Here's some interesting data:

In 1996, there were 591 GMs 
 
2001:  768 GMs 
 
2005:  959 GMs 
and IMs:  2596. 
 
Make of those figures what you will. 
 
 
 
Source: 
http://www.angelfire.com/nf/chess/facts.html ;

Maybe there has been an explosion of titles after all?

Greetings,

IMJohnCox  
As a life-long d-pawn player, I'm enjoying both of your recent d-pawn books! Thank you for writing them!  

Smyslov-Fan
Thank you for the - on the whole - positive "review" of my post.  

However, I may have caused some minor confusion in my use of the term "professional".  

I didn't mean it in terms of "earning a living" but rather in how regularly a person plays. Granted, those playing regularly in graded tournaments will, most likely, be earning some form of living from doing so.  

However, I was thinking more in terms of those who are assiduously improving their ratings on the way to becoming World Champion. The "serious" chess players!

The percentiles, as quoted, should have been accompanied with the appropriate titles.

When I posted that, it was 3am and I was too lazy (tired!) to be bothered checking the FIDE website for the appropriate titles/ratings.

Let me try afresh:

80% = 2240 (NM)
85% = 2380 (IM?)
90% = 2520 (FM?)
95% = 2660 (GM)
98% = 2744

Having checked the site, I'm not altogether certain how the FM and IM titles rank - which is "higher"?  

My approach may have been somewhat naive - statistically, at least. I wasn't trying to recreate the population curve from the current highest rating.

My basic idea in the use of percentiles was to make it easier to work-out suitable thresholds for titles in a dynamically-changing environment.

(In time - how long, I'm not certain! - people will pass the 3000-mark and keep on going. )

You'll note that the 95-percentile roughly matches the current GM threshold, although it moves it upward - which is what some have suggested.  

More importantly, when I originally wrote the above, I had it in mind that the 98-percentile is the elite group in which you would find the current Champion and most likely Challenger(s).

(Not intended as a threshold for a new "title".)

As an aside, as you clearly are statistically-minded, perhaps you could cross-check all the previous World Champions' ratings at the time they were playing a Challenger - I think you'd find that they would both be within this percentile compared with the contemporary highest rating.

Kindest regards,

James

The separate thread can be found at: 

http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1152820305 ;

I've asked for chatters to follow some ground rules there.  However, I hope it will become a home to such discussions as the supply/demand curve and how changes in the factors of supply will create entirely new supply curves.   

Ok, so maybe we won't get into that sort of esoteric discussion.

Maybe we'll discuss education and other topics of interest!

Inflationary pressures have... (maybe I don't want to open that can of worms).  

So many things have been devalued over the years.  Today's college degree (I mean bachelor's, not Masters or Ph.D.) is like yesterday's high school diploma.  And today's high school diploma - uggh, let's not even go there!  

Like it or not, these are just typical (economic?) trends.  If something is done to deal with the (perceived?) devaluing of the GM title, we'll be facing a similar problem in the near future (Well, hopefully! If our current implementation of FIDE doesn't manage to do the damage that some fear it is capable of.)

Any fixes (which nobody can agree upon anyway!) are only temporary.  

Sure, more or less anyone can make a living chess coaching if they have the right non-chess abilities. But what does that have to do with the subject under discussion?

Alumbrado, 

I appreciate that you are aware of economic terminology, but I fear that our conversation is a bit outside the interest of most of the posters.  I suggest we continue that part of the discussion in private messages so that we can come to some sort of agreement/disagreement.  Your points about supply and demand are interesting but to discuss it further here would probably just clog the arteries of the system.

Keano and all, 

I don't consider myself a chess professional, yet I make a fair part-time wage as a chess coach and competitive summer player.  Here in America, anyone over 2200 USCF and some below that mark can make chess a profession if he or she is creative enough.  This may not be true in other places, but in order to reach even 2200 most people have to devote themselves to chess on a full-time basis at some point.  Those two points together make a pretty good definition for professional.

I grant you that in order to make a living that will include supporting a family probably requires a rating over about 2400 and a willingness to travel.  There are chess professionals who do the circuit just as there are tennis professionals who play in tournament after tournament.  However, there are also tennis professionals who stay home and give lessons.  Sadly for their chess counterparts, that second branch of tennis professional is both more socially acceptable and financially better off.   

For population and rating purposes, I'll stick with my original guess that the average FIDE member is rated around 2200 elo  and use that as the threshhold for professionalism.

OstapBender wrote on 07/13/06 at 15:10:42:

Nah just work with coloured belts as in Karate and Judo
Black belt would mean having won Linares or Hoogovens