2011: Hikaru Nakamura, seat 44. Over Gashimov. Very close - it comes down to Nakamura first cracking the top 50 in April 2005, a year ahead of Gashimov.
Seats vacated: 17 (Lilienthal), 26 (Smyslov), 29 (Gligoric), 45 (Filip), 55 (Fischer), 59 (Larsen).
2012: Vugar Gashimov, seat 26. Over Caruana, who surpassed Gashimov only when the latter retired for health reasons.
2013: Fabiano Caruana, seat 55. By miles; got to world #3, and no-one else has made the top 10.
2014: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, seat 59. Over Dominguez Perez, Giri. LDP's graph looks flatter than MVL's because he's much less active, and MVL knocked him out of the 2013 World Cup.
2015: Anish Giri, seat 17. Over So, Ding.
2016: Wesley So, seat 29. Over Ding.
2017: Ding Liren, seat 45. Over Yu, Wei, Eljanov, Nepomniaschi, Navara, Harikrishna.
Seats vacated: 4 (Byrne), 8 (Matulovic), 26 (Gashimov), 34 (Taimanov), 50 (Korchnoi), 56 (Vasiukov).
2018: Yan Nepomniaschi, seat 50. Over Yu, Jakovenko. Although Yu shaded it for most of 2018, Nepo reached 2700 a full 4 years earlier, and his peak was higher.
2019: Leinier Domínguez Pérez, seat 4. Over Yu, Wang Hao. Lifetime achievement award for LDP.
2020: Hou Yifan, seat 26. The CoViD Grade Freeze gives us a chance to recognise a 4-time World Champion.
Edit, 2021: Alireza Firouzja, seat 34. Over Rapport, Wang Hao (retired), Duda.
Edit, 2022: Richard Rapport, seat 2 (vacated by his compatriot Pal Benko in 2019). Got to #5 in the world this year, if only briefly. Over Duda, whom he beat in the Candidates.
Edit, 2023: Jan-Krzysztof Duda, seat 8. Over Vidit, Praggnanandhaa, Keymer, Maghsoodloo, Wei. Somewhat slim pickings. We thought that chess was becoming a game for teenagers, but the opposite has happened: Firouzja is the only player born in the 21st century to have ever cracked the top 10, the average age of which is now well over 30. If the reason is that the kids only care about rapid and blitz, Duda is 4th and 7th respectively at those.
As a fun thing, I tried reallocating GM titles Hall Of Fame style. One new GM per year, with a cap of 60 living GMs. (Since new super-GMs emerge at about 20 and people live to about 80, 60 living GMs is about the right number to ensure that they're replaced as quickly as they pass away, and indeed I never actually hit the cap.)
I deferred to FIDE for 50 of the initial 60 names, which takes us from the initial cohort in 1950 up to Korchnoi in 1956.
Seats 1-10: Mieses, Maróczy, Rubinstein, Bernstein, Duras, Vidmar, Tartakower, Kostic, Levenfish, Gruenfeld.
Seats 11-20: Saemisch, Euwe, Stahlberg, Ragozin, Flohr, Najdorf, Lilienthal, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Bondarevsky.
Seats 21-30: Kotov, Fine, Keres, Szabo, Boleslavsky, Smyslov, Bronstein, Bogolyubov, Gligoric, Eliskases.
Seats 31-40: Pilnik, Averbakh, Geller, Taimanov, Petrosian, Pirc, Rossolimo, Tolush, Trifunovic, Stoltz.
Seats 41-50: Kashdan, Barcza, Pachman, Unzicker, Filip, Matanovic, Ivkov, Panno, Spassky, Korchnoi.
1956: Ratmir Kholmov, seat 51. Over Larsen, Tal, Bolbochán.
1957: Mikhail Tal, seat 52. World top 10, no argument.
1958: Fridrik Olafsson, seat 53. Over Benko, Larsen.
1959: Lev Polugayevsky, seat 54. Over Fischer (Benko and Larsen have dropped off).
1960: Bobby Fischer, seat 55.
1961: Evgeny Vasyukov, seat 56. Over Lombardy, Portisch.
1962: Leonid Stein, seat 57. Over Benko, Portisch.
1963: Lajos Portisch, seat 58. Over about 10 reasonable candidates, Portisch wins for getting there first.
1964: Bent Larsen, seat 59.
1965: Raúl Sanguineti, seat 60. Over Ulhmann, Antoshin. Penalised in real life for not playing in Europe.
Seats vacated: 1-10 (Mieses, Maróczy, Rubinstein, Bernstein, Duras, Vidmar, Tartakower, Kostic, Levenfish, Gruenfeld), 14 (Ragozin), 28 (Bogolyubov), 40 (Stoltz).
1966: Wolfgang Uhlmann, seat 1. Over Lutikov, Hort, Shamkovich, Antoshin.
1967: Vlastimil Hort, seat 5. Over Lutikov.
1968: Pal Benko, seat 2. Over Krogius, Matulovich, Suetin. Lifetime achievement award for Benko.
1969: Alexey Suetin, seat 9. Over Krogius, Lutikov, Sakharov.
1970: Milan Matulovic, seat 8. Over Kuzmin, Savon, Huebner.
1971: Vladimir Savon, seat 14. Kuzmin has deflated.
1972: Robert Huebner, seat 28. Over Karpov, who has only just overtaken Huebner in the yearly grading list.
1973: Anatoly Karpov, seat 3. Suddenly world #2!
1974: Robert Byrne, seat 4. Over Smejkal, Kuzmin, Kavalek, Ljubojevic. 3rd place at the Leningrad Interzonal gives Byrne a lifetime achievement case.
1975: Ljubomir Ljubojevic, seat 6. Over Smejkal, Kuzmin, Mecking.
1976: Henrique Mecking, seat 7. Over Smejkal, Andersson, Romanishin. Romanishin is an interesting case with his tournament victories, but doesn't have the rating.
1977: Oleg Romanishin, seat 10. Over Ribli, Balashov.
1978: Zoltán Ribli, seat 40. Over Balashov, Timman.
Seats vacated: 11 (Saemisch), 13 (Stahlberg), 23 (Keres), 25 (Boleslavsky), 37 (Rossolimo), 38 (Tolush), 57 (Stein).
1979: Jan Timman, seat 11. Over Balashov, Gheorghiu.
1980: Alexander Beliavsky, seat 23. Over Kasparov, Andersson.
1981: Garry Kasparov, seat 25. Over Andersson, Balashov, Tseshkovsky, Smejkal.
1982: Ulf Andersson, seat 13.
1983: Rafael Vaganian, seat 38. Over Miles, Nunn, Tseshkovsky, Smejkal.
1984: Jan Smejkal, seat 57. Over Balashov, Tseshkovsky, Nunn, Miles, Seirawan, Psakhis, Sosonko, Yusupov. One of the hardest decisions, as there are probably 10 players from the past decade with similar peaks, but Smejkal has the flattest curve and was possibly unfairly denied by Robert Byrne in 1974.
1985: Artur Yusupov, seat 37. Over Sokolov, Agzamov, Nunn, Miles, Seirawan. Yusupov timed his surge well.
Seats vacated: 12 (Euwe), 15 (Flohr), 20 (Bondarevsky), 21 (Kotov), 31 (Pilnik), 35 (Petrosian), 36 (Pirc), 39 (Trifunovic), 41 (Kashdan).
1986: Andrey Sokolov, seat 15. Over Short, Nikolic, Seirawan, Nunn. Sokolov also timed his surge well.
1987: Nigel Short, seat 12. Over Nikolic. Short and Nikolic are tied in the last two grading lists, but Short was good slightly earlier.
1988: Valery Salov, seat 20. Over Ivanchuk, Speelman, Nunn, Gurevich.
1989: Vasyl Ivanchuk, seat 21. Over Gurevich.
1990: Mikhail Gurevich, seat 35. Over Gelfand. This is difficult as Gelfand has rocketed up the grading list into 3rd, but it's a marathon not a sprint.
1991: Boris Gelfand, seat 41. Over Kamsky, Bareyev, Nikolic. Sometimes it's a sprint.
1992: Evgeny Bareyev, seat 36. Over Anand.
1993: Viswanathan Anand, seat 31. Over Shirov, but not really - Anand has always been better.
1994: Alexei Shirov, seat 39. Over Kamsky, Kramnik.
Seats vacated: 18 (Botvinnik), 19 (Reshevsky), 22 (Fine), 42 (Barcza), 52 (Tal), 54 (Polugayevsky).
1995: Gata Kamsky, seat 19. Over Kramnik. Tough on Kramnik who has clearly overtaken Kamsky, but only in the last 6 months, Kamsky having whopped him in the Candidates in 94.
1996: Vladimir Kramnik, seat 18. Was briefly tied for world #1, which is quite good.
1997: Veselin Topalov, seat 22. No argument, neither Svidler nor Adams has gotten within 50 points of him this year.
1998: Michael Adams, seat 42. Over Svidler. Adams has been around much longer.
1999: Peter Svidler, seat 52. Over Morozevich. Morozevich has hit 2750 from nowhere but needs to stick around longer.
2000: Alexander Morozevich, seat 54. Over Leko. Morozevich has a higher peak.
Seats vacated: 9 (Suetin), 16 (Najdorf), 24 (Szabo), 30 (Eliskases), 33 (Geller), 60 (Sanguineti).
2001: Peter Leko, seat 24.
2002: Judit Polgár, seat 16. Rewarding the first woman to hit 2700, to avoid making a decision on how good Ponomariov actually is.
2003: Ruslan Ponomariov, seat 9. Over Grischuk. Ponomariov got there first.
2004: Alexander Grischuk, seat 33.
2005: Etienne Bacrot, seat 60. Over Aronian, Dreev, Akopian, Khalifman, Nikolic. Until Aronian won the World Cup in December this year, he was always behind Bacrot on rating.
2006: Levon Aronian, seat 30. Over Mamedyarov, Radjabov.
Seats vacated: 14 (Savon), 27 (Bronstein), 43 (Pachman), 44 (Unzicker), 51 (Kholmov).
2007: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, seat 14. Over Radjabov. Fine margins but Mamedyarov pulled away by the end of the year.
2008: Teimour Radjabov, seat 51. Over Carlsen.
2009: Magnus Carlsen, seat 27. Wow.
2010: Sergey Karjakin, seat 43. Over Wang Yue, Eljanov. Karjakin finished strongest, plus he previously cracked the top 15 in 2008.
2011: Hikaru Nakamura, seat 44. Over Gashimov. Very close - it comes down to Nakamura first cracking the top 50 in April 2005, a year ahead of Gashimov.
Seats vacated: 17 (Lilienthal), 26 (Smyslov), 29 (Gligoric), 45 (Filip), 55 (Fischer), 59 (Larsen).
2012: Vugar Gashimov, seat 26. Over Caruana, who surpassed Gashimov only when the latter retired for health reasons.
2013: Fabiano Caruana, seat 55. By miles; got to world #3, and no-one else has made the top 10.
2014: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, seat 59. Over Dominguez Perez, Giri. LDP's graph looks flatter than MVL's because he's much less active, and MVL knocked him out of the 2013 World Cup.
2015: Anish Giri, seat 17. Over So, Ding.
2016: Wesley So, seat 29. Over Ding.
2017: Ding Liren, seat 45. Over Yu, Wei, Eljanov, Nepomniaschi, Navara, Harikrishna.
Seats vacated: 4 (Byrne), 8 (Matulovic), 26 (Gashimov), 34 (Taimanov), 50 (Korchnoi), 56 (Vasiukov).
2018: Yan Nepomniaschi, seat 50. Over Yu, Jakovenko. Although Yu shaded it for most of 2018, Nepo reached 2700 a full 4 years earlier, and his peak was higher.
2019: Leinier Domínguez Pérez, seat 4. Over Yu, Wang Hao. Lifetime achievement award for LDP.
2020: Hou Yifan, seat 26. The CoViD Grade Freeze gives us a chance to recognise a 4-time World Champion.
Edit, 2021: Alireza Firouzja, seat 34. Over Rapport, Wang Hao (retired), Duda.
Edit, 2022: Richard Rapport, seat 2 (vacated by his compatriot Pal Benko in 2019). Got to #5 in the world this year, if only briefly. Over Duda, whom he beat in the Candidates.
Edit, 2023: Jan-Krzysztof Duda, seat 8. Over Vidit, Praggnanandhaa, Keymer, Maghsoodloo, Wei. Somewhat slim pickings. We thought that chess was becoming a game for teenagers, but the opposite has happened: Firouzja is the only player born in the 21st century to have ever cracked the top 10, the average age of which is now well over 30. If the reason is that the kids only care about rapid and blitz, Duda is 4th and 7th respectively at those.