What is a grandmaster?
By Errol Tiwari May 3, 2009
Chess (with Errol Tiwari)
Stabroek News
What is a grandmaster? Where did the term ‘grandmaster’ come from? In 1914, Nicholas II, Czar of all the Russias, was host to a great chess tournament organised by the St Petersburg Chess Society. The Czar himself subscribed 1000 roubles towards the prize fund. That may have been a factor in inducing Emmanuel Lasker to participate − his first tournament appearance since 1909. The world’s most important players took part.
There was the Cuban José Raul Capablanca, who only a few years previously had made a spectacular entry into international chess, winning the strong San Sebastian Tournament in 1911. Akiba Rubinstein was there. Rubinstein was the end-game artist, the quiet man from the Polish ghetto who had won five successive tournaments and who − many thought − was the strongest player then alive. Frank Marshall, the romantic throwback from America, was on hand. So were Latvia’s Aron Nimzovich, Germany’s Siegbert Tarrasch and Joseph Henry Blackburne, the feared attacking player from England. David Janowski represented the French and Ossip Bernstein and the young Alexander Alekhine, both from Russia, upheld the national pride.
Lasker won the tournament, coming in half a point over Capablanca. The brilliant Cuban was in the lead until the eighteenth of the twenty-one rounds. But he lost to Lasker, and that demoralized him. He blundered away a won position against Tarrasch in the following round, giving Lasker the lead. With that went his chances. Alekhine surprised everybody by coming in third, followed by Tarrasch and Marshall. At the banquet concluding the match, the Czar named those five players ‘Grandmasters of Chess.’ Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall are the original grandmasters.
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Fischer’s the greatest.
The term grandmaster rings of the supremely best in any field. Once there were 5 grandmasters, and that’s about right. Now there are nearly a thousand and it has lost its grandness. I wish there was some way for chess to take the term back and redefine it: perhaps it should go only to players who were ranked in the top five in the world for at least a six-month period. We could have the titles grandmaster, master, expert, do away with the rest of the alphabest soup, and the titles would mean so much more. It will never happen, of course, and I think that’s too bad.