Looking through a recent issue of British Chess Magazine, I saw a report on the the 40th Biel International, which was won by Magnus Carlsen and Alexander Onischuk. Biel has always been one of the worlds leading tournaments, and this years field included Judith Polgar, Grischuk and Radjabov, but the fact that this event was a Category 18 (on the old FIDE Category scale) astonished me.
Just for comparison both AVRO (1938) and the 1948 World Championship Tournament were only Category 17, the St Petersburg Final (1914) was a Category 16, and Montreal 1979 (won by Karpov and Tal) was a Category 15.
Clearly the increase in modern tournament "strength" is caused by inflationary pressures in the FIDE Ratings System, but I'm not one to call for current ratings (including my own) to be cut. Instead I would be interested to see if it is possible to run the ratings system backwards to see if the "Category" of these past events could be expressed in todays ratings (like box office receipts for "Gone with the Wind").
An nice summer exercise if the data is readily available.
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3 comments:
the bulging top end can be explained otherwise.
First assume there has been no inflation.
Second look at chess as a sport. As with all sports in the affluence of the late 20th century (and now,) professionalism has increased the quality and quantity of the elites.
Since chess ratings are a unitless relative measure, you would expect a a bulge to appear at the top end.
When world class players such as Portisch reach their peak rating at age 50 or thereabouts, you know that there has been significant inflation in the system.
Fair enough, the Portisch case might be an example of inflation OTOH he could be a late bloomer. Or computers have patched the holes in his openings and the openings of other older players.
I do not say you are wrong, just that with a sample of one, you have not (yet) built a compelling argument. There may well be inflation but what is required to determine its rate it a standard candle for the stella players.
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