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Chess Sat, Nov 27, 1971 – 28 · Star-Phoenix (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) · Newspapers.com
Chess: How They Decide Who's Who by Harry Mather
Although perhaps the oldest game on record, chess, on the international scale, is among the most up to date in the matter of rating or grading its players. This fact is illustrated clearly by the recently published international rating list in Canada's official chess magazine, Chess Chat. Individual countries have, for many years, had their own national rating systems in which their own nationals were rated according to playing strength. Some of these used the category system and grouped their players as grandmasters, masters, and experts, etc., while other countries sought to grade their players according to numerical means.
However, during the past two years, the world chess organization agreed on an international scheme, evolved by U.S. statistician Prof. Elo, and the most recent list evaluates the relative strength of about 600 of the world's leading players from the various countries. Like any rating scheme, the method is based on a player's score in tournaments plus the strength of his opposition.
The top 10 are listed below — with nationality and rating in brackets: Fischer (U.S.A. - 2,760); Spassky (USSR - 2,690); Korchnoi (USSR - 2,670). Larsen (Denmark - 2,660); Petrosian and Polugaevsky (USSR) - 2,640); Botvinnik and Portisch (USSR - 2,630); and Smyslov and Tal (USSR) - 2,620).
Canada has eight players internationally listed — the first five being Suttles (2,480), Amos and Yanofsky (2,460), Vrenasic (2,450), and former Saskatonian, Denis Allan, with 2,380.
Rating lists are not confined to the international level, but are carried on down to the duffer class by the various individual countries. Thus, while Canada has only eight players on the international list, it has hundreds of rated players on the national scale.
Saskatchewan has but two players above the 2,000 class; and it is significant that both these players (Henry Andres and Dr. Markov) were co-winners of the Saskatchewan championship held two weeks ago.
So while a player's rating is certainly no guarantee of his success (or failure) in a tournament, it does seem to be a reasonable good measure of his over-all ability in many cases.
