Talk:Grandmaster (chess)

Overwhelming

This adjective adds little or nothing. Moreover, I am not overwhelmed. It is just MOS:PUFFERY. We were getting along fine without it.

I should mention, while we're in this section, that saying "Since about 2000, most of the top 10 women have held the GM title" doesn't feel right; kind of a mixture of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. Besides, who except us even cares about this? We should be sticking to "just the facts." Bruce leverett (talk) 03:52, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

OK, but simply "majority" could mean 50.01%. How about "a large majority", or "about 98%"? Could also specify that 39 GM titles have been awarded to women as of 2021, but that gives us a maintenance problem. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 04:37, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

How about "Most grandmasters are men"? Technically this might be the same as "majority", but it is more concise, and may have different connotations.

I am not sure there is any motivation to say anything more than "most". I don't see much in the chess press, or even in forums, about just what the percentage is, so we are somewhat out on a limb, relative to our sources, if we are talking about it. Bruce leverett (talk) 04:56, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Right, "most" is the word I was going to recommend as well. I understand that Max's 50.01% concern applies to "most" as well, but the less formal language seems to not require further qualification. Anyone can look at the table and even sort on the M/F column to see how many female GMs there are. I don't think we are trying to make any kind of political statement. Most GMs are men, but some GMs are women. Quale (talk) 06:08, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

1909 out of 1948 (98.0%) is more than just "most". If you're talking about living only, that's still 1692 out of 1731 (97.7%). I'd be happy if it weren't true, but the figures don't lie. 98% is an "overwhelming" majority and "most" doesn't really reflect that. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:26, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Would it help if we somehow linked to Women in chess#Gender differences in chess achievement? Now that we have that article, I would like to avoid getting into that debate in every other article, such as this one. Bruce leverett (talk) 14:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Generally I would say that discussion of the relative proportion of women compared to men needs a source that specifically discusses it to avoid the WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE issues that Bruce mentioned, but I wouldn't object to simply saying that about 2% of GMs are women if we provide a reference. Quale (talk) 19:16, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Clarification required

The article says that to become a chess grandmaster, both criteria must be achieved, then proceeds to list 3 criteria. Does it mean 2 of the three or all three? ^The⬡_Bestagon 08:23, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Woman Grandmaster photo

May I suggest also adding a photo of a female grandmaster? The photos currently included only represent men Grandmasters, and this gives the impression of women Grandmasters missing from the article. Thank you in advance. L'Orfeo^{Son io} 14:02, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Special norm requirements

"At least one norm must be scored at a Swiss tournament with at least 40 participants of average rating of 2000 and above." is not entirely accuate, since there are other tournaments included in the regulations. From the regulations:

• The Chess Olympiad
• Tournaments organised under the aegis of GSC that establish direct qualifiers to the FIDE Candidates Tournament
• Tournaments that establish direct qualifiers to the FIDE World Cup
• Individual Tournaments held under the aegis of EVE (Article 1, General Regulations for FIDE Competitions)
• Final Stage of the National Individual Championship

Would it be acceptable to add "... or other special tournaments defined in the title regulations."? Or is there a better way? Because the current statement is not accurate. Konstantina07 (talk) 22:34, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

The rules are constantly being tweaked, maybe it's a little Quixotic to try to keep up with all the changes. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Currently we are citing an article by Chris Bird on the US Chess website, but as you have noticed, Bird is giving a considerable simplification of the FIDE regs. We should be citing the FIDE regs instead. Then, it would be good to use your wording to let the reader know that the cited source has more details than we are presenting in the text.

This is a recent change to the FIDE regs. The rumor I read was that it was added because some organizers, trying to make it easy or make it possible for certain young players to get norms, arranged round-robin norm tournaments with players who were known to be relatively overrated. That "background" is not necessary to present in this article (even if the rumor can be substantiated), but it may make it easier to understand why FIDE has added this peculiar section to the regs. Bruce leverett (talk) 01:34, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Original 1950 grandmasters

The use of flags (and, in general, the listing of nationalities) is going to be just as problematic in this article as it has been in World Chess Championship, List of World Chess Championships, and even List of chess grandmasters. The map of Europe has been redrawn during the lives of all the 1950 grandmasters, and several of them lived in more than one country anyway. To give an example, Reshevsky was born in the Russian Empire (in Congress Poland). As a child he moved to the United States, and never played under any Polish flag.

While it is fun to have bright pretty colors in the article, it gives undue emphasis to the lists of the original 1950 grandmasters, and it does not give any information that cannot be found in the articles about the players, or in one of the above articles or lists. Bruce leverett (talk) 13:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

If we were to take the change of European borders as something that makes it impossible to answer the question of nationality of certain individuals, then we could remove nationality as a concept from Wikipedia completely.

If we can consider people who lived before the 19th century as Italians or Germans despite the fact that Italy and Germany do not exist... If we consider the people of the 20th or 21st century as English or Scottish even though they live in Britain... What is the problem of determining the nationality of chess grandmasters?

If Da Vinci and Vivaldi are Italians and not Florentines and Venetians... If David Beckham is English even though he lives in Britain... If Novak Djokovic is Serbian even though he lives is Monaco... What is the problem in determining the nationality of the grandmaster? Keres is Estonian, Reshevsky is Polish American, Smyslov is Russian... Whatismyname2000 (talk) 19:35, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

MOS:FLAG explains it all very clearly. We absolutely do not use Russian, Ukranian etc flags for events from 1950. Mieses was German, he went through several flag changes and only settled in UK when he was in his 70s. It's just all so unhelpful and unnecessary, to say nothing of disruptive. By the way, you are already in violation of WP:3RR and could by rights be blocked. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 22:25, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

But why? You don't use flags but why?

If you don't see a problem in the fact that Vivaldi, Da Vinci and Columbus are Italians even though Italy or Italians didn't exist in their time... That the English, Scots and Welsh are addressed as such AFTER the creation of Great Britain... If you don't see a problem in the fact that almost every modern athlete lives in another country or countries...

Why is it a problem to say that Smyslov is Russian? Or that Rubinstein is Polish?

On top of that, my table highlights the most important part of the page while your two paragraphs make it sterile. I literally didn't even see the names of the first grandmasters when I first read the contents of the page. You made the most important part of the text so irrelevant. Two paragraphs... Joke. Whatismyname2000 (talk) 07:18, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't see the list of the original 27 grandmasters as "the most important part of the text", and I don't think it should be overemphasized or given undue weight. Besides, you keep trying to introduce flags that weren't in official use, for countries that didn't exist. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 22:39, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I try to represent the nation to which the grandmasters belong with flags. Just as I wouldn't protest if someone put an English flag next to Beckham's name instead of a British one, I also think it's perfectly fine to put a Russian flag next to Botvinnik's name instead of a Soviet one. The same goes for other players. What's the problem with saying that Keres is Estonian? Or that Rubinstein is Polish? Or that Vidmar is Slovenian? Nation is one thing. The country you live in is another. On some countries you have more than one nation. I use flags to represent the nationality of the grandmasters not their citizenship.

In addition, for aesthetic reasons it's far better to present the names of the grandmasters in the way I have done it instead of simply listing them in two lines of text. Whatismyname2000 (talk) 09:44, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

By the way, I mentioned Vivaldi, Da Vinci and Columbus... But the same goes for all the people from the Apennine Peninsula before 1861. None of them are Italian. Italy does not exist as a country. But more important, the Italian nation does not exist. The people who live in that area are Venetians, Florentines, Genoese... Despite this, Wikipedia marks them all as Italians. But for some reason the subject of debate is whether Paul Keres is Estonian just because Estonia is part of another country? Really? Whatismyname2000 (talk) 10:01, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience and courtesy in continuing the discussion.

If you edit chess-related articles for a while, you will get screenfuls of discussions of "nationality" and/or ethnic origin. Is Alireza Firouzja Iranian? French? Iranian-French? Iranian and French? Was Bobby Fischer American-Icelandic? The authoritative guideline for the first paragraph of a biographical article is MOS:ETHNICITY, but this does not stop editors from tweaking even that paragraph; inexperienced editors, sometimes motivated by nationalistic concerns, will often want to "claim" a person for one nationality, though the guideline clearly points in another direction. Often, in the rest of the article, we have to go beyond that, e.g. we have to mention that Nakamura was born Japanese, though we dare not say "Japanese-American" in the first paragraph.

In our article about Akiba Rubinstein, we state that he was a Polish grandmaster, and that's fine with me, as he represented Poland in the 1930 Olympiad, but he also won the All-Russian championship twice (1907 and 1908). I and MaxBrowne2 have pointed out other difficulties with the list of 1950 Grandmasters. By the way, nationality/citizenship/collaboration played important roles in the formation of that list. Bogoljubow was not on the list because he had gotten a little too cozy with the Nazis during the World War; but he got the title some time later. Bohatyrchuk never did get the GM title because he had worked for Gen. Vlasov for a while. The Soviet Union nominated Pyotr Romanovsky for the title, but it was pointed out that Bohatyrchuk and Romanovsky had jointly won the 1927 national championship, so the nomination was withdrawn.

Flags, as well as nationalities, can change over time. Most of the flags in World Chess Championship and List of World Chess Championships have been adjusted, sometimes more than once, to account for changes made by national governments to their own flags. I am sure you know that the U.S. flag has changed every time a new state was admitted, but other countries have changed their flags often.

So for this article, where we mention a bunch of players who were awarded the grandmaster title in 1950, for chess victories they had earned in some cases even during the 19th century, which nationality should be selected for each player, and which flag? When MaxBrowne2 used words like "unnecessary", "unhelpful", and "disruptive", he was (I surmise) dreading the endless edit wars and lengthy talk page discussions that would result from a table of the nationalities of those players, with or without flags.

Thank you for your consideration of these arguments. Bruce leverett (talk) 21:06, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Ok. Since I can't change your mind, I can only hope that you will put up the flags yourself one day. I just wanted the page to look nicer.

I have one last question. You mentioned that nationality and collaboration played a role in creating the list of original grandmasters. Which of the 27 grandmasters won the title for reasons unrelated to chess and which of the players was left off the list for the same reason? Whatismyname2000 (talk) 20:28, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

That's speculation, but apparently Bogolyubov was omitted because of pressure from the Soviets despite being one of the world's top players in the 20s and 30s. He was given the title in 1951, when the Yugoslav federation changed their vote I think? MaxBrowne2 (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

You'll find this account in Pyotr Romanovsky:

In 1954, the Soviets withdrew their application for Romanovsky to receive the Grandmaster title, which had been based on his first place in the 1927 USSR championship. But because anti-Stalinist Fedir Bohatyrchuk had shared the title in 1927, and he was no longer recognized in the USSR as the result of his having defected, the USSR Chess Federation did not want to give the GM title to Bohatyrchuk, so they withdrew the application for Romanovsky as well.

It doesn't cite a source, which is annoying. But both players had other GM-level results, so it's a plausible story. Bruce leverett (talk) 00:06, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Edward Winter is good for this sort of thing. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 00:38, 14 March 2025 (UTC)