If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

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Chris Goodall
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If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Chris Goodall » 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.
Last edited by Chris Goodall on Wed Dec 20, 2023 7:30 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:51 am

Great analysis (even if ultimately subjective).

Any chance of a breakdown by nationality? I think there are only two ENG players there (if you exclude the initial cohort and Mieses).

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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Chris Goodall » Mon Oct 04, 2021 9:46 am

I am very open to suggestions as to which players I left out unfairly. I think I would put Kuzmin, Balashov, Seirawan and Nikolic before the Veterans' Committee for consideration if there was a Veterans' Committee.

I will post a summary when I'm on the laptop again.
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Thomas Rendle » Mon Oct 04, 2021 11:15 am

Miles probably the next closest ENG?

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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Oct 04, 2021 11:28 am

Thomas Rendle wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 11:15 am
Miles probably the next closest ENG?
Nunn made it to the top 10 by rating, whilst Speelman reached a Candidates semi-final. Collectively with Murray Chandler and Nigel they were runners up to the Soviet Union in Olympiads.

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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Paul Cooksey » Mon Oct 04, 2021 11:28 am

I was also going to say Nunn and Speelman were both Candidates. I don't think the bar for GM should be higher than that.

I'd probably take people of the active list at 50 rather than 80.

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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Chris Goodall » Mon Oct 04, 2021 1:46 pm

Sadly for Nunn and Speelman there were an awful lot of one-shot Candidates in the 80s. If you want those two, you also need Torre, Noguieras, Spraggett, Chernin, Sax, Hjartarson, Ehlvest, Yudasin, Dolmatov, Dreyev, Tiviakov, Gulko, van der Sterren, Khalifman and Lautier. Then the title stops meaning what it did in the 50s. Sorry! Nunn had a good peak but there were always people not yet on the list whose career graph covered Nunn's career graph.
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Paul Cooksey » Mon Oct 04, 2021 1:49 pm

How are we defining what it meant in the 50s? A realistic contender to be world champion? If so we have to reject an absolute number of GMs and have some sort of qualitative measure

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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Mon Oct 04, 2021 3:09 pm

Though tbh I do like that you recognise what a good player Raul Sanguineti actually was - wondered if I was alone in this ;)
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Paul Cooksey » Mon Oct 04, 2021 3:32 pm

Good indeed, but not close to qualifying as a candidate, and even that might not have been enough to get on the list to my considerable surprise

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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Mon Oct 04, 2021 4:02 pm

Though lots of great players weren't able to in his peak era (Leonid Stein!)
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Oct 04, 2021 4:27 pm

Chris Goodall wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 1:46 pm
Sadly for Nunn and Speelman there were an awful lot of one-shot Candidates in the 80s.
Although they did not include Jon Speelman
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Chris Goodall
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Chris Goodall » Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:02 pm

Paul Cooksey wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 3:32 pm
Good indeed, but not close to qualifying as a candidate, and even that might not have been enough to get on the list to my considerable surprise
The Candidates process was too random in the 80s and 90s. Instead of one interzonal that was a double or even quadruple APA followed by 8 Candidates, you had three single-APA interzonals then 16 Candidates. One of the interzonals had to be the weakest of the three. And in a single APA you can go from mid-table to 2nd by having two opponents lose on time in winning positions.

Now, they have 8 Candidates again and those candidates are pretty stable from one cycle to the next. We've reverted to the 60s.

Stein on the other hand was the unluckiest player ever. He would have been a Candidate four times if he hadn't been from the USSR, been from the USSR again, lost a playoff to Reshevsky in Los Angeles, and died.
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:20 pm

Even more than that, he finished level on points in said playoff and missed out on tiebreak.
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Re: If FIDE hadn't lowered the GM bar

Post by MJMcCready » Wed Oct 06, 2021 6:30 pm

Chris Goodall wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 9:46 am
I am very open to suggestions as to which players I left out unfairly. I think I would put Kuzmin, Balashov, Seirawan and Nikolic before the Veterans' Committee for consideration if there was a Veterans' Committee.

I will post a summary when I'm on the laptop again.
If you want to discuss readdressing the issue of awarding titles it might be worth taking into consideration issues that were discussed at great length in the 90s and most probably thereafter on occasion, the main one being whether GMs should be allowed to retain their title. On at least one occasion it was written in BCF issues that a number of titled players argued those whose rating dropped below a certain point (I can't quite remember what it was but seem to remember it being 2500) should be downgraded to IM and have to regain the title of GM. It should also be noted that certain countries got themselves barred from FIDE for a number of years, Myanmar being one example, and all GMs there were stripped of their title as an expose on the corruption in the game. There is also the issue of players retaining their title but remaining inactive, I don't recall this ever being addressed but perhaps it has been. I stand to be corrected here but I believe our GM John Nunn fits into that category and also, I suspect GM Murray Chandler. If FIDE hadn't lowered the bar, as you put it, I think it would have been beneficial for chess on the whole, as less players would be able to exploit their title for their own good, but there have been other alternatives raised in the past.

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