Sunday 27 January 2013

Super-FM?

The description of a player as a "Super GM" seems to have fallen by the wayside in recent years. There was a time when it was commonly applied to any GM rated above 2600, but that was when there were only about 10 2600+ GM's in the World. I've occasionally seen it applied to 2700+ GM's recently, but even then the expression "member of the 2700 club" is more commonly used.
Obviously the term "Super GM" was intended to differentiate the top GM's from the rest of the GM population, but why not "Super IM" or "Super FM". Given the vast number of FM's and IM's, how would you separate them from their colleagues. For IM's would you consider someone with enough GM norms but not the 2500+ rating better or worse than someone with the 2500+ rating nut not the norms? For FM's would players who received the title for a 2300+ rating always be superior to players who earned the title via the Zonal (or in my case, the Olympiad)?
As always, thoughts and comments welcome.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm all in favour! Super-wfm heligan!

Anonymous said...

i would say top 20 is super GM.
2700 is not enough since world number 48 is 2700+
Ivanchuk and Grischuk are between 10 and 20 and they are elite players.They are at times in top 10.