A LONG time ago, I accepted and believed in titles in the chess world – FIDE Master, International Master (IM), Grand Master (GM).
Before 1950, there were no FIDE titles.
Nowadays though, I question their necessity. They did not exist in the 19th century, or early 20th century; yet everyone in the chess world knew which chess player was the real deal, which ones were the true masters, and they all had the same goals, to win tournaments and matches, and to seize the title of World Champion.
Could titles be a form of unnecessary affectation in the chess world?
Titles in practice give an advantage to their owners; they get more tournament invitations. Yet it does not mean that an untitled player is necessarily any weaker than a titled one.
The above could have practical consequences. When the Soviet Union was collapsing or had just collapsed, international chess tournaments in the United States and Western Europe were suddenly flooded by untitled or “under titled” chess players from the Soviet Union (and probably underrated by the Elo rating system as well), who in actuality were of GM caliber. Must have caused a surprise at first. I realized then that a non-titled player may be stronger than a titled one.
To put it in another way, suppose we just erase all chess titles in one blow. Would it affect the quality and beauty of chess games, the organization of chess tournaments, and the pursuit of the World Title in the World Championship cycle?
I think everything will continue just as before. Just as in the times before 1950, when FIDE officially began awarding GM titles.
What about: titles matter to players because it means they’ve proven themselves?
While I am not disputing this, it’s also true that some who have also proven themselves have historically never been awarded the GM title, or ended their lives untitled or under titled.
In some cases, it’s also true that an untitled, or under titled player, is stronger than some titled ones, as elaborated in my post above. The situation in the end-of-days Soviet Union chess community might to a certain extent apply to present-day East Asia. There could be many GM-caliber chess players who for lack of international exposure are untitled or under titled.
FIDE titles are here to stay. I don’t particularly mind their existence one way or the other, but I believe chess fans should not place too great an emphasis on them. I have similar views on Elo ratings.
One must keep in mind that Elo ratings are just short-term descriptors and predictors for players’ performances in the same quasi-equilibrium groups (in the same space and time). Thus, one can’t accurately compare Elo performances from past periods (which belong to different quasi-equilibrium groups) to the present, or for that matter to other different time periods.
Thus, stats which seem to compare Elo performances from different time periods, if I may politely say so, are a bit misleading.
If one really wants to compare players’ strength even from different time periods, one must settle down to the grueling task of analyzing their games, ideally with computers. And compare the computers’ evaluations for different players’ games.
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A previous post of mine:
On ratings:
Elo ratings reflect relative and not absolute chess strength.
Chess players are naturally arranged in populations partitioned by geopolitical regions and time periods that have infrequent contacts with one another. Within such a population, players get to play each other more frequently, thus forming a quasi-equilibrium group wherein individual ratings would tend to equilibrate quickly; but not with outside groups.
With caveats and in the proper context, FIDE/Elo ratings are simply fallible descriptors and predictors of an active player’s near-past and near-future performances against other rated players, and only within the same quasi-equilibrium group.
As corollaries: the best way to evaluate a player’s strength is to analyze his games and not his ratings; one cannot use ratings to accurately compare the quality of play of players from the past and present, or even the same player a decade ago and today; and care should be taken in the use of ratings as a criterion in choosing which players to seed into the upper levels of the World Championship cycle.
All the above often entail comparisons between players from different quasi-equilibrium groups separated by space and/or time.
Regarding inflation deniers, they imply that Elo ratings reflect absolute and not relative chess strength. Professor Elo himself would condemn their view.
If the top 20 players were to suffer a serious brain injury and begin playing like patzers, but play no one else for the next decade, they would more or less retain their 2700s ratings, although they would be playing terrible patzerish chess. (Send comments and suggestions to mabuhibisaya2017@gmail.com)/PN
