FIDE Titles

Grandmaster (GM) is the highest, most prestigious international chess title given by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, except for the World Chess Champion title. International Master (IM) is ranked below the Grandmaster and above the FIDE Master (FM). As for 2008, there are around 1,000 active chess Grandmasters, coming from about 80 different countries, with Russia at the top of the list as the country that breed the largest number of Grandmasters.

FIDE Titles History

FIDE first titles were given in 1950, following its 1949 Paris Congress. Back then, the GM title was awarded to the participants of the World Championship Candidates tournaments as well as the top living inactive chess masters. The prominent title was given to 27 chess players, while the inferior yet highly estimated IM title was given to 72 players.

The first attempt to standardize FIDE titles has been made in 1953, and the second and final had occurred in 1957. According to the 1957 regulations also known as the FAV system (after the initials of the three committee judges: Ferrantes, Alexander, and Dal Verme), in order to be awarded FIDE Grandmaster one must either be the World Chess Champion, any player who qualified to play at the Candidates Tournaments (including those who did not carry out the qualification for any reason) or a player who played the Candidates Tournaments and scored 33? percent or more.

Fide titles regulations underwent further changes during the 1965 Congress in Wiesbaden and furthermore in 1970, after FIDE adapted the Elo rating system (named after physicist Arpad Elo) as a method for calculating chess players' level of skill. Presently, a FIDE Grandmaster should have 2500 rating points or more and a FIDE International Master is required a minimum of 2400 rating points.

FIDE Titles Facts

• The youngest chess player to be awarded FIDE Grandmaster is Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, who earned the title five months before his 13th birthday.
• Russia holds the title for the country with the biggest number of FIDE title holders with 184 Grandmasters and 449 International Masters. Ukraine is at number 2 with 69 GMs and 175 IMs, followed by Germany (70 GMs and 195 IMs), the USA (61 GMs and 112 IMs) and Hungary with 40 Grandmasters and 103 International Masters.
• In 1970 there were only 88 Grandmasters; in 2008, FIDE lists 1109 GMs.