The members of the chess elite are known as grandmasters, having earned various norms through excellent performances against elite-level opposition. These players are the best of the best, but nowadays, even an unofficial “super-grandmaster” class has emerged. Grandmasters exist in all different stripes, from 12-year-old prodigies to seniors, but one thing is in common: they are all amazing chess players.
The grandmaster title is the highest achievable official title by a chess player (apart from winning the world championship.) To get it, players need to reach a rating over 2500 and achieve three “norms” by scoring a performance rating of 2600 in a high-level tournament. The event needs to be at least nine rounds long, at least a third of your opponents need to be grandmasters, and half of them need to have some sort of a title. There are also other caveats related to federations and exceptions relating to one weak opponent. The stronger your opposition, the fewer points you need to score to earn a norm: against a field with an average rating of 2380-2433, you’d need a whopping seven, but if your opponents are all above 2680 ELO, even 3.5 will suffice.
Only a select few accomplish this feat. According to FIDE’s rankings list as of October 2022, there are 1770 grandmasters in the world, featuring players from all around the world. Overall, the chess federation has issued 1995 titles at the time of writing, with three further ones (Alexandru Crisan, Gaioz Nigalidze, and Igors Rausis) revoked for ethical reasons.
Grandmasters come in all shapes and forms, but there’s a clear trend of players earning the title at a younger and younger age. Teenager grandmasters are now quite common in the chess world, with some of the world record holders earning their titles at the age of 12.
Until recently, Yuri Averbakh was the oldest chess grandmaster, but he passed away on May 7, 2022, aged 100. This made him the first centenarian GM in chess history, and he was still continuing his chess-related activities at the time. Currently, 1955-born Aleksandar Matanović is the oldest living chess grandmaster, though he hasn’t been active over the board in the past decade.
As the number of grandmasters continues to grow, a new, informal term has emerged to differentiate the best of the best from the rest: super-Grandmasters, players who managed to cross the 2700 rating barrier.
