English Chess Forum

ChessBase has published an article about Fide title devaluation. In the beginning, the GM title was awarded players such as Paul Keres and Gideon Ståhlberg, that is, players who had truly brilliant qualities. Today, the GM title has lost its radiance. This is a big problem that needs to be discussed more.
http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211 ... 60613.aspx

M. Winther

This has been partly covered in another thread.

I see you post from Sweden. We have a problem with grade inflation in the UK, which is used by politicians to demonstrate how their policies are improving the education system. When I got my 1st in 1978 not so many students had one, now everyone has.

Politicians - in all institutions - love inflation, and ultimately the public (including most chess players) does too.

I suggest ECF politicians inflate the UK grading system again. This can then be used to demonstrate the success of the ECF membership system (I include this modest proposal just for Roger).

John Hodgson wrote:We have a problem with grade inflation in the UK

Maybe. One thing we have certainly not been suffering from in recent years is Grandmaster inflation.

Jonathan Bryant wrote: Maybe. One thing we have certainly not been suffering from in recent years is Grandmaster inflation.

There are a handful of British players potentially on their way to GM titles, beyond that though, there don't even seem many new IMs on the way, despite the high ECF grades now awarded to junior players.

I'm quite prepared to believe that the higher FIDE ratings now earned by top players reflects an increase in skill levels, not just by them, but also by the players they expect to score 75% to 90% against. Whilst it's a devaluation to award the GM title for reaching the top 1000, in a sense of absolute skill level, it's the skills that used to be enough to make top 100.

Titles are for life, but you could have the concept of an active or inactive title. An active title being one where the minimum rating had been achieved over the previous five years. So a title is active for the first five years after award and then requires maintenance or achievement of a rating standard.

I can see the possible merit in awarding titles on the basis of top three placings in junior continental events, but is it really right to extend adult titles to under 8 tournaments? In the same way as there is a WCM title of lower required standard than CM, perhaps there should be a Junior CM and Junior FM title, which expire at the age of 18.

I'm hoping some GM's from the UK come in to this thread to respond to this thread.

I think that the general quality of players has risen especially in England(computer era). If I take Keith Arkell as an example of a solid yardstick. I think he struggles to stay at high 2400's/2500 due to the fact we have lots of underrated players in the UK. I noticed when I played in France and Czech Republic that in Central Europe the 2100's are NOT the same standard as they are here.

I think you are comparing GM titles given to players from when the GM title was not "achievable" in their peak to saying the title has lost its value is not correct. If anything given grades start at silly levels now, having to gain 1.1 points against 1900 juniors with 190-200 ecf's is not an easy task for aspiring players.

Seem to have managed to double post. If anybody could delete this that would be dandy.

Ben Purton wrote:I'm hoping some GM's from the UK come in to this thread to respond to this thread.

I think that the general quality of players has risen especially in England(computer era). If I take Keith Arkell as an example of a solid yardstick. I think he struggles to stay at high 2400's/2500 due to the fact we have lots of underrated players in the UK. I noticed when I played in France and Czech Republic that in Central Europe the 2100's are NOT the same standard as they are here.
.

I agree with all of this. My own experience in Spain was similar to yours in France and Czech Republic (except I'm talking about 2000-2100 not 2100+). Same principle though. There I beat a 2080 without too much difficulty. Here' I've been walloped by low 1900s.

That said, Britain simply isn't producing the numbers of grandmasters that it used to. That's just fact, proveable by looking up the GMs of British Origin (n=43) and checking their dates of birth.


I reckon there are more than a few guys born in the 80s who'd have been GMs by this age or the next few years at the latests had they been born in the 1960s. But they weren't and they're not/very possibly won't be.

It's interesting that the decline in GMs here has coincided with perceived GM inflation elsewhere.

John Hodgson wrote:This has been partly covered in another thread.

I see you post from Sweden. We have a problem with grade inflation in the UK, which is used by politicians to demonstrate how their policies are improving the education system. When I got my 1st in 1978 not so many students had one, now everyone has

Erm........really??

Matt Mackenzie wrote: Erm........really??

Maybe there are more firsts and 2:1s than was formerly the case. But additionally the courses have become simpler (at least in mathematics). Partly this is because A levels aren't what they used to be either, and grade inflation has certainly taken place there.

The reduction in UK GMs is surely basically an expression of economics? Seemingly some people who could do it if they concentrated on nothing else but don't/didn't because it isn't remotely as worthwhile in monetary terms as it was twenty/thirty years ago.

That balance is quite possibly rather different in a lot of other countries.

MartinCarpenter wrote:The reduction in UK GMs is surely basically an expression of economics?

No doubt that's part of it. I'm far from convinced that's all of it, though. And I suspect the economics bit of the argument is more nuanced than 'you can't make a living being a GM tournament player these days' - even though I'm sure that's true for most/many GMs.

One interesting factoid:

our most recent GMs by year of birth are (going backwards):-

Howell (D) 1990
Jones 1987
Gordon 1986
McShane 1984
Pert (N) 1981
Haslinger (S) 1981


If you look at British origin GMs as a whole, the biggest clump got the title in their late 20s. The mode and median figure is something like 28 iirc correctly (don't have the exact figures to hand).

All of our 80s cohort GMs got the title earlier than that (17, 20, 23, 16, 22, 26 respectively*). Only Haslinger was late 20s and even he was 'early late 20s'.


Again, this strikes me as rather notable - both in itself but especially compared to the perceived devaluation of the GM title elsewhere.

Another hypothesis is that the "GM in your 20s" schedule is now out of date and these days, for some reason, you either get it early or later ... and of course most of our 80s guys haven't got to be 30 yet.






* figures culled from sources such as wikipedia so some errors possible/even likely. Also I calculated age when gm title achieved by subtracting birth year from year that title was awarded - which is obviously not going to be precise for every person.

Jonathan Bryant wrote: If you look at British origin GMs as a whole, the biggest clump got the title in their late 20s. The mode and median figure is something like 28 iirc correctly (don't have the exact figures to hand).

Some earlier analysis and discussion here:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3078

Thread title was "Ages when British Isles titles obtained".
Thread date: June 2011.

Hi Ben

I would not use Keith Arkell and the current computer era as a solid yard stick.

Keith was a very good player long before computers.
When I was digging that analysis I sent to BCM I kept seeing two names. Keith Arkell and Mark Hebden.
In the BCM November 1988 issue you will read that Keith Arkell won the Paignton Congress with 7 straight wins.

In 1984(!) Leonard Barden reports that Mark Hebden has a dominating lead in the Leigh Grand Prix,
Keith Arkell was reported as being 3rd.
In the Petit Prix Mark is leading, Keith is second.

Recently I read that these same two players are still doing very very well on the weekend circuit.
Both are earning their lving from it.

So one could argue, that the players who were very good before the computer era
are playing still better chess than those who are being brought up with computers.
The weekend results of Keith and Mark have been proving that for years.

Jonathan stated: "Britain simply isn't producing the numbers of grandmasters that it used to."

That's a fact. Strange how it seems to coincide with the so called 'computer era.'

So.....

" I think that the general quality of players has risen especially in England(computer era)."

I think the reverse and the lack of new GM's and (sorry lads) old timers like Keith and Mark
who learned their craft long before computers are backing this up.
(keep up the good work boys.)

John Hodgson wrote:This can then be used to demonstrate the success of the ECF membership system (I include this modest proposal just for Roger).

Actually, this could be a marketing strategy to support ECF membership: renew your membership and get 10 grading points for free every year!

Geoff Chandler wrote:" I think that the general quality of players has risen especially in England(computer era)."

I think the reverse .. the lack of new GM's ... backing this up.

It depends what we mean by 'general' of course, but I don't think the relative lack of new GMs does back up an argument that suggests the general level of play is worse now in the computer era. Still less does it support an argument that computers have made people worse players.



Chris's figures and mine are a little different, probably because we're looking at slightly different things. I bet he's got Murray Chandler in his sample, for instance. I'm looking at British Origin GMs specficially so it wouldn't include him.

Chris, do you still have the precise sample for your figures to hand? (bit of a long shot, I know it was a while ago)
J