Tuesday, February 3, 2015

"For the First Time in 3000 Years"...

Credit: the tournament's web site.


In February, Jerusalem is supposed to host the 2015 European Individual Chess Championship. Yochanan Afek's Facebook page calls the event the strongest tournament in Jerusalem in "3000 years".

Afek, of course, knows very well that the game is not nearly that old, but his tongue-in-cheek description is understandable, since the tournament participants list currently has 172(!) titled players (out of 249), of which no less than 115(!!) are GMs.

It is true that the title had suffered significant inflation (from 50 GMs in 1957 to over 1000 today) but nevertheless having over 100 GMs in one tournament is a very significant achievement. Does anybody know what the record for the number of GMs in an individuals' (as oppose to team events like the Olympiad) tournament?

No comments:

Post a Comment