English Chess Forum

It's probably a bit ambitious, but (building on earlier work) I'm aiming at the moment for a list of all British titled players (both the main and female titles), though (seing how many FMs there are) I will probably cut it short at the IM and WIM or WGM level.

What I currently have (data obtained on 18/09/2010) is a list of all current titled players in the FIDE rating list registered for ENG (England), SCO (Scotland), WAL (Wales) and IRL (Ireland). It is easy to get this from the FIDE rating website 'advanced search' option, but the problem is filling in the history for those no longer on the FIDE website (either due to no longer being alive or having been active before the ratings began). Needing to fill in this history is why I'm posting in the 'chess history' section of these forums.

Anyway, from a list of 2101 players registered for ENG, SCO, WAL and IRL, you can get the following stats.

a) Current highest titles (301 titled players):

43 GMs (including one WGM)
74 IMs (including four WGMs)
120 FMs (all male)
25 CMs (all male)

3 WGMs
10 WIMs
21 WFMs
5 WCMs

b) Current highest female titles (44 titled players):

8 WGMs
10 WIMs
21 WFMs
5 WCMs

Currently 5 British women hold a title 'higher' than the female title they hold. Four WGMs also hold the IM title (all from ENG), and one WGM holds the GM title (from SCO).

c) Of those 2101 players and 301 titled players, the breakdown across ENG, SCO, WAL, IRL is as follows (by highest title held):

All players: ENG (1515), SCO (244), WAL (160), IRL (182).
Titled players: ENG (230), SCO (32), WAL (17), IRL (22).

d) Breaking down the titles still further by federation (still by highest title held):

ENG: 37 GMs, 56 IMs, 86 FMs, 23 CMs, 3 WGMs, 10 WIMs, 11 WFMs, 4 WCMs
SCO: 5 GMs, 8 IMs, 14 FMs, 1 CM, 4 WFMs
IRL: 1 GM, 6 IMs, 12 FMs, 2 WFMs, and 1 WCM
WAL: 4 IMs, 8 FMs, 1 CM, 4 WFMs

It would be possible to graph the distribution by birth year as well (though this is missing for 10 of the 301 titled players) and by how many of the players are inactive or active. Oh, and I just spotted a duplicate entry for Wilson, Peter J B (the same grading code for two entries, a candidate master from ENG), so some of the figures need reducing by one.

Some of the names here are not on the previous lists produced, so I will go and add the names in those threads.

Actually, that's too much effort. I'm going to just paste the list here of the GMs, IMs, WGMs, and WIMs and leave it at that. Those maintaining other lists can try and work out which ones are missing or not!

This covers all of ENG, SCO, WAL and IRL in the current FIDE rating list (September 2010).

1) 43 GMs

Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan
Rowson, Jonathan
Motwani, Paul
Shaw, John
McNab, Colin A
Baburin, Alexander
Adams, Michael
Short, Nigel D
McShane, Luke J
Sadler, Matthew D
Howell, David W L
Hodgson, Julian M
Nunn, John D M
Jones, Gawain C B
Pert, Nicholas
Hebden, Mark L
Haslinger, Stewart G
Parker, Jonathan F
Conquest, Stuart C
Gordon, Stephen J
Speelman, Jon S
Turner, Matthew J
Kumaran, Dharshan
Norwood, David R
Stean, Michael F
Watson, William N
Howell, James C
Flear, Glenn C
Davies, Nigel R
Wells, Peter K
Williams, Simon K
Mestel, A Jonathan
Plaskett, H James
Emms, John M
Gormally, Daniel W
King, Daniel J
Keene, Raymond D
Ward, Chris G
McDonald, Neil
Arkell, Keith C
Levitt, Jonathan P
Summerscale, Aaron P
Penrose, Jonathan

2) 74 IMs

Williams, Leighton
Cobb, James
Cooper, John G
Botterill, George S.
Condie, Mark L
Dearing, Eddie
McKay, Roderick M
Burns-Mannion, Stephen R
Bryson, Douglas M
Pritchett, Craig W
Levy, David N L
Muir, Andrew J
Kelly, Brian
Collins, Sam E.
Quinn, Mark
Heidenfeld, Mark
Wall, Gavin
Orr, Mark J L
Hunt, Harriet V
Houska, Jovanka
Ciuksyte, Dagne
Lalic, Susan K
Pert, Richard G
D`Costa, Lorin A R
Greet, Andrew N
Palliser, Richard J D
Trent, Lawrence
Hunt, Adam C
Hartston, William R
Ledger, Andrew J
Hawkins, Jonathan
Hanley, Craig A
Mah, Karl C C
Lawton, Geoff W
Martin, Andrew D
Goodman, David S C
Crawley, Gavin
Kinsman, Andrew P H
Webster, Andrew
Ansell, Simon T
Rendle, Thomas E
Cox, John J
Buckley, Graeme N
Cobb, Charles A
Pein, Malcolm
Devereaux, Maxim L
Hennigan, Michael T
Dunnington, Angus J
Quillan, Gary
Ferguson, Mark
Taulbut, Shaun M
Morris, Philip J
Bates, Richard A
Mortazavi, Ali
Littlewood, Paul E
Bellin, Robert
Hawksworth, John C
Bradbury, Neil H
Horner, Jeff
Rahal, Michael A
Basman, Michael J
Povah, Nigel E
Crouch, Colin S
Large, Peter G
Thomas, Ian
Knott, Simon J B
Cooper, Lawrence H
Beaumont, Chris R
Tozer, Richard J D
Baker, Chris W
Jacobs, Byron A
Houska, Miroslav
Whiteley, Andrew J
Rudd, Jack

3) 3 WGMs

Corke, Anya
Jackson, Sheila
Bellin, Jana

4) 10 WIMs

Sachs, Gulnara
Needham, Teresa
Sheldon, Ruth
Atkins, Rita
Lauterbach, Ingrid
Richards, Heather S
Pritchard, Elaine
Regan, Natasha K
Forbes, Cathy
Mothersill, Anne

It should be relatively easy to update other lists using the 4 lists above. The real problem is how to expand from there to a list of all British GMs and IMs (and maybe WGMs and WIMs) in the past, as well as the current ones.

Whenever you have some free time, I have some particularly tedious chess-related tasks to do over the next week or so you could help me with - you seem to quite enjoy them!

_________________
February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

Unfortunately, the only interesting thing to come out of this so far (for me at least) is finding out when many British GMs gained their IM titles. That is a bit of recent chess history I wasn't very familiar with. But some GMs raced from IM to GM (some seemed to have skipped IM altogether) and some took many years to make the step up. But there is some information missing, so my next post will have some questions that I hope others can help answer!

A set of questions I hope others can help with (ideally saying where the information is to be found):

(1) When did Gary Lane gain his IM title?

EDIT: FM in 1984 and IM in 1987 (chessgames.com)

(2) Did Glen Flear obtain the IM title before his GM title, and if so, when?

EDIT: IM in 1983 (chessgames.com)

(3) Did Danny Gormally obtain the IM title before his GM title, and if so, when?

EDIT: IM in 1997 (olimpbase.org)

(4) Did Luke McShane obtain the IM title before his GM title, and if so, when?

EDIT: IM in 1997 (chessgames.com)

(5) Did Tony Miles obtain the IM title before his GM title, and if so, when?

EDIT: IM in January 1975 list (olimpbase.org)

(6) Did Nick Pert obtain the IM title before his GM title, and if so, when?

EDIT: IM in October 2001 list (olimpbase.org)

(7) Did Nigel Short obtain the IM title before his GM title, and if so, when?

EDIT: IM in January 1981 list (olimpbase.org)

(8) When did Tony Kosten obtain the GM title and any earlier titles?

EDIT: IM in 1984 (chessgames.com) and GM in the January 1991 list (olimpbase.org)

(9) When did Dmitri Anagnostopoulos obtain the GM title and any earlier titles?

EDIT: IM in January 1992 list (olimpbase.org) and GM in 1996 (chessgames.com)

(10) When did Eddie Dearing obtain his IM title?

EDIT: At some point after 2001 (olimpbase.org) Failed to find anything definitive, but Chess Scotland in January 2005 called him "Scotland 's newest International Master", and in the British Championships cross-table for August 2004, he wasn't marked as an IM, so I'm going with 2004.

(11) When did Simon Webb obtain his (OTB) IM title?

EDIT: IM in 1977 (chessgames.com)

(12) Does anyone know David N. L. Levy's birth year?

EDIT: Born 1945 (chessgames.com)

Plus loads of questions about exactly when people switched federations (e.g. Simon Webb, Bogdan Lalic, Jana Bellin, Dagne Ciuksyte, Tony Kosten, Dmitri Anagnostopoulos, Murray Chandler, Gary Lane, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Joe Gallagher, David H. Cummings, Alexander Baburin, Jacques Mieses, Jacob Aagaard), which could be difficult to find out, so any advice on where to look for that would be good. For some of the more obscure players, it might not even be obvious that they switched federations, so any recollections of IMs or GMs or WGMs switching federations to a British one would help.

And five further questions:

(13) When did Simon Knott obtain his IM title?

EDIT: IM in October 2001 list (olimpbase.org)

(14) When did Adam Hunt obtain his IM title?

EDIT: IM in January 2001 list (olimpbase.org)

(15) Did Jana Bellin obtain the WIM title before the WGM title, and if so when?

EDIT: WIM in 1969 (chessgames.com)

(16) Did Harriet Hunt obtain the WIM title before the WGM title, and if so when?

EDIT: WIM in July 1994 list (olimpbase.org)

(17) Did Susan Lalic obtain the WIM title before the WGM title, and if so when?

EDIT: WIM in January 1986 list (olimpbase.org)

Once all that information surfaces, it should be possible to list the year every single (over-the-board) British IM, GM, WIM and WGM title was awarded in the 60 years between 1950 and 2010, along with the age and name of the person obtaining the title. Or rather, to construct a timeline of British chess between 1950 and 2010 in terms of FIDE titles awarded, from Mieses in 1950 to Hawkins in 2010. A total of around 193 titles, give or take a few (some people may have skipped IM/WIM titles and gone straight to GM/WGM).

The Olimpbase-archived Elo lists show the title each player held when a specific list was published. Admittedly, they only go to 2001, but it should help to answer some of your questions. For example, in answer to your first question "When did Gary Lane gain his IM title?", his record would suggest some time between July 1987 and January 1988. In fact it also lists the federation affiliation of a player for individual grading periods.

However I leave it to someone else to go through all of the questions above!

_________________
"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool speaks because he has to say something."

That will be incredibly helpful (at least for the period before 2001). Thanks!

All the answers to the above questions have now been found. Many thanks to Daniel Young for pointing out Olimpbase as that is an invaluable resource for seeing which lists saw the transition between titles for players, and can be used to double-check a lot of the data (at some point). I'm now going to post the data in a new thread.