Title norms held by English players

[Richard Bates]

I'll buy Lawrence a drink if he can locate my medal and title certificate which the BCF never passed on to me, and is probably still in Hastings somewhere. Do FIDE do duplicates?

I asked for a replacement certificate for my International Organiser title on the grounds that the way it was that it was packed caused the pin on the badge to leave a hole in the certificate

Ah, but you had the physical evidence to prove it... Which leaves me left hoping for an unusually thorough spring clean!

[LawrenceCooper]

The FIDE site has been updated and now lists GM norms for Colin Crouch and Andrew Martin as well as adding IM norms for Philip Rossiter and John Richardson.

[Paul Dupré]

Hi Lawrence,

Could you create a fictitious match between North and South Grand Masters (British) in Rating order.

Qualified Grand Masters only.

Paul

[Paul Dupré]

Can we have a chart of titles (GM, IM, FM, WGM, WIM, WFM) achieved over the last 40 years.
Numbers on the Y-Axis, years on the X-Axis please.

Thanks, Paul

[Paul Dupré]

Can we have a chart of titles (GM, IM, FM, WGM, WIM, WFM) achieved over the last 40 years.
Numbers on the Y-Axis, years on the X-Axis please.

Thanks, Paul

EnglishGMs.png

A starting point - 39 GMs, though missing year for Tony Kosten.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

That's an interesting graph, Paul, though as you say it is incomplete. I did something similar here on a different aspects of statistics relating to British IM and GM titles:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 78&p=59893

That thread (June 2011) is titled 'Ages when British Isles titles obtained', and as I said there, it was a follow-up to a thread from September 2010 ('Timeline of British Isles titles (1950-2010)') that can be seen here:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2165

Please feel free to use the data there to add to your graph.

(I think someone pointed out that September 2010 thread to you, but the post pointing it out seems to have disappeared for some reason, unless it was in another thread - I've only been reading the forum recently, and not posting until yesterday, so I may have mis-remembered which thread this was in).

I would love to see Lawrence Cooper's recent work on locating and updating records on norms held by English players to be summarised somewhere at some point as well. By year and full details of where the norm was achieved and even details such as score if possible. One of the things I had wanted to see at some point was a list of all the norms that were 'cashed in' so-to-speak to obtain the titles that I put in that timeline (though some of the titles were awarded, rather than achieved through norms).

Lawrence, is the list in the first post of this thread the complete set of data? Actually, I suppose the FIDE website is the place to look for the data, now you have sent it in (I've just spotted the link you provided earlier):

http://ratings.fide.com/title_norms.pht ... ountry=ENG

Though having independent records will help as well. What is the best resource for finding out details of norms 'cashed in'? (i.e. used to obtain a title)?

[Sean Hewitt]

What is the best resource for finding out details of norms 'cashed in'? (i.e. used to obtain a title)?

Just select the player's FIDE record from their website. That lists their title applications, when and where the meeting was and the outcome. Click that link and you can see the norms themselves.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

What is the best resource for finding out details of norms 'cashed in'? (i.e. used to obtain a title)?

Just select the player's FIDE record from their website. That lists their title applications, when and where the meeting was and the outcome. Click that link and you can see the norms themselves.

That works for recent ones like Hawkins' IM title:

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=412686
http://ratings.fide.com/title_applicati ... e=IM&pb=27

But for older ones, many of them seem to be missing. I've picked Richard Bates as a not-so-random example:

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=403555

But pick lots of other titled players, and you won't have the information there.

Another example is James Adair:

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=406252

Sean recently posted here about that, but this is the sort of detail that gets lost if not recorded properly somewhere:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=4827

Joshua Altman's title details are there:

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=426210

"Title registered by President".

Even if all the details eventually end up there on the FIDE database, I still think the ECF should have independent records of all this, both in their own archives and possibly available on their website, e.g. as a basis for more detail than that provided by FIDE. Currently, what the ECF have is this:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?page_id=2975

Which doesn't list James Adair or Joshua Altman or Ameet Ghasi. I can't remember all those who gained titles after the last one I recorded on that timeline I did. That last one on my list was Tom Hinks-Edwards (February 2011). I know several others gained titles after that, including Yang-Fan Zhou, but there is no central FIDE list to cross-check against unless you can filter the FIDE database by country registration code and titles held.

Forgot to add that the FIDE database doesn't hold details for deceased players, so that is another reason for the ECF to maintain its own records and archives. Most of the earlier details will be in yearbooks and so forth, but a single listing and history is not readily available.

[Roger de Coverly]

But pick lots of other titled players, and you won't have the information there.

Another example is James Adair:

The FM and CM titles just need a valid rating claim by a national federation and payment of the required fee. FIDE seem to just record the year of the title.

I'm not sure how many unclaimed FM titles there are for English players, but I would imagine several hundred unclaimed, if not more, for CM titles ( rating of at least 2200 at least once in a lifetime).

FIDE continue to award CM and FM titles as prizes. No doubt there is publicity value in doing so, but it devalues the titles for those who achieved them by rating performance.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

But pick lots of other titled players, and you won't have the information there.

Another example is James Adair:

The FM and CM titles just need a valid rating claim by a national federation and payment of the required fee. FIDE seem to just record the year of the title.

I'm not sure how many unclaimed FM titles there are for English players, but I would imagine several hundred unclaimed, if not more, for CM titles ( rating of at least 2200 at least once in a lifetime).

FIDE continue to award CM and FM titles as prizes. No doubt there is publicity value in doing so, but it devalues the titles for those who achieved them by rating performance.

Getting a bit off-topic now, but I believe the IM and GM titles can also (though more rarely) be awarded as prizes, or are you distinguishing here between titles gained by performance in competitions (e.g. Olympiads) and prizes awarded to the winner of certain 'titles' regardless of the level of competition or rating performance? There are a number of examples. I believe they are all covered here:

http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html? ... ew=article

The ones where a title is awarded in full (as opposed to a norm) have "=title" in them. Joshua Altman's CM title is covered under "World U16, 14, 12, 10, 8" and "Silver, Bronze = title". [EDIT] Correction: "Bronze Medal performance in the European Youth Chess Championships" - it was European U8, not World U8. [/EDIT] I wonder if this awarding of titles was done back when Luke McShane won the World U10 - since the FIDE website doesn't list anything other than his IM and GM titles, I presume not (today it would have been an FM title).

Another example is here:

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=934054

That one (IM title for Vladimir Klasan) comes under "Commonwealth; IBCA, ISCS [sic], IPCA" and "1st, up to 3 players = title". Though in that case, he already had an IM norm, another aspect of history that I thought was not publicly visible on the FIDE website, but actually it is still here:

http://ratings.fide.com/title_norms.pht ... 4&title=IM

It would make a good pub quiz question: "What are the four ways you can currently obtain the GM title without achieving any norms?" (Answers: winning the World Senior title, the World U-20 title, becoming Women's World Champion, or reaching the last 16 of the World Cup - which of these is "easiest"?).

[Roger de Coverly]

are you distinguishing here between titles gained by performance in competitions (e.g. Olympiads) and prizes awarded to the winner of certain 'titles' regardless of the level of competition or rating performance?

Both really. With ratings going down to 1000, the justification for awarding both titles and ratings for Olympiad performances belongs in the past.

[David Sedgwick]

I wonder if this awarding of titles was done back when Luke McShane won the World U10 - since the FIDE website doesn't list anything other than his IM and GM titles, I presume not (today it would have been an FM title).

It was the practice then also and Luke was indeed awarded the FM title for that achievement. For a while he was in the then as now unusual position of having a FIDE (playing) title but no FIDE rating.

It would make a good pub quiz question: "What are the four ways you can currently obtain the GM title without achieving any norms?" (Answers: winning the World Senior title, the World U-20 title, becoming Women's World Champion, or reaching the last 16 of the World Cup - which of these is "easiest"?).

It's also a possible question for the FIDE Arbiter Examination, so thank you for the thought. Unlike a pub quiz, that's an open book exam.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I wonder if this awarding of titles was done back when Luke McShane won the World U10 - since the FIDE website doesn't list anything other than his IM and GM titles, I presume not (today it would have been an FM title).

It was the practice then also and Luke was indeed awarded the FM title for that achievement. For a while he was in the then as now unusual position of having a FIDE (playing) title but no FIDE rating.

Thanks, David. Do you know if this was covered in the newspapers or chess media at the time? It is difficult to find online corroboration of this. It's not that I doubt it, but I'd like to be able to refer to something official at some point for things like this.

It would make a good pub quiz question: "What are the four ways you can currently obtain the GM title without achieving any norms?" (Answers: winning the World Senior title, the World U-20 title, becoming Women's World Champion, or reaching the last 16 of the World Cup - which of these is "easiest"?).

It's also a possible question for the FIDE Arbiter Examination, so thank you for the thought. Unlike a pub quiz, that's an open book exam.

Going back to pub quiz questions, can anyone name three (or more if you can) grandmasters who attained their title by Presidential Award (I think that is the technical term) rather than by the 'three norms and rating' route? (And in the era before ratings there would have been no rating requirement, so what were the requirements back then to be awarded the GM title?)

I was reading this article by Kavalek on Chessbase:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8622

Kavalek says there "as a byproduct of his excellent result, Fischer automatically became the youngest grandmaster in the world" (aged 15). He is referring to Fischer qualifying from the 1958 Portoroz Interzonal for the 1959 Candidates tournament. Was that a norm or one of these "do something impressive enough and you get the GM title immediately" things? Obviously Fischer made many GM norm performances over the years, but did he actually get any GM norms before being awarded the title?

[Phil Neatherway]

I thought Fischer became a GM through qualifying as a Candidate.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I thought Fischer became a GM through qualifying as a Candidate.

Yes, that is what I'm saying as well. I just hadn't been aware of this before. I would have thought that being awarded the GM title outright would be very rare. It seems Fischer was one person who achieved this, and Larry Kaufman was another (by winning the World Senior title):

http://www.uschess.org/content/view/8982/500/

I was wondering what other examples exist? And what the history of the FIDE regulations on this looks like (i.e. what changes have been made over the years)?

Actually, it is all laid out really clearly here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_%28chess%29