English Chess Forum

Here is an idea from the Turkish Chess Federation :

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5204

The TCF appears to have many innovative ideas...

There's nowt so new as what's been long forgotten. This looks like a variation on the Jim Slater incentive for the first English GMs, circa 1973.

We certainly seem to need something. Am I correct in that David Howell is the only U21 English Grandmaster and that there no U21 English International Masters. Does anyone know if there are any U21 with IM Norms? The highest rated junior I can find, apart from David, is Li Wu at 2344. Does anyone have a link to a database of Norms?
I hope to be proved incorrect with the quick search I've done to find our top U21s.

Peter Turner

I believe these are our top juniors:


Name Age Club(s) Grade FIDE
Howell, David WL 17 Guildford 248 2622
W, Li 19 Wanstead 212 2344
Zhou, Yang-Fan 13 Richmond Juniors 199 2232
Kilpatrick, Callum 16 Richmond Juniors 198 2211
Khandelwal, Ankush 17 Nomads (Notts) 196 2160
Ynojosa, Felix Jose 12 Reading 183 2173
Franklin, Samuel GA 14 Dulwich College 183 2142

Iceland too had a scheme for paying GMs a salary, hence the reason why there are more GMs per capita there than anywhere else in the World. I know that last year this was helping the Icelandic economy be one of the most successful in the World, but it doesn't seem to have been in the news much recently.
Of the top U21 list, I know that Yang-Fan has an IM norm, I haven't heard about the others, which I suspect means they haven't got one.

You can, at least theoretically, see a list of FIDE title norms on the page http://www.fide.com/info/titles/title-norms, but in practice it is incomplete - for instance there are 11 IM norms listed for English players and I know of 38 being acheived.
As far as U21s are concerned, as far as I'm aware, Yang-Fan Zhou is the only English player with an IM norm.

Howard
Thanks for the link, I can see what you mean about it not being complete. Matthew & yourself thought Yang-Fan had an IM Norm and it is not recorded. You mention knowing of 38 Norms, are these recorded somewhere within the ECF system?

Peter,

It has long been the intention to create an International Rating page on the ECF web site and a list of title norms would be a good item to put on such a page. However, as this is still in the 'to be done' pile, the list hasn't gone much further than my computer - although Stewart Reuben and Ray Ryan do have copies.