11 May 2008

The Oldest GMs

Much ado is made about the youngest players to obtain the GM rating, but not often do we hear about the oldest. Wikipedia's list of grandmasters (see It's Official: 180 GMs by 1978 for background) has date-of-birth and date-of-title for 1099 GMs. This allows to calculate an approximate age when the title was obtained. Some of the data is inaccurate; for example, the calculation for Helgi Gretarsson has him earning the title at 8 years old. With that in mind, here is a list of oldest GMs to have obtained the title. The last column is the calculated age.


I imagine that most, if not all, of these players earned honorary GM titles. Anyone know of an exception?

2 comments:

F said...

How about the oldest players to receive a non-honorary title? I am familiar with Janis Klovans, who was awarded the GM title in 1997, at age 62, thanks to his victory in the Senior World Championship. He won it again in 1999 and 2001. Any other late bloomer?

NJZimmermann said...

If Maróczy and Mieses are held to have only been honorary GMs. Could the same be said for Bernstein, Duras, Grünfeld, Kostić, Levenfish, Maróczy, Mieses, Ragozin, Rubinstein, Sämisch, Tartakower, and Vidmar Sr.