English Chess Forum

Fans of chess history might find this video of interest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUZ2zyWRh0

Saw it recently

Best player of modern times (ie post WW2) never to get the GM title? Quite possibly.

Matt Mackenzie wrote: Best player of modern times (ie post WW2) never to get the GM title? Quite possibly.

No, Mark Dvoretsky.

But I have the book "Super Nezh" and there is some good stuff in it.

He is the other one who came to mind, tbf.

Donald Byrne is another who springs to mind.

Not quite on the level of the previous two, IMO. Of course, he was hampered by long term ill-health.

Perhaps not but he did beat Averbakh in a match by 3-1 and had wins against Bisguier, Evans, Geller, Uhlmann, Reshevsky, brother Robert (more than once), Lombardy, Smyslov, Pachmann, Najdorf, Barcza, Minic and Pfleger amongst others. However, as you say, ill health blighted his career - he would certainly have bcome a GM otherwise.

Out of interest Chess metrics has:


Donald Byrne: Highest World Rank - 38 Highest Rating - 2663
Mark Dvoretsky - 20 - 2690
Rashid Nezhmetdinov - 21 - 2660

Thanks Nick. That is interesting whatever you think of Chess Metrics.

Given his recent death, might be worth mentioning that S M Zhukhovitsky had a peak rating of 2617 (#54 in the world) on Chessmetrics.

(achieved after he, in his 50s, scored 50% at the tremendously strong 1969 USSR Championship)

All the players mentioned thus far would easily have got the GM title in modern times, it really is hard to overstate how much more sparingly it was handed out before the 1970s and 80s (let alone more recent years)

I think Dvoretsky acknowledged himself that he was never an elite player, while always (reasonably) saying he was of GM strength at his peak. The chess metrics are a probably little distorted by the large number of his best games that were published in his books.

I think a Soviet from that era probably is a good guess, but I'm still thinking about who. Chebanenko is also well known through his coaching.

Bill Hartston has a strong claim for strongest non-GM from England due to similar constraints.

I've had a slightly depressing thought that in absolute terms the strongest IM, might be found by reading obituaries of people who had GM talent but died recently and too young. We lost two of the top hundred GMs to illness and accident in their twenties in recent years.

Tbf to Chessmetrics, the ratings are based on actual (full) tournament results as much as possible.

Paul Cooksey wrote:I think Dvoretsky acknowledged himself that he was never an elite player, while always (reasonably) saying he was of GM strength at his peak. The chess metrics are a probably little distorted by the large number of his best games that were published in his books.

I think a Soviet from that era probably is a good guess, but I'm still thinking about who. Chebanenko is also well known through his coaching.

Bill Hartston has a strong claim for strongest non-GM from England due to similar constraints.

I've had a slightly depressing thought that in absolute terms the strongest IM, might be found by reading obituaries of people who had GM talent but died recently and too young. We lost two of the top hundred GMs to illness and accident in their twenties in recent years.

Bill Hartston, possibly. But what about Alexander and Penrose! Looks like an argument that has been had before and probably on this site.

I had the same thought as Paul about those who died before reaching their peak but I suspect that in modern times they tend to be already GMs or else, if they still remained IMs, they haven't achieved so much as to be as well known as the three mentioned up thread.

But Paul is right to suggest a Soviet and I give you Lev Aronin who never played outside the Soviet Union but, if nothing else, came equal 2nd-4th (with another candidate, Isaac Lipnitsky) behind only Paul Keres in the 18th USSR Championships in 1950. Lower down the lists were Smyslov, Boleslavsky, Flohr, Bondarevsky, Petrosian (admittedly rather young), Averbakh etc etc.

Aronin had a highest Chess Metrics rating of 2674 - Lipnitsky who died in 1959 at the age of only 36 had a peak of 2700 and no 12 in the world and I am not even sure if he was granted the IM title.

There were literally dozens of Soviet masters who would have got GM titles these days, but who didn't then.

A notable example was the late Igor Platonov, who scored decently in a few USSR Championships but never even got an IM title from FIDE.

He was killed by robbers at his apartment in 1994

John Moore wrote:
Bill Hartston, possibly. But what about Alexander and Penrose!

The answer to the second part of that is:
Jonathan Penrose was eventually awarded the GM title on the basis of past results (NOT an honorary title).

https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtm ... e&line=asc