There is an interesting report produced by the FIDE Development Commission concerning the number and activity level of chess players in each country. It looks at the number of FIDE rated players, the number of swiss and round robin tournaments, and the number of players who play in different countries.
For example, the number of FIDE rated players has doubled in the 2008-2013 period, with Spain having the greatest number of rated players. (I'm not sure what the cut off date of the report was, as recently it was reported that India is now No. 1). In 2013 France organised the greatest number of Open tournaments (ie Swiss events), while Denmark(!) was number one for round robin events (Australia was 14th). Spain, India and France were close together at the top of the 'most number of games' table, while Ireland clocked up an impressive 30,665 FIDE rated games in 2013. Germany seem to produce the greatest number of chess 'tourists' (ie playing in another country) while France attracted the most visitors. The author of the study, Martin Huba, even compared the inflow and outflow of players to come up with a kind of 'balance of trade' figure. He gave Slovenia as an example of a country that sends more players across the borders, than takes them in, leaving a chess player 'deficit'.
The full story can be found on the FIDE website or at this link.
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4 comments:
The figures for Ireland must be wrong as they only have something like 200 active rated players. I think it will have been Israel or at a pinch Iceland.
Alas, Anonymous is correct. I wish we collectively played more rated games than all the chess players of England, but unfortunately that aint the case. That does raise the question of how many of the other figures are also pure fantasy, or cases of mistaken identity.
Its an interesting statistic, but also somewhat unsurprising. In the age of globalization, of course you are going to see chess players move from country to country.
Denmark as number one for the round robin events... In Denmark people more or less only come to the chessclub - eg every monday - in order to play a tournament game. Typically the club championship is decided by a (long) round rubin tournament which now will be ELO-rated. It can also be held in smaller groups eg, group 1, group 2, etc.
Best Wishes
Henrik Mortensen
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