Here is the story and list. Achieving a chess rating of over 2700 is very hard to do. This is a reflection of either: a) just how much talent and sponsorship the modern world has, or b) just how narrowly restricted some people’s talents are. In an age where a socially non-adept person still can earn good money in hi-tech, I lean more toward a) than b). The boom in womens’ chess — not generally foreseen twenty years ago — I find especially puzzling and it’s not all driven by the Chinese government wanting to win medals.
Gata Kamsky, USA’s highest rated player graduated from law school not long ago, so his knowledge can’t bee too narrowly restricted. Neither does I think he gets any corporate sponsorship. In fact, I don’t think there is much corporate sponsorship in chess, outside of a handful of players. But there are lots of countries (and some cities) that will put up lots of money for chess tournaments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gata_Kamsky
Aren’t there also a lot more people around than in the past? From a demographic point of view, wouldn’t we expect to see more people above a certain quantitative measure?
If understand chess ranking correctly, it’s based on players’ records against each other, with weight given based on the skill level of the opponent. There’s no objective way to measure a player’s skill, independent of the competition. I would think, then, that an increase in the number of players ranked above 2700 could stem only from an increase in the total number of competitive chess players, or from a change in the distribution of competitive chess players’ skill, neither indicative of a greater number of objectively good chess players.
If we exclude the Chinese are there many more women in the world’s top 200 or 500 than there were 20 years ago? It doesn’t seem obvious after a cursory glance.
Liberalarts said: “I wonder if this has anything to do with the continuously improving computer chess programs? As software strengthens, more players have a chance to practice by playing these strong programs.”
This may be a restatement of what Liberalarts said, but it may be that during their training, the top players are using computers to test theoretical novelties (responses that have not been tried at the top levels) before playing them “over the board”. If so, then it may also be that only those at the very top may have enough incentive to thoroughly test their novelties using computers. This would cause their rating to increase relative to the rest of the field.
This has a testable implication. Compare the ratings of the top 10 players to the rest of the top 990 (or so) in 1990 and today. This theory would be supported (but not proven true) if the ratio has increased over time.
The interesting thing thing about Chess (at least in an economist blog) is the expansion in Grandmaster talent of the last 20 years has been largely driven by China and India. Take a look at comparable top 50 GM’s from now and 20 years back and the difference is striking; especially the decline of Europe and the UK in particular (snide comments about European education may be entered here).
This might be because the game is more popular in the orient now, (especially in China, where it is growing in popularity relative to traditional boardgames), but I feel the increase in a semi-leisured middle class has something to do with it. Chess has never, despite Russian nostrums, been a working-class hobby.
And Tyler is right; 2700 is a very impressive level of performance. I’m a strong amateur player (2050 ~ about 98th percentile of all players), and these guys are as far above me as I am above near-beginners. In chess, like everything, absolute performance seems to increase over time.
What is “women’s chess”? I assume that it is a league (if that is the right word) where women play each other.
I can understand segregating men and women in physical sports due to bodily strength. Why is this the case in chess? Are men stupider than women? Or, perhaps, are women stupider than men?
There may be some good reason for this but if there is, I’d be curious to have someone explain it.
John Henry
no comments on chess in China. but it’s only natural that China regained some of its past position in Go. It was, after all, a traditional Chinese game.
I’m not a chess nut, but one thing that’s happened in poker is the sheer number of hands that can be played by younger players has changed the game hugely. An active young poker player has played far more hands by their mid 20s than a veteran player will have played their whole careers 10 years ago – and often against better players in online poker rooms, so play is far more informed than it was and new strategies have been developed.
Since chess, go, and other games also have online playing modes, as well as top-flight computer playing programs and fast computers, I’d imagine something similar is happening in those games too.
In my playing days the only players in history to have had a 2700 rating were Lasker, Capablanca and Fischer. Then Karpov and the other K guy showed up.
OK, so that’s three or five over the then 120+ years of rated players.
Why more today?
1) Every generation is better than its predecessors. Vince Lombardi’s Packers on film today look like a high school team.
NFL pro players from that era who were totally dominant, off their size and workout performance numbers couldn’t make the squad on a good college team today.
Or remember Bob Beamon’s astounding long jump record that would “never” be broken? Where does that jump rank today?
It’s the same in chess, the ratings of the top players have been on an ascending line since Steinitz’s rating caught up to Morphy’s at the end of the 1800s.
2) Growing number of players. (Women would be part of this — but are there really so many women rated over 2700?)
3) Greatly improved training techniques, with computers and data bases and all. This increases the gap between the top players who really really use these things and average players who don’t or use less.
Of course improved training is always part of (1) but there’s been a real jump in it during the last generation.
4) Rating inflation, as somebody mentioned. This is an inherent problem in running the Elo rating system. If you crack down on inflation you get other results a lot of people don’t like, so … (sort of like running the money supply!) This is much worse with the USCF ratings than with international ones, but still…
“It’s not inherently hard to get to 2700″
Right. Go try get one and see!
Comments on this entry are closed.