I've just had a look at the FIDE website, and looking at the country statistics, counting up all the Grandmasters, there's 1109!

Over 1000 Grandmasters? I thought they were meant to be the best of the best? It seems like there's too many now, so does anyone here think that the bar for being a grandmaster should be higher? Or should there be another category like SG? Have a guess what that means.

Question:
Are there too many Grandmasters?

Choices:
Yes, set the bar higher.
Yes, make another category.
No, 1109 isn't actually that many.

 

For anyone wondering what "SG" would stand for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Grandmaster#...uper-grandmasters.22

Also look on that link in the "Title Inflation" section to see why there are so many Grandmasters now in comparison to before.

Long time ago we discused this topic. The conclusion was that these days the GM title only indicates "professional chess player", nothing more. And even with that, only the top GMs can make a living solely from prize money, all others have to do lectures, write books and articles etc.
The reason why there are so many GMs is that the title is for life, no matter what your strength of play is. To become a GM you have to get 3 GM norms (basically you have to make a good performance against other GMs). So its logical that there are more and more GMs. And the number is incresing quickly. A year and a half, or maybe two years ago when we discussed this, there were a little less than 1000 GMs

Wow, I can't believe SG actually means something for real. I made it up! At least I thought I did :S

And I'm not sure that GM means professional, as I know David Howell and he's certainly not a pro, he's still at College! He's just really good.

Carlsen and Karjakin are also still in school, but when they will finish it they wont get a job. They will concentrate on chess and make a living out of it. I didn't say that GM means professional chess player, but that the title indicates that the persons main ocupation is chess - he lives from it.