53
Rashid Nezhmetdinov, aka “Super Nezh”, was clearly GM strength, having a plus score in the 20 games he played against World Champions, including a plus score against his friend, Tal. He was also a five-time Russian champion (this title predates the Soviet Union, and is not the same as champion of the Soviet Union).
I was a Russian linguist in the Air Force ...
40
Herbert Simon touched on this question. He received the Turing Award in 1975 and the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978. His primary research interest was decision-making and is best known for the theories of "bounded rationality" and "satisficing".
Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available ...
38
I think any real answer to your question will have to be statistical in nature. There's rationale behind the advantages and disadvantages of having the first move, but really, we'd be mostly guessing regarding how important these factors are.
With that in mind, I quickly ran some code to check what patterns I could pick up through the million base PGN ...
36
When a GM, or even lesser strong players reach a position that is totally unfamiliar, they have to break it down into components. They evaluate the following for BOTH sides. In general, a lot of this is done subconsciously by strong players.
Material, and what pieces are better. Sometimes a well-placed knight can be better than a rook, for example.
Can any ...
34
So in the sense of holding down a job while playing he was an
"amateur" player.
So was Unzicker, a GM in the 70's, the last amateur GM?
No. Here are 4 current British "amateur" grandmasters.
English GM Matthew Turner is a teacher at Millfield School in Somerset.
English GM Matthew Sadler is a computer consultant in the Netherlands.
English GM ...
34
Where am I wrong?
None of "the world's best intellectuals" spend much time playing chess. The only strong (GM strength) chess player who qualifies as an intellectual is Dr John Nunn GM who graduated with a first in mathematics from Oxford University at the age of 18.
Why do people even play chess?
The best answer to this was given by Siegbert Tarrasch ...
33
The website 2700chess.com has a database with the FIDE ratings (from May 1st, 2019). Their search form only offers the option to show the top 50 or 100 players satisfying the search results, but it's possible to modify the submit request and ask for the top 5000 instead. When I do that, I get 808 results:
So the other 700 must have ratings lower than 2500 ...
32
Enjoying chess and getting better at it can be viewed as an instrumental good, as well as possibly an intrinsic good.
As an instrumental good, chess can help us be better in other areas of life. For example, playing consistently might help sharpen certain areas of your mind. Coming up with plans could help one make plans in real life as well. Knowing when ...
30
If you are prepared to use standard Linux command-line tools like wc and grep then I think my free PGN processor, pgn-extract, will do much of the pre-processing necessary to count games in each category. Below is a basic bash script I put together as a proof of concept. It assumes your file of games is called inputfile.pgn - adjust as necessary, or pass it ...
29
Let's take a conversation. The number of sentences that could be said are infinite. The number of grammatically correct is still infinte, as is the number of logically/conversationally correct would be. The humans pare down what they say in any situation by intuition/experience. As chess players study what should be played, their task is much easier than ...
28
Napoleon put it succinctly:
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
Just a couple of points:
It is the same reason that students love getting "gold stars," and why there are so many badges on StackExchange itself. There have been volumes written on the power of peer recognition.
In particular, chess titles (for the most part) are ...
27
Brilliant little data mining project!
I used the wiki list of GMs and wrote a quick and dirty script to extract the data. Feel free to use and expand/alter it, if you are interested.
As it turns out, the average age for reaching GM is just above 28. It is, however, skewed by "old" generation players and players from time before GM title was a thing. It was ...
26
In essence, you are asking-
Can memory (or other brain functions) be improved or is it a natural trait?
The answer is yes to both. While it is true that one's memory can be improved, it is also commonly observed that some people are more "gifted" when it comes to memory (and other brain functions) than others.
To play blindfold chess, you need three ...
26
I know a few GMs in 2500-2600 range who would be considered professional -> ie chess provides the primary means of earning income for them.
It is very hard work with wages not matching the effort/skill spent:
Being the primary player for medium club team (European/Middle East/Far East)
Teaching (preferably within said club as it guarantees steady supply of ...
25
Humans try to understand a game like this, to formulate rules, try to recognize patterns of what worked in one position and apply them in positions they consider similar.
And it turns out that that is possible, otherwise there wouldn't be humans of different playing strengths, everybody would just be guessing.
Then we used that knowledge to create engines ...
24
Probably more often than people realize.
There have been several notable instances where GMs (even world champions) have missed simple mates in one.
From my own experience, when I analyze my games the engine frequently will point out some ridiculous 25 move forced mate. In a game, I'm not going to take the time to calculate something like that out if I have ...
22
Keres-Arlamowski 1950, comes very close
[FEN ""]
[Event "Szczawno Zdroj"]
[Date "1950"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Paul Keres"]
[Black "Edward Arlamowski"]
1. e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Qe2 Nbd7 6.Nd6# 1-0
I heard Mr Arlamovski was an IM at the time - but given Keres' level, and the fact that there were many fewer IM's back then - probably puts ...
22
I agree with you, more than your coach. Just analyzing a GM game, even with a computer, is not helpful just by itself if you have no idea what is going on.
For example, just earlier today, I answered a question here, where the person gave a computer line that made no sense as far as the plans for the position were concerned, so the computer was really no ...
21
It really depends on what you mean by "lengthen".
I am not a GM, but as an "ordinary" Master, I have played 1700s before, who were lost by move 10, but the game still took 50 moves to finish. If you are trying to stay equal longer, that is a harder question to address.
If you are just taking about purely lengthening the game, then you are looking to trade ...
19
As I have said before, this requires physical fitness and strong memory. In order to play blindfolded chess properly you need to master the following:
Having always clear vision of the board.
Properly move and capture pieces.
Properly update the overall position on the board after the move is played.
Now it is time to implement solutions for the above ...
18
There are actually three different distinctions in the USCF system that have to do with a 2200 rating.
First is the National Master title. It is awarded to anyone who has ever had an established (not provisional) rating of over 2200. Once a player is a National Master, they have the title for life no matter what happens to their rating. The NM title has no ...
18
The economist Ken Rogoff (b. 1953) achieved the GM title in 1978, but was never a "professional" chess player. Rogoff is currently a professor of economics at Harvard University.
18
It really depends on what counts as a missed checkmate. In Blitz we occasionally see a missed mate in 1. In slower games, mates in a few moves are rarelly missed. But the problem is that sometimes long mate sequences will be "intentionally missed", as the player will go for a solid advatange that guarantees victory rather than calculate a 15-move ...
17
I think it has to do with just having the title "Grand Master". Would I like to be a Grand Master? YES, but it probably would never happen in a million years. Unless you are probably in the top 10, you probably won't make a living out of it. I would suspect that those who don't make a living out of it, but still highly rated and play in international ...
17
In pretty much any endeavor that requires one to develop or acquire complex sets of skills, be it chiefly intellectual or chiefly physical, starting young will generally be a huge boon simply because of the fact that younger brains are more plastic than older brains; they can more readily adapt to new sorts of tasks and information. Because of that fact, ...
17
You are wrong because you want to enslave the world's best intellectuals to dedicate their time and effort to tasks that you deem important rather than on what they find enjoyable and fulfilling.
16
Since you asked for experience apart from the higher level of plays, I can give you myself as an example, with a rating of ~1900 (FIDE rating is 1871) I've never felt at a disadvantage playing black or advantage playing white.
Most openings give a lot of play for both sides and small inaccuracies will trample the advantage white might have before you'll ...
16
This depends a lot on the position and cannot be answered generally. If you have a forced line, i.e. a position where there are only few candidate moves at every step, a grandmaster can calculate many moves. I am reluctant to give a concrete number because it really depends, but to give you a rough idea, let's say 20 moves.
On the other hand if the position ...
15
Up until recently, that title would have gone to Teimour Radjabov without question in my mind. Since April of 2015 until last month, he has only played 149 games. That is not many for a top-flight GM over four and a half years. That said, he just won the right to play in the Candidate's, so he may becoming more active again.
Quite a number of old GMs were ...
15
In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, a player must
achieve three Grandmaster norms.
That is not accurate. The regulations for the award of FIDE titles are given here.
There are two ways to become a grandmaster. Achieving norms and reaching a certain rating is one way but there are also Direct Titles. The FIDE handbook defines these like this:...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
