Editing Grandmaster (chess) (section)

===Official status (1950 onwards)===
[[File:Akiba-RubinsteinC.jpg|thumb|upright=0.90|[[Akiba Rubinstein]] (1880–1961)]]
In 1950 [[FIDE]] created the titles of Grandmaster (GM), International Master (IM) and Woman Master (WM, later known as Woman International Master or WIM). The grandmaster title is sometimes called "International Grandmaster" (IGM), possibly to distinguish it from similar national titles, but the shortened form is far more common today.

Titles were awarded by a resolution of the FIDE General Assembly and the Qualification Committee, with no formal written criteria. FIDE first awarded the Grandmaster title in 1950 to 27 players. These players were:
* The top players of the day: world champion [[Mikhail Botvinnik]], and those who had qualified for (or been seeded into) the inaugural [[Candidates Tournament]] in 1950: [[Isaac Boleslavsky]], [[Igor Bondarevsky]], [[David Bronstein]], [[Max Euwe]], [[Reuben Fine]], [[Salo Flohr]], [[Paul Keres]], [[Alexander Kotov]], [[Andor Lilienthal]], [[Miguel Najdorf]], [[Samuel Reshevsky]], [[Vasily Smyslov]], [[Gideon Ståhlberg]], and [[László Szabó (chess player)|László Szabó]].
* Players still living who, though past their best in 1950, were recognised as having been world class when at their peak: [[Ossip Bernstein]], [[Oldřich Duras]], [[Ernst Grünfeld]], [[Boris Kostić]], [[Grigory Levenfish]], [[Géza Maróczy]], [[Jacques Mieses]], [[Viacheslav Ragozin]], [[Akiba Rubinstein]], [[Friedrich Sämisch]], [[Savielly Tartakower]], and [[Milan Vidmar]].

Since FIDE did not award the Grandmaster title posthumously, world-class players who died prior to 1950, including World Champions [[Wilhelm Steinitz|Steinitz]], Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine, never received the title.<ref>{{citation |last=Elo |first=Arpad |author-link=Arpad Elo |title=The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present |year=1978 |publisher=Arco |page=66 |isbn=978-0-668-04721-0 }}</ref> A few strong still living players such as British India's [[Mir Sultan Khan]], Germany's [[Paul Lipke]] and France's [[Eugene Znosko-Borovsky]] were not awarded titles. Sultan Khan was awarded the GM title posthumously in 2024.

====1953 regulations====
[[File:Jacques Mieses (monochrome).jpg|thumb|upright=0.90|[[Jacques Mieses]] (1865–1954), one of the first [[FIDE]] Grandmasters]]
Title awards under the original regulations were subject to political concerns. [[Efim Bogoljubow]], who had emigrated from the Soviet Union to Germany, was not entered in the first class of Grandmasters, even though he had played two matches for the [[World Chess Championship|World Championship]] with Alekhine. He received the title in 1951, by a vote of thirteen to eight with five abstentions. [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] supported his application, but all other [[Communist]] countries opposed it. In 1953, FIDE abolished the old regulations, although a provision was maintained that allowed older masters who had been overlooked to be awarded titles. The new regulations awarded the title of International Grandmaster of the FIDE to players meeting any of the following criteria:<ref name="Harkness1956">{{citation |last=Harkness |first=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Harkness |year=1956 |title=The Official Blue Book and Encyclopedia of Chess |publisher=David McKay Company |pages=332–336 |oclc=1578704 |lccn=56014153}}</ref>
# The world champion.
# Masters who have the absolute right to play in the World Championship [[Candidates Tournament]], or any player who replaces an absent contestant and earns at least a 50 percent score.
# The winner of an international tournament meeting specified standards, and any player placing second in two such tournaments within a span of four years. The tournament must be at least eleven rounds with seven or more players, 80 percent or more being International Grandmasters or [[International Master]]s. Additionally, 30 percent of the players must be Grandmasters who have the absolute right to play in the next World Championship Candidates Tournament, or who have played in such a tournament in the previous ten years.
# A player who demonstrates ability manifestly equal to that of (3) above in an international tournament or match. Such titles must be approved by the Qualification Committee with the support of at least five members.

====1957 regulations====
After FIDE issued the 1953 title regulations, it was recognized that they were somewhat haphazard, and work began to revise the regulations. The FIDE Congress in Vienna in 1957 adopted new regulations, called the FAV system, in recognition of the work done by [[International Arbiter|International Judge]] Giovanni Ferrantes (Italy), Alexander (probably [[Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander]]), and Giancarlo Dal Verme (Italy). Under the 1957 regulations, the title of International Grandmaster of the FIDE was automatically awarded to:
# The world champion.
# Any player qualifying from the [[Interzonal]] tournament to play in the Candidates Tournament, even if he did not play in the Candidates for any reason.
# Any player who would qualify from the Interzonal to play in the Candidates but who was excluded because of a limitation on the number of participants from his Federation.
# Any player who actually plays in a Candidates Tournament and scores at least 33⅓ percent.
The regulations also allowed titles to be awarded by a FIDE Congress on recommendation by the Qualification Committee. Recommendations were based on performance in qualifying tournaments, with the required score depending on the percentage of Grandmasters and International Masters in the tournament.<ref name="Harkness1967">{{citation |last=Harkness |first=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Harkness |year=1967 |title=Official Chess Handbook |publisher=David McKay Company |pages=211–214 |lccn=66013085 |oclc=728637}}</ref>

====1965 regulations====
Concerns were raised that the 1957 regulations were too lax. At the FIDE Congress in 1961, GM [[Milan Vidmar]] said that the regulations "made it possible to award international titles to players without sufficient merit". At the 1964 Congress in [[Tel Aviv]], a subcommittee was formed to propose changes to the regulations. The subcommittee recommended that the automatic award of titles be abolished, criticized the methods used for awarding titles based on qualifying performances, and called for a change in the makeup of the Qualification Committee. Several delegates supported the subcommittee recommendations, including GM [[Miguel Najdorf]] who felt that existing regulations were leading to an inflation of international titles.<ref name="Harkness1967"/> At the 1965 Congress in [[Wiesbaden]] FIDE raised the standards required for international titles. The International Grandmaster title regulations were:
* 1. Any World Champion is automatically awarded the GM title
* 2a. Anyone who scores at least 40 percent in a quarter-final match in the Candidates Tournament
* 2b. Scores at least the number of points in a tournament corresponding to the total of a 55 percent score against Grandmasters plus 75 percent against [[International Masters]] (IM) plus 85 percent against other players (a GM "[[Norm (chess)|norm]]").

To fulfill requirement 2b, the candidate must score one GM norm in a category 1a tournament or two norms within a three-year period in two Category 1b tournaments, or one Category 2a tournament and one Category 1b tournament.

The categories of tournaments are:
* 1a—at least sixteen players, at least 50 percent are GMs and 70 percent at least IMs
* 1b—at least twelve players, at least 33⅓ percent GMs and 70 percent IMs
* 2a—at least fifteen players, at least 50 percent IMs
* 2b—ten to fourteen players, at least 50 percent IMs.
Since FIDE titles are for life, a GM or IM does not count for the purposes of this requirement if he had not had a GM or IM result in the five years prior to the tournament.

In addition, no more than 50 percent plus one of the players can be from the same country for tournaments of 10 to 12 players, or no more than 50 percent plus two for larger tournaments.

Seventy-four GM titles were awarded in 1951 through 1968. During that period, ten GM titles were awarded in 1965, but only one in 1966 and in 1968.<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sunnucks|1970|pp=224–226}}</ref>

====1970 regulations====

The modern system for awarding [[FIDE]] titles evolved from the "Dorazil" proposals, presented to the [[19th Chess Olympiad|1970 Siegen Chess Olympiad]] FIDE Congress. The proposals were put together by Wilfried Dorazil (then FIDE Vice-President) and fellow Committee members Grandmaster [[Svetozar Gligorić]] and Professor [[Arpad Elo]]. The recommendations of the Committee report were adopted in full.<ref name="Siegen Chess Olympiad">{{citation |last1=Keene |first1=Raymond |author1-link=Raymond Keene |last2=Levy |first2=David |author2-link=David Levy (chess player) |year=1970 |title=Siegen Chess Olympiad |edition=1 |publisher=Chess Ltd, Sutton Coldfield |pages=238–240}}</ref>

In essence, the proposals built on the work done by Professor Elo in devising his [[Elo rating]] system. The establishment of an updated list of players and their Elo rating enabled significantly strong international chess tournaments to be allocated a ''Category'', based on the average rating of the contestants. For instance, it was decided that 'Category 1' status would apply to tournaments with an average Elo rating of participants falling within the range 2251–2275; similarly Category 2 would apply to the range 2276–2300 etc. The higher the tournament Category, the stronger the tournament.

Another vital component involved the setting of meritorious [[Norm (chess)|norms]] for each Category of tournament. Players must meet or surpass the relevant score to demonstrate that they had performed at Grandmaster (GM) or International Master (IM) level. Scores were expressed as percentages of a perfect maximum score and decreased as the tournament Category increased, thereby reflecting the strength of a player's opposition and the relative difficulty of the task.

Tournament organisers could then apply the percentages to their own tournament format and declare in advance the actual score that participants must achieve to attain a GM or IM result (nowadays referred to as a [[Grandmaster norm|norm]]).

{|
|-
| valign="top" |
:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Cat. !! Avg. Elo !! Score (GM) !! Score (IM)
|-
|| 1 || 2251–2275 || 85% || 76%
|-
|| 2 || 2276–2300 || 83% || 73%
|-
|| 3 || 2301–2325 || 81% || 70%
|-
|| 4 || 2326–2350 || 78% || 67%
|-
|| 5 || 2351–2375 || 76% || 64%
|}
| valign="top" |
:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Cat. !! Avg. Elo !! Score (GM) !! Score (IM)
|-
|| 6 || 2376–2400 || 73% || 60%
|-
|| 7 || 2401–2425 || 70% || 57%
|-
|| 8 || 2426–2450 || 67% || 53%
|-
|| 9 || 2451–2475 || 64% || 50%
|-
|| 10 || 2476–2500 || 60% || 47%
|}
| valign="top" |
:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Cat. !! Avg. Elo !! Score (GM) !! Score (IM)
|-
|| 11 || 2501–2525 || 57% || 43%
|-
|| 12 || 2526–2550 || 53% || 40%
|-
|| 13 || 2551–2575 || 50% || 36%
|-
|| 14 || 2576–2600 || 47% || 33%
|-
|| 15 || 2601–2625 || 43% || 30%
|}
|}

To qualify for the Grandmaster title, a player needed to achieve three such GM results within a rolling period of three years. Exceptionally, if a player's contributory games totalled 30 or more, then the title could be awarded on the basis of two such results. There were also circumstances where the system could be adapted to fit team events and other competitions.

The full proposals included many other rules and regulations, covering such topics as:
* Eligible tournament formats
* Eligible participants
* Unrated participants
* Registration of tournaments with FIDE
* Calculations, including the handling of fractions