Title norms held by English players

[Stewart Reuben]

Dave Rumens was rated 2300+ last century. He played in quite a number of FIDE Rated tournaments in his career, including a Hastings Premier and more than one British Championship.
Lawrence Cooper created a list of the English players with master norms. If Dave has an IM norm, it won't be lost in the mists of time. I think the list can be found on the ECF website.

[John McKenna]

Thanks for that reminder about Lawrence's list of title norms. D. Rumens is not on it but he was an active player from about 1958 onwards (that is the date at which, according to A. Elo, international titles began to become "modifiedly objective" having been "largely subjective" from 1950) and reached his peak rating of 2355 in 1981. In 1978 Elo wrote - for the IM title those who play only once a year require... 2450, but those who play 8 times... will probably earn it with 2370...
Off topic - I noticed RdC had top billing on the ECF site having won the Open at Exeter last w/e. He may have title ambitions of his own soon.

[LawrenceCooper]

Dave Rumens was rated 2300+ last century. He played in quite a number of FIDE Rated tournaments in his career, including a Hastings Premier and more than one British Championship.
Lawrence Cooper created a list of the English players with master norms. If Dave has an IM norm, it won't be lost in the mists of time. I think the list can be found on the ECF website.

I can only list norms for players who make me aware of them. As I stood down as IRO at the end of 2012 the task has now passed to the ECF office [email protected] but norms do need to be registered with FIDE by August 2013 otherwise they will not be accepted.

[Stewart Reuben]

What Professor Elo meant was that a system was introduced in about 1958 where the score required fo a norm depended on the number and type of title holders met. This was always in a RR.
The FIDE Rating System was introduced in 1970. The system where you had to achieve a certain category, above 2451 for the IM norm, started after that. What Elo meant was that, if you had a rating of 2450, then you would expect to get a norm frequently. If you were 2350, then statistically it would happen once every 7 attempts.
The Lloyds Bank Masters of 1977 demonstrated that it was possible to get a norm in an open Swiss, hitherto thought impossible. Subsequently the opportunities for norms blossomed and the number of round robins declined.
Categories were finally completely discarded in 2003 in favour of Tournament Performance Ratings. 2600+ for GM, 2450 for IM, 2400 for WGM and 2250 for WIM. Also at that time, old norms ceased to die after 6 years, lasting forever.
There are also direct titles, based on results in official FIDE events, such as the World U16 or a zonal. The latter doesn't affect Europe as zonals disappeared some year ago. But there is a rich harvest of IM titles from zonals for players who don't necessarily deserve them. What I call lollipop titles. But Josh Altman got the International Candidate Master title for finishing 3rd in an U8 event.
The changes in the regulations make it very difficult to keep track of old norms. That is why FIDE are introducing a moratorium on old unclaimed norms from 1 July 2013 for those prior to 2003. That is why the work Lawrence did in tracking down old norms for English players was so heroic. I doubt other federations have been so meticulous.

[James Pratt]

Rumens- Brighton, 1980 surely?

[Colin S Crouch]

Lawrence,
First of all, my many thanks to you in chasing out my old GM norm, and on your detective work in locating other norms.
My main interest in reopening this thread of discussion is of historical interest, questions of ancient history, like my first IM norm (Lloyds Bank 1979), and earlier. The news of Andrew Law's death recently got me thinking again. How many other players would have had excellent chances of IMs, or even GMs, in the pre-Elo system of norms? Maybe Leonard Barden is the person to ask on this. How strong were the strongest British Masters of the 1950s and 1960s, when compared with later IM holders?
Clearly all this goes beyond Lawrence's original remit, but it seems it can be added here for general interest. After all, we already have much information here of players from the 1980s, when many players were enthusiastic, often successfully, in chasing up norms and titles.
Perhaps there is another topic which can be introduced, or revived elsewhere. Chris Kreuzer's statistical analysis elsewhere suggest that in recent years there has been a dearth of new IMs and GMs, with "ordinary" IM candidates, like myself in the past, now having less incentive to chase around for titles. The decline of the weekend swiss has removed an important stepping stone for younger players who have reached about 200 playing strength, but who want to go beyond.

But these are much broader subjects.
Thanks again Lawrence for your work in this particular subject.

As a quick PS, i am sure that any player who has achieved IM or GM norms before 1980 would be too exhausted to play ambitiously in current-day nine-rounders.

[Roger de Coverly]

How strong were the strongest British Masters of the 1950s and 1960s, when compared with later IM holders?

Penrose was world standard for a while. The 1960 Olympiad didn't just feature that win against Tal, but also a draw against Fischer.

After the initial award of titles in the early 1950s, FIDE rules made it very difficult for new players to obtain titles. Ray Keene was not only the second English GM, but also the second English IM after Penrose, although his title came after the adoption of the Elo based rules. David Levy who became Scottish at university got the IM title as a prize at a zonal.

The Sonas ratings at http://www.chessmetrics.com are an attempt to reconstruct the history. Be warned that this uses an approach that the top player is always in the 2700 plus range, so the absolute values are not to be trusted. Relative differences and positions in world rankings are more to be trusted.

Hastings 1961
http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/Sing ... 0023810100
has Botvinnik and Gligoric ranked 4 and 11 at 2768 and 2720. Penrose ranked 73 is at 2577, so that's 200 points below Botvinnik. John Littlewood is ranked 243 at 2470 with Barden 271 (2458 ) and Wade 323 (2433). The other British players are 100 points or more below Penrose.

Actually if FIDE ever wanted an interesting project, it could retrieve and clean up results from the game archives and then run results up to 1970 through its rating programs. So new players would have to play 9 games against rated opposition to get a first rating etc.

The relative standings of top British players were captured by the BCF grading system from the 1950s onwards. To express them in Elo terms probably just requires making an estimate for Penrose and using 200 Elo = 25 BCF in terms of differences.

[John McKenna]

A. Elo has Penrose (IM 1961) with an official FIDE rating of 2420 (1/1/1978) and best 5-year av. 2470.
He gives Miles (GM 1976) as 2565, Keene (GM '76) as 2480 and Stean (GM '77) as 2510 - all at 1/1/78.
RdC, "David Levy... who became Scottish at university..." Gave me the nightmare scenario of him entering speaking with a cut-glass English accent and graduating speaking like Rab C. Nesbitt. Anyway, Levy is given as Eng./Scot. IM 1969 2320 in 1978.

[Colin S Crouch]

Roger,
Thanks for the note. Yes, Barden and John Littlewood were very much in my mind for players who, given later opportunities, would have had excellent chances of becoming an IM. John's son, Paul, became an IM himself, and once won the British Championship.
I was thinking more in terms of players slightly lower down who, had they given the chance of an IM norm in an open Swiss, might well have been encouraged to play more, and aim for their title. Jeff Horner got his IM title very late on. How many others slipped through the net? In the North East, Dave Mooney was clearly of good IM strength, and had a big plus score against me, but did not play much in international events, even in the eighties, when there were more opportunities. His Elo rating was ridiculously low, probably around 2260, but in BCF gradings he was usually comfortably over 220.
It would be an interesting exercise to see which players have slipped through the net. Can I suggest players who have been graded over 220 for two years could be regarded as reasonable candidates to have reached IM level, given the chances? For players who have slipped through the net for GM titles. maybe 233 or more.
If anyone has the grading details, this would be an interesting exercise, and a chance to salute players of the past. I am sure that there would be surprises in such a list - all the better!

[Roger de Coverly]

If anyone has the grading details, this would be an interesting exercise, and a chance to salute players of the past. I am sure that there would be surprises in such a list - all the better!

If we look at Colin's own contemporaries, how about the grading list for 1981 as preserved for posterity in the BCF yearbook of that year.

Here it is down to 213, names only, unless ambiguous

Nunn 245
Miles 243
Stean 243
Short 239
Chandler, M 238
Mestel 238
Speelman 238
Keene 234
Hartston 230
Littlewood, P 230
Taulbut 229
Bellin 226
Hodgson 226
Pritchett 226

Davies, NR 224
Horner 223
Lee, GD 223
Cooper, JG 222
Littlewood, J 222
Povah 221
Hebden 220
Nicholson, JG 220
Plaskett 220
Rumens 220
Wells, ID 220
Harman, KB 220
Whiteley 220
Chandler, CR 219
Flear 219
Sowray 219
Law 218
Hindle 217
Pigott 217
Cummings 216
Perkins, AH 216
Watson, WN 216
Carleton 215
Goodman 215
Britton 214
Hall, J 214
Crouch 213
Mooney 213
Upton 213
Cubitt 213
Bennett, GH 213

There were a further 82 players down to 200 with many well known names featured.

Something that struck me about this list was the almost complete wipe out of older generations from the then top of English chess. Without checking in detail, I think only Littlewood (J), Rumens, Hindle would have been born before 1945 and only Littlewood before 1940. Contrast to now, more than thirty years later, where many of the names on the 1981 list remain in the top 100.

[John McKenna]

Rumens born 1939 - played in a World Senior Ch. in 2001 (or 2002) held in Italy, I believe. Can you get a title for winning that? He has also played at least one Br. Senior Ch. In the one I saw he lost only one game but may have drawn too many to be champ.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Something that struck me about this list was the almost complete wipe out of older generations from the then top of English chess. Without checking in detail, I think only Littlewood (J), Rumens, Hindle would have been born before 1945 and only Littlewood before 1940. Contrast to now, more than thirty years later, where many of the names on the 1981 list remain in the top 100.

Roger, would you be able to look further down that list and see where the older generations were at that time?

I got an e-mail recently reminding me of Stuart_Milner-Barry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Milner-Barry

How did he compare in strength to someone like C.H.O'D. Alexander, and why did Alexander get an IM title and not Milner-Barry? The Wikipedia article claims that Milner-Barry was " solid International Master standard". Harry Golombek, another from the same era, received the IM and GM title.

Maybe also look up the British Masters mentioned in the following list (from 1972) and see where they were by 1981?

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... rry#p25531

[Roger de Coverly]

how about the grading list for 1981 as preserved for posterity in the BCF yearbook of that year.

Going back ten years earlier to 1971, this is the list. More names there of now mostly forgotten players who might have gained norms , titles or higher titles had the Open Swiss events been around ten years earlier.

Keene 236
Hartston 231
(Mariotti 230)
Markland 227
Botterill 226
Penrose 226
Wade 225
Littlewood, JE 217
Barden 219
Williams 219
Wright 219
Gibbs 219
Hollis 219
Eley 218
Franklin 218
Fuller 218
Cafferty 217
Clarke 217
Saverymuttu 216
Webb, S 216
Richardson 215
Whiteley 215
Phillips 215
Knox 214
Bellin 213
Perkins 213
Stean 213
Hutchings 212
Parr, F 212
Patterson 212
Simpole 212
Bruzzi 211
Corden 211
Eales 211
Horner 211
Macdonald-Ross 210
Smith, RR 210
Upton, RStG 210
Radoicic 210
Blackstock 209
Lee, PN 209
Macgrillen 209
Gavrilovic 209

[Roger de Coverly]

Maybe also look up the British Masters mentioned in the following list (from 1972) and see where they were by 1981?

I might as well do the rest of the national list down to 200. It's a mixture of players who went on to better things, those who are at around the same level thirty years later and those who have long since retired. There are still relatively few "older generation" players.

King, DJ 212
Knott 212
Martin, AD 212
Griffiths 212
Franklin 211
Lewis, DR 211
Parr, D 211
Knox 210
Large 210
Romilly 210
Ivell 210
Cox 209
Eley 209
Kosten 209
McFarland, RS 209
Arkell 208
Cafferty 208
Clarke, PH 208
Denman 208
Smith, DA 208
Branford 208
Beach 207
Stebbings 207
Jacobs 206
Wells, PK 206
Holmes 206
Ashby, AP 205
Binks 205
Hanreck 205
Henshaw 205
Pein 205
Blackstock 204
Conroy 204
Friedgood 204
Hawkesworth 204
Hempson 204
Pelling 204
Townsend, MP 204
Johannes 204
Lambert 204
MacPherson 204
Emerson 204
Moore, GR 204
Lewis, AP 203
McMichael 203
Oakley 203
Shephard 203
Wicker 203
Hall, RVM 203
Brown, SD 202
Bryans 202
Conquest 202
Farrand, JT 202
Finlayson 202
Miles, JM 202
Naujokas 202
Neat, KP 202
Orr 202
Smith, AA 202
Teichmann 202
Webb, RM 202
Adams, JB 202
Ady 201
Clunie 201
Levitt 201
Norman 201
Pickard 201
Shutler 201
Staples 201
Surtees 201
Clark, GM 201
Lamford 200
Richmond, RJ 200
Stirling 200
Taylor, PP 200
Watson, IR 200
Dawes 200
Hare 200
Moss 200

As far as players with the BM title are concerned, those below 200 were
Toothill 199
Haygarth 194
Aitken 189

[Christopher Kreuzer]

As far as players with the BM title are concerned, those below 200 were
Toothill 199
Haygarth 194
Aitken 189

Thanks. You have to remember that some of the names you say are familiar may be to you but not to others. The only one I recognised immediately on a quick look through was Bruzzi (presumably the same one that plays for Surbiton in the Thames Valley League). Would you or someone be able to find when or if Golembek or Milner-Barry were ever on the earliest BCF grading lists? It is possible they had stopped playing by then. What I would be interested in is their last grades and their peak grades. Ditto for Alexander, though he died much earlier (1974).