English Chess Forum

Where will the next England (ENG-registered) grandmasters come from?

To compare, the most recent GMs approved by FIDE:

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... -2016.html:

Illingworth, Max (AUS)
Andersen, Mads (DEN)
Forcen Esteban, Daniel (ESP)
Dourerassou, Jonathan (FRA)
Ghosh, Diptayan (IND)
Tari, Aryan (NOR)
Urkedal, Frode (NOR)
Predke, Alexandr (RUS)
Pacher, Milan (SVK)
Smith, Axel (SWE)

Pleased to see Axel Smith there. The Scandinavian countries are dong well. The start of a Magnus-effect?

Is there an easy way to extract from the FIDE rating list the rate at which different countries have produced grandmasters over the past decade (maybe even starting from 2000)? I think someone did an analysis like this earlier, but can't find the analysis or a recent update. If the year when the titles were awarded is present in the rating database, then it should be easy, but maybe that field has only been consistently filled in recently.

EDIT: Just remembered that the phenomenon of people switching federations confuses the issue. The database will only show the player's current federation, not the federation under which they were awarded the title.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Where will the next England (ENG-registered) grandmasters come from?

The highest rated IMs, and thus most likely trio, are:

Adair, James R 2474
Zhou, Yang-Fan 2465
Fernandez, Daniel Howard 2462

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Is there an easy way to extract from the FIDE rating list the rate at which different countries have produced grandmasters over the past decade (maybe even starting from 2000)? I think someone did an analysis like this earlier, but can't find the analysis or a recent update. If the year when the titles were awarded is present in the rating database, then it should be easy, but maybe that field has only been consistently filled in recently.

EDIT: Just remembered that the phenomenon of people switching federations confuses the issue. The database will only show the player's current federation, not the federation under which they were awarded the title.

FIDE make available current and old data in downloadable txt or xml format - http://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml
I'm currently working on my own data mining project which would extract the kind of information you're talking about, although I find the xml format (which only goes back as far as 2012) much easier to process. Nobody is paying me so no deadlines so it is going slowly. I also keep modifying my database structure, first in my mind and then in implementation, about once a fortnight, so that also slows down getting info out.

Your federation change item is one of the recent changes to the db structure which hasn't gone from mind to implementation yet. In my current db federation is part of the player profile record. In my mind it has migrated to a date related association table along with inactive flag and possibly "alive" flag. Players get removed from FIDE's data sets sometime after they die and possibly also if their rating goes below 1000 (although I've not seen or looked for such occurrences yet).

Current cogitations are about whether "sex" should also migrate to this association table. Does FIDE ever change this flag in the case of a transgender person changing after they have got a rating? Would they consider doing so? Perhaps a question for Nick Faulks. Was it Danny Gormally who was toying with the idea of a sex change operation so he could enter the Women's World Championship? Would FIDE buy that?

Brian Towers wrote: Was it Danny Gormally who was toying with the idea of a sex change operation so he could enter the Women's World Championship? Would FIDE buy that?

No, the player would have to pay for it himself

FIDE change the sex flag for transgender people, yes.

IM Jack Rudd wrote:FIDE change the sex flag for transgender people, yes.

Thanks, Jack. That was the last of the DB design issues I had. No more excuses. Time to get my arse into gear and get it implemented.

"Pleased to see Axel Smith there. The Scandinavian countries are dong well. The start of a Magnus-effect?"

Axel is a nice guy. It's more of a continuation of a Simen Agdestein effect, as far as the Norwegians are concerned. Last time I played at Gausdal (organised by the excellent Hans Olav Lahlum), Mads Andersen was one of the very promising young players participating. There were a lot of good (at chess and in behaviour) juniors there.

The grandmasters we already have aren't likely to die anytime soon, they will still be grand masters later down the line.

You can never say never.

Perhaps one day, Nigel Davies will be an English Grandmaster. It's possible.

For anyone that's interested in the development of future English GMs it's worth looking at the e2e4 idea here.

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8267

James Adair's gone long odds on

From the 4NCL Twitter feed: James Adair achieved his 3rd GM norm in Round 9 - congratulations! (Still needs 2500 rating for the title).

His previous 2 norms were also at the 4NCL:

https://ratings.fide.com/title_norms.ph ... 2&title=GM

So a norm from the 2015-16 season (7/9) to add to the ones from the 2012-13 season (7/9) and the 2014-15 season (9/11).

For the first one, he played two IRL, one SCO and 6 ENG. For the second one, he played a real mix of federations: 4 ENG, 1 IRL, 1 FRA, 1 SCO, 1 NOR, 1 ARM, 1 ROU, 1 NED. This third and final one (unless he has other norms not registered with FIDE yet) has 1 WLS and 8 ENG, so doesn't meet the 1.43f criterion, but that doesn't matter. Only one norm has to meet that criterion, and the second one definitely does.

The players he played in the first 9 rounds of the 2015-16 4NCL:

R1: win against IM Andrew Ledger
R2: win against IM John Cooper
R3: win against IM Peter Roberson
R4: win against Ravi Haria
R5: loss against GM Matthew Sadler
R6: win against Chris Dorrington
R7: win against FM Brian Tarhon
R8: draw against GM Jon Speelman
R9: draw against GM David Howell

James Adair's current rating (April 2016 list) is 2474. Let's hope he can get to 2500 soon!

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:From the 4NCL Twitter feed: James Adair achieved his 3rd GM norm in Round 9 - congratulations! (Still needs 2500 rating for the title).

His previous 2 norms were also at the 4NCL:

https://ratings.fide.com/title_norms.ph ... 2&title=GM

So a norm from the 2015-16 season (7/9) to add to the ones from the 2012-13 season (7/9) and the 2014-15 season (9/11).

For the first one, he played two IRL, one SCO and 6 ENG. For the second one, he played a real mix of federations: 4 ENG, 1 IRL, 1 FRA, 1 SCO, 1 NOR, 1 ARM, 1 ROU, 1 NED. This third and final one (unless he has other norms not registered with FIDE yet) has 1 WLS and 8 ENG, so doesn't meet the 1.43f criterion, but that doesn't matter. Only one norm has to meet that criterion, and the second one definitely does.

The players he played in the first 9 rounds of the 2015-16 4NCL:

R1: win against IM Andrew Ledger
R2: win against IM John Cooper
R3: win against IM Peter Roberson
R4: win against Ravi Haria
R5: loss against GM Matthew Sadler
R6: win against Chris Dorrington
R7: win against FM Brian Tarhon
R8: draw against GM Jon Speelman
R9: draw against GM David Howell

James Adair's current rating (April 2016 list) is 2474. Let's hope he can get to 2500 soon!

Today he won against IM Sarakauaskas (Lithuania) 2416.

Have to suppose he'll hit 2500 soon, since he's so obviously playing at that level now. I had imagined the foreign norm a likely issue but very glad not

Adair has finished today with a quick draw against Scottish GM Matthew Turner (2502) so he met players from three different federations in this year's NCL.
His rating on the May list is 2474. He has gained about 7 points this weekend maybe but I leave it to others to do proper calculations,