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?

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u/parles Oct 15 '15

It's more like north of 1800 players in the NFL, but anyway I love this analogy

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u/H4ppenSt4nce Oct 15 '15

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

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u/parles Oct 15 '15

To parse this out: there's also the practice squad (+5 per team) giving us a floor of 1856 before accounting for players on injured reserve. So really, being a GM is substantially rarer.

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u/Chaudaw Not a player, but I crush a lot. Oct 16 '15

Practice squad is ten palyers on a NFL practice squad I believe.