Software Endorsement

Comments

Junior with Junior with Junior. . . . Baby Krishna (no mean mischief maker Himself) is blessing in the background.
Posted by: r at July 9, 2006 01:35

I lost a 6-game blitz match to Roman when he was only 15 months old. The kid is amazing.
Posted by: Julian Maltese at July 10, 2006 01:18

I do agree with you about the depreciation of the GM title. Parimarjan Negi's quality is yet to be tested against the best in the biz. By the way, Anand is not much of a celebrity in cricket crazed india. There is a story, apocryphal but probably true, that he spent three hours at Mumbai airport waiting for his contact to pick him up and was not recognized by a single soul in that duration. That airport handles 1,500 people an hour. That means 4500 Indians could pass by the second best chess player in the world without a second glance. I cant see him fighting any elections with that kind of popularity
Posted by: narendra at July 10, 2006 04:35

I do agree with you about the depreciation of the GM title. Parimarjan Negi's quality is yet to be tested against the best in the biz. By the way, Anand is not much of a celebrity in cricket crazed india. There is a story, apocryphal but probably true, that he spent three hours at Mumbai airport waiting for his contact to pick him up and was not recognized by a single soul in that duration. That airport handles 1,500 people an hour. That means 4500 Indians could pass by the second best chess player in the world without a second glance. I cant see him fighting any elections with that kind of popularity
Posted by: narendra at July 10, 2006 04:36

On my visit to India I noticed something different from Narendra. I was seeing Anand on billboards and everyone I talked to (non-chessplayers) knew who he was. He was also featured prominently in the daily news (this was during the san luis event).

Most impressive for me was the enthusiasm the Indians have for the game.Almost every middle class household has a chess board and going into any sports or recreation club you cannot miss to find a sizable bunch of chessplayers.

But Narendra may be right in saying that Anand's face is not as recognisable as his reputation. I was at a Mumbai sports club called "muffatlal" located on the famous chowpaty beach, a group of casual chessplayers told me the story of how Anand was going to Madras (now chennai) via train. He was hunched alone over a chess board when another traveller casually happened to ask him for a game. Anand thumped the amateur over a half dozen skittle games. His opponent was so impressed that he quipped "you almost play like Anand!".

They know him but not his face.
Posted by: Mehul at July 10, 2006 06:20

Cool story Mehul.
Posted by: Ando at July 10, 2006 07:03

"you almost play like Anand!"

That reminds me of a story I read about Emanuel Lasker in a Norwegian chess book: He traveled by train, analyzing on his pocket chessboard, when he was challenged by a passenger who didn't recognize him. After having been beat easy the challenger said something like "You played well. in my local club they call me the little Dr. Lasker."
Posted by: Appaz at July 10, 2006 08:46

I do not think the GM title has been depreciated. It is not easy to get honestly. Look at IM Finegold's struggles.

To get a real 2500 rating and three norms of 2601 performance is hard.

To be pushed by a federation and/or a sponsor that paves the way makes it 100-200 points easier. I think a lot of these prodigies get the title this way, in the hope that they will grow into it later. Having a big Elo already gets you a lot of free draws with IM/GM, they can draw, not lose Elo, take a rest, and avoid the risk of actually losing to a kid.
Posted by: pix at July 10, 2006 09:58

If Finegold went to Europe and sought out tournaments that looked like they would offer as little resistances as possible yet still qualify him for a GM norm if he scored well enough, he would have had the title a long time ago.
Posted by: gark at July 10, 2006 16:03

I enjoyed Asa Hoffman's take on the title-norm chase: Discussing IM Tim Taylor's lament about returning home from his infamous "Hungarian Adventure" without collecting a single GM norm despite having played well enough to place 1st in one high-category event, Hoffman said, "Of course Hungary wasn't a norm factory for him -- he didn't bring any money! If he'd brought money, he could have bought all the norms he wanted!"
Posted by: flyonthewall at July 10, 2006 16:37

Negi played in the Greek Team championship and scored 5.5/8 (+2 -1 =5) against an opposition with a rating average of 2586 (Kotronias, Socko, Gustafsson, Bojkov, Dreev, Kulaots, Inarkiev and Postny)
Posted by: pk at July 11, 2006 09:20

ok, that was obviously 4.5/8
Posted by: pk at July 11, 2006 09:21

In reply to pix:

It's hard to argue the GM title hasn't been devalued when 25 years ago there were about 150 GMs and now there are pushing 1000.

That's before taking account of the points about Budapest, which are well made. And, for example, the absurd Olympiad norm factory. I'm not sure an Olympiad norm doesn't get you the title without the tedious formality of getting the other norms or becoming 2500.

The Welsh top board at this year's Olympiad, a charming fellow, but with an ELO of 2315 and no more a true GM than my daughter's hamster, benefited from two GMs hanging pieces against him in the first two rounds (playing at the absurd FIDE quickplay time limit, of course). He then played a succession of carefully picked opponents, mostly with White, resting when appropriate, and to be fair scoring quite well, and came down to a point where I believe he needed 0.5/2 against two GM opponents to obtain the GM norm, which as I say I think (could be wrong) would have made him a GM on the spot. He lost both games, which caused much weeping and wailing in Wales but really was a bit of a relief to anyone who cares about the integrity of the title.

And this, of course, is before one even mentions the words Myanmar.

The strange thing is that while I know all this if some good fairy gave me 3 GM norms and the required rating I wouldn't mind a bit sharing the title with Kasparov et al. People are so shallow.
Posted by: rdh at July 12, 2006 09:06

Whether the title is devalued or not is a tough question to answer, imho. What I think is that more players have access to more information (and competition) more easily, and they become "stronger". In other words, it's not that today's GMs calculate, understand, or know less about chess than GMs of the pass, but they had an easier path to acquire that knowledge.

However, just to set things straight about Olympiad titles: in order to obtain a title "directly", the norm must be made out of 13 games (or maybe 12). This means the Welsh player would have had to play every single game. As you said he sat out a few, he was only going for a norm. And in this sense, the Olympiad is no worse than any team tournament. In most leagues in Europe, board order (on teams of 8 boards for example) can greatly be altered, and it's really easy to get a player 10 whites, for example. But titles come automatically only from events like the Olympiad, Continental, Candidates Tournaments, etc..it is a bit of a strange exception, but it's there.

Pascal
Posted by: Pascal at July 12, 2006 14:34

Pascal, I agree with you that a GM today has as strong an understanding of chess as in the past.

We could take other sports, I am sure 1,000 people today can run as fast as 150 a generation ago (or to be more exact, the cut-off point for being in such a list would not be lower today).

My original point was that an honestly earned GM title today is a tough achievement.

You did not quite set the record straight about Olympiad titles. Until 2004, a single Olympiad result (12 games) based on performance could lead to a title directly (WIM, IM, WGM, or GM).

In 2006 this was NOT the case. One-result titles (other than FM) are no longer possible. In Turin, a 9-game performance of 2601 would count as a 20-game GM norm. It would still need one more norm, and a rating of 2500 to secure the title.

The most pathetically mishandled title of the modern era is FM. This should be a 2300 level player, good enough to be a coach/ teacher, etc. But now it is given for winning continental age group events - yes ASEAN or African under-10 boy's champion is auotmatically an FM. Now they have under-8 events, I don't even want to know if under-8 champ gets FM title too.
Posted by: pix at July 13, 2006 07:22

I understand there is now some talk about FIDE instituting category titles ("FIDE A Player" and the like).

To me this illustrates why it's important to always exclude the FM title from discussions about titles in general. That's because the FM title is basically a consolation or booby prize for people who haven't (yet) managed to attain a "real" title (IM or GM). That was probably true even in the early years of the FM title when it was norm-based; I think it was eventually redefined to be entirely rating-based, with the exception pix just gave.

Note I called the FM title a consolation for people "who haven't (yet) managed to attain a real" (IM or GM) title. I worded it in terms of achievement, not strength. I don't maintain that FMs are weak; only that that particular "title" -- both the way it is awarded (no need to make norms) and the very concept behind it (being a 2300 player makes one worthy of an elite title) -- is NOT worthy of being lumped together with IMs and GMs.
Posted by: flyonthewall at July 13, 2006 10:11