MARK RUBERY CHESS
The term ‘ grandmaster’ can be traced back to the first half of the nineteenth century and the tournaments of Ostend 1907 and San Sabastian 1912 were designated grandmaster events. A player who was to challenge for the world championship was often described as a grandmaster. The title got its royal blessing when the grandmaster title was conferred by Tsar Nicholas II upon Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall for being the finalists at St Petersburg, 1914. However, the following article in the 1940 June edition of ‘ The New Yorker’ magazine by Robert Lewis Taylor ( unearthed by the relentless Edward Winter) dilutes this accolade:
‘ A grandmaster is a master who has either won, placed, or showed in a major tournament or been named a Grand Master by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The Tsar, it seems, was a rather arbitrary chess fan who watching matches, and when he saw a player he liked the looks of, he just slapped the title on him.’
In 1950 FIDE introduced the formal title of International Grandmaster followed soon after by the title of International Master and in 1978 the lowest ranking title that of FIDE Master
Grandmaster, International Master, and FIDE Master are open to both men and women. In 1978, Women’s World Champion Nona Gaprindashvili became the first woman to receive the GM title, by a special decision of FIDE. The first woman to qualify for the men’s title through achievement in tournament play was Judit Polgar’s oldest sister, Susan Polgar in 1991. Since about 2000, most of the top 10 women have held the GM title. A separate gender- segregated title, Woman Grandmaster ( WGM), is also available. It is awarded to women who attain a level of skill between that of a Fide Master and an International Master.
The tail end of a sparkling study from Mitrofanov.
WHITE TO PLAY AND WIN
1966) Mitrofanov, L ( wins c7! 5 Bxa7 Ka6 4 Qxg5+ Qg5!! 3 Qxh5+ dxc6 2 Nc6+ a7 1 “In October 2018, Polar, a U. S.- based company that tracks heart rates, monitored chess players during a tournament and found that 21- year- old Russian grandmaster Mikhail Antipov had burned 560 calories in two hours of sitting and playing chess -- or roughly what Roger Federer would burn in an hour of singles tennis.”