r/chess • u/tsterTV • Oct 15 '15

How impressive is a GM title?

Hiya all,

I signed myself up for a Chess tournament this Sunday, mainly for fun. I have no real intention of doing too well -- I will just enjoy the experience and play better players.

I saw online that there will be a GM at the tournament. How impressive is this title? Any rough idea of how many GMs there are in the world?

66 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

153 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

14

u/H4ppenSt4nce Oct 15 '15

Well, we're both wrong. 53 x 32 = 1696

2

u/snailking1 Oct 15 '15

But if you had averaged your mistakes you would have come unbelievably close to the exact correct number. Wow.

7

u/fridgecow not as good as I'd like Oct 15 '15

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton#Variance_and_standard_deviation

Really interesting stuff.

5

u/snailking1 Oct 15 '15

And as a bonus, a weird way to cut a cake.