A player who has proved their strength at international level - not once, and not against random opponents. The proof has two parts, and both are required.
One consequence often surprises people: a grandmaster may have a rating below 2500. The rating moves after every tournament while the title stays. Someone who made the norm at twenty is still a grandmaster at seventy.
How norms work, what is required of a tournament and why such events are assembled deliberately - FIDE titles and norms.
FIDE has several titles and they form a ladder. The gap between neighbouring steps is a hundred rating points and the number of norms.
| Title | Short | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| International grandmaster | GM | 2500 |
| International master | IM | 2400 |
| FIDE master | FM | 2300 |
| Candidate master | CM | 2200 |
A hundred rating points looks like a small gap, but at this level it means that over ten games the stronger player scores about one and a half points more on average. The distance between master and grandmaster is years of work, not a good month.
There are separate women's titles as well - WGM, WIM, WFM, with requirements 200 points lower. A woman can also earn the open titles on the same terms as anyone else, and women grandmasters hold exactly the GM title. In detail - women's chess titles.
Many countries have their own system of sporting ranks and titles, and the word grandmaster turns up there too. Russia is one example: the title "grandmaster of Russia" is awarded by the ministry of sport on the federation's recommendation, has its own requirements and applies inside the country.
This causes a fair amount of confusion. When a news item says "a grandmaster from Kazan" it almost always means the international title; "fulfilled the norm for grandmaster of Russia" means the national one. The Russian ranks from the third junior category up to master of sport are covered separately - Russian chess categories.
One more related word is super grandmaster. It is not a title but an informal label for players rated above 2700; FIDE documents do not contain it.
Grandmaster comes from the German Großmeister, "great master" - the head of a knightly order. The word carried that meaning long before it reached chess.
In chess it was used informally at first, for winners of major tournaments. It became an official title in 1950, when FIDE awarded it to a first list of players - among them Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Paul Keres and Salo Flohr, the strongest players of the day.
Outside chess the word lives its own life: draughts players, go players and anyone very good at anything get called grandmasters. None of that has any connection to the chess title.
What the title does not come with is a salary. A chess income is built from prize money, coaching, appearances and club contracts, and for most grandmasters the main earnings are coaching rather than tournaments.
And one more thing: a grandmaster beats an amateur not by seeing twenty moves ahead but by recognising familiar positions instantly and not making crude mistakes. The gap in raw calculation is smaller than people assume.
The holder of the highest FIDE title, awarded for life. It requires a 2500 rating reached at least once and three grandmaster norms - results in tournaments with a strong field. The full name is international grandmaster, written GM.
2500 in classical chess, and reaching that mark once is enough. On top of that you need three norms in tournaments where a large share of the field is titled. Rating alone, without norms, does not do it.
Yes, and it is common. The rating moves after every tournament while the title is granted for life and never withdrawn. A player who made the norm at twenty is still a grandmaster at seventy.
By one step: the international master's rating threshold is 2400 against 2500, with its own norms. A hundred points at this level means the stronger player scores about one and a half points more over ten games.
No. The international title is awarded by FIDE, a national one by a country's sports authority on the federation's recommendation, and the requirements differ. News reports frequently mix the two up.
An informal word for players rated above 2700. No such official title exists and FIDE documents do not mention it.
From the German Großmeister, “great master” - originally the head of a knightly order. It became an official chess title in 1950, when FIDE awarded it to its first list of players.
Everything people usually keep in a spreadsheet is already in the app: pairings, points, tie-breaks, round order. Free, with no subscriptions and no cap on the number of players.
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The full table of titles and norms - FIDE titles. National ranks - chess categories. Women's titles - WGM, WIM, WFM. What a rating is - the Elo rating.
At the board since childhood: hazy about his rating, precise about every rook he has blundered. Counts an evening as a good one if the opponent stayed to talk afterwards instead of rushing off to check with an engine. Message →
