Chess by the Numbers

@EnronCompliance @ChessvisionAI I'll bite, I would love to hear an argument that Keymer had a better 2025 than Pragg

@ChessvisionAI Keymer had arguably the best 2025 of any player and was still excluded.

*every single Candidates* we miss at least 2-3 absolutely top players who everyone would LOVE to see, e.g. Nodirbek, Alireza, Keymer this year Having "wildcards" is very nice so players who qualify by are not at the top of the rating list e.g. Esipenko, Blubaum, but having only one spot from the rating list is bonkers

@mcelsouza @MehmetMars7 Surprisingly Judit didn't hit top 50 until she was 16 (although she hit #55 at age 12) and when Fischer was that age, the rating system wasn't actually established yet.

@MehmetMars7 Fischer or Judit didnt was in top 50 at 14 also?

Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus's remarkable records: 🥇Highest rated U13 🥇Highest rated U15 🥇Youngest player ever to reach 2600 🥇Youngest player ever to enter top 50 🥇What's next? Reaching the top 50 at just 14 is nothing short of astonishing & may be the most unbreakable of them all

@OnTheQueenside Just to confirm for the broader audience, your use of the qualifier "non-provisionally" here means outside of the player's first 30 rated games, yes? Because 30 games played is (currently) a requirement for FM title eligibility?

Congrats to 11-year-old Charvi Anilkumar on becoming the 2nd-youngest girl ever to cross 2300 Elo and earn the FM title! 🇮🇳😀 Only Judit Polgar did it non-provisionally at a younger age! 🤯 📷: Patricia Claros Aguilar

This month's Prodigy Watch update is live: chess.com/article/view/c… Welcome Charvi Anilkumar not only to the top 5 of the girls list but also to the open top-100 list! (And she's already gained 46 more live rating points on top of the published rating I use here)

@undertherainx My data structure is a database, so I have players and their birthdays in one table and published ratings by player and date in another, and can query ratings by age in various ways from that. Don't have a way to just share it all but I could put together a few reports.

@ChessNumbers I would love to have the data if you already compiled the data of peak rating of each age (10 to 21) for older players.

Over a decade ago I wrote a ton about Wei Yi in the early days of my then-new chess stats blog and early iterations of Prodigy Watch. It's incredibly exciting that I'll finally get to see him in a Candidates tournament! While I'm a fan of many Candidates, I'll root most for him.

@undertherainx Yeah, e.g. Judit Polgar is the highest rated player ever, prior to the (cherry-picked) age of 12.45, but on the "highest before turning 12.44" list she's 46th Of course that's looking at just before and just after publishing her 190 point rating gain (over 6 months)

@ChessNumbers And, especially when Fide was updated like twice a year. If Someone born in december 1988. Then I had to use jul 1988 but jan 1989 is more accurate.

@undertherainx My data isn't complete either, but does include deceased (where I've added them). I have every 2700+ ever, and most 2650s, but not down to 2600 in all cases, as I've been careful to only add hand-verified data (since FIDE has some errors now and then) and focused on prodigies.

@ChessNumbers I am still rechecking for errors. But this is a list of how many GMs, how many 2600+, and how many top 100 each years has. Of course, the more recent birth years are dynamic to change. If you search on FIDE, it would look different since they remove deceased players.

@undertherainx I wonder if 2000 might get there. If not Warmerdam, perhaps Theodorou or Puranik could make runs at 2700 over the next decade.

@undertherainx Very interesting how from 85-87 we saw 6+ future 2700+ players born each year for three years straight... and it only happened again once in 1990. Of course those cohorts were age 20-25 when rating inflation peaked so it kinda makes sense.

@undertherainx I'm not fully sure exactly what your question is, and it sounds like it probably needs more characters than Twitter offers. I don't specifically have any era-adjustments built into the formula though. Either for inflation/deflation or for back when lists were published less often

@ChessNumbers I guess I will keep my own record. I wanted to look at the raw data to see how you treat the changes in the frequency in which in the fide rating updated. Every 3 months to monthly for example. Making it not precise to compare from different era.

@undertherainx Prodigy Watch is currently maintained and updated monthly here: chess.com/article/view/c…

@ChessNumbers chessnumbers.wordpress.com/prodigy-watch/ May I have the full data for this.

@SportForesight @ChessbaseIndia Lmao, all that and I forgot Sharjah had 50+ So yeah, he has to keep his Grand Swiss if I'm right, but still he gets to count with world rapid and world blitz.

@ChessNumbers @ChessbaseIndia Yes, These rules needs to be more user friendly. I think rating R&B are part of Standard Tournament. But even if they are not. He already have "Sharjah Masters" which is > 50 Players + Grand Swiss. and still 3 more slots to fill.

Can anyone still catch Pragg in the 2025 FIDE Circuit? Yes — but only with a perfect run. Nodirbek can do it by winning FIDE R&B + London Masters. Vincent and Wesley can do it only if they win: FIDE R&B Register and Win London Open and Rapid. (~20 points) @ChessbaseIndia

@SportForesight @ChessbaseIndia Yeah I'm pretty sure I'm right. Considering that the three official rating lists are technically named "standard, rapid, and blitz" (even though we usually refer to the former as classical) and considering that rapid/blitz events are mentioned as eligible separate from standard.

@SportForesight @ChessbaseIndia That passage defines "standard tournaments" as ones that are fide rated otb "standard-play". Kind of a tautology and not totally clarifying. Is there further clarity of that last clause elsewhere? I interpret it as "standard-play, as opposed to rapid or blitz"

@SportForesight @ChessbaseIndia I understand "standard" to mean "classical" here. So if he's counting 7 events he must either include his Grand Swiss and World Cup scores or play another big classical event. Am I wrong about what FIDE means by "standard"? Can world rapid/blitz count towards 4.2.1?

@ChessNumbers @ChessbaseIndia Only the top 7 scores count. Within those 7, you can include: 5 closed events + 2 Rapid & Blitz Tata : 18.4 Sharjah : 13.8 UzChess: 18.6 London (if he wins): 19.6 + One more closed event to replace a zero-value GCT result FIDE F&B (if he win both) : ~43

@sf9801705496 Yep! Back then if you'd asked me which Chinese player I thought would be in the 2018 Candidates (and/or was most likely to be an eventual world champion) I'd have named the ascendent Wei Yi in a heartbeat as the top contender to do so.

@ChessNumbers I remember Wei Yi beating Ding Liren in that world cup...

@sf9801705496 And this one mostly highlighted Sindarov but called out Wei Yi having a great run in the World Cup as well :) chessnumbers.wordpress.com/2015/09/30/pro…

@sf9801705496 chessnumbers.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/is-… chessnumbers.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/wei…

Credit as well to Sindarov, who was also a regular in my prodigy posts back then. Happy to see him get through too!