#Chess rankings full#
#Chess rankings download#

50 years ago, as openings analysis was limited, players depended on attacking and pressuring the opponent, whereas nowadays players have many resources( thanks to engines ), and attacking is very dangerous. Imagine having to learn Russian to learn about your favorite opening.īut it is important to note that playing styles have also evolved. And players had to read books and analyze on their own. Nowadays, openings are spoon-fed and many references are available whereas those days every day you get someone playing novelties. With the evolution of computers, it is very plausible that a 1700 player now is much stronger than 50 years ago. This is actually a very interesting question! Actually, there were not many 1700 rated players 50 years ago because most ratings started above 2000. But, yes, it does look a bit like rating deflation to me. Players rated above 1700 = 169425 (46.6%)Īgain it looks like it is relatively harder today to get to a higher rating than it was 10 years ago but that might just be a reflection of the expansion in the number of FIDE rated tournaments for lower level players.

If we go back 10 years and compare numbers and percentages (using total rated players) at 1700, 21 we get: And, of course, it doesn't say much about what is happening at the 1700 level.

To me that looks like it is comparatively much harder today to get to GM / elite level than it was 50 years ago but the difference in sample sizes detracts somewhat from the percentages. There are 16 players at or above 2600, 82 at or above 2500 out of 547 at or above 2200. There we can see that the highest rated player, Bobby Fischer, is at 2740, more than 100 points lower than today's number 1, Magnus Carlsen on 2847. The January 1971 list is here on Olimpbase. However we can try and maybe also, more meaningfully compare today with 10 years ago. These data can be downloaded and analyzed to get more meaningful evidence.Ĭomparing today with 1971 is problematic because in 1971 there was a rating floor of 2200 (nobody under 2200 was listed) so there were only 547 players and obviously nobody with a FIDE rating of 1700.

#Chess rankings download#

There is FIDE rating data available going back to 2001 on the download page of the FIDE rating website and back to 1971 (unofficial data back to 1967) on the Olimpbase site. To get a more objective view of whether there has been rating inflation or deflation I think we have to look at historic data. However my single example of personal experience is highly subjective and one case is meaningless.

#Chess rankings full#

Weekend tournaments where large numbers of people played 3 full games a day with a time control of all the moves in 1 hour didn't come in until the mid to late 70's.ĭoes this mean that chess ratings over time have grade deflation?įrom my personal view absolutely, yes. That kind of time control was the norm in England 50 years ago and probably in much of the non-Soviet world. The 17 year old me hardly ever played an endgame and so wasn't that good at endgames. The reason being that in 1973 almost all the chess I played was at a time control of either 30 moves in 75 minutes or 36 in 90 with adjudication after 3 hours play. OK, the me of 2021 is probably not very objective but I am sure that if I managed to reach an even endgame against my 17 year old self I would be a very strong favourite. Speaking as a player who was around 50 years ago and was rated the equivalent of 1800 in 1973 (my BCF grading was 150 with a generally accepted conversion formula of ELO = BCF x 8 + 600) and is rated 1718 today I'm pretty sure I would beat my 17 year old self. around go against a 1700 player of today? How would say a 1700 rated player of say 50 years ago who is no longer.