06 February 2025

New Players under the FIDE Flag

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this blog's annual discussion of international ratings, FIDE Rating List - January 2025 (January 2025). I ended it saying,

Last year's only followup post, Players under the FIDE Flag (January 2024), might be worth a revisit because FIDE's (FED = 'FID') percentage increase was the fourth highest [2025 over 2024].

Here are the numbers for FIDE again:-

Fed 2024 2025 Incr
FID   798 1008 26.32%

That means the list had 210 more 'FIDE' players (i.e. listed without a national federation) at the start of 2025 than at the start of 2024. The 2024 FIDE Flag post (*) also listed the total number of FIDE players for each of the last five years. Here's a continuation of the same list, adding the count for 2025:-

2023 : 394
2024 : 636
2025 : 766

Why the difference between 1008 players in the first table and 766 players in the second? It's probably because I eliminated players registered only to play on the FIDE Online Arena (FOA). I don't think it was a good idea for FIDE to mix online players with OTB players, but that decision was made some time ago.

Of those 766 FIDE players in 2025, 130 appear to be new FIDE players (766 - 636 in 2024). When I searched for the *names* of new FIDE players in 2025, I found 124. The difference of six players isn't trivial, but I decided to ignore it for now. The 124 new FIDE players in 2025 were listed under the following federations in 2024:-

Fed : Ct
RUS : 114
BLR : 8
FID : 1 [family name changed for a woman; marriage?]
WLS : 1

The table shows clearly that that most of the new FIDE players were from the two federations -- Russia and Belarus -- which have been restricted by FIDE as a consequence of the war in Ukraine. I looked at the rating records of a handful of those players (ratings.fide.com) and discovered that their games were played in Russia and Belarus.

Of the more than 40.000 players on the 2025 list marked with federation RUS or BLR, about 2% also played games in the period covered by the rating list that I used. I don't know why some players are marked 'FID', but most players aren't. Maybe it has something to do with FOA.

(*) Players under the FIDE Flag (January 2024)

04 February 2025

Breaking the 3800 Barrier

This is post no.3800 on this blog, meaning that it's time for another 'Breaking the Barrier' post. The previous post, Breaking the 3700 Barrier (February 2024), was a little more than a year ago. At that time I noted,

We have one engine [rated] over 3800 (Stockfish 16), 15 engines over 3700, and (not shown) 11 engines over 3600. [...] See you a year from now for the '3800 Barrier'.

The chart below shows the current ratings of the top engines as calculated by the same source.


CCRL Blitz Rating List (Feb 2025)
(computerchess.org.uk/ccrl)

Now we have two engines rated over 3800 (Stockfish 17 and Torch v2), 29 engines over 3700 (not all shown), and 14 engines over 3600. If I keep posting to this blog at the current frequency, I'll be able to do 'Breaking the 3900 Barrier' in a year. Given that Stockfish, the top engine (rated 3817), has only increased 11 points since last year, I don't expect to see any engines over 3900 anytime soon.

Human players have reached a so-far insurmountable barrier of 2900. Are engines facing a similar barrier of 3900?

03 February 2025

Playing Chess with Money

One of the insights from my recent explorations into AI Comics was that people's likenesses are best rendered using the '3D Render' style. Consider the images produced for the recent post Color the Proteins (January 2025; 'Demis Hassabis plays chess ...').

Another insight was that AI Comics are perfectly happy to create images of inanimate objects playing chess. Consider the following images inspired by the world of economics and finance.


'Kenneth Rogoff plays chess with money.'
AI Comic Factory

Now I don't know what you think, but I think those are pretty good likenesses of one of the most famous GMs who became much better known in a real world profession (is there another?). Photos of {GM/Dr./Professor} Rogoff have appeared many times on this blog.

The earliest appearance was Kenny Rogoff as You've Never Seen Him (February 2012). Note the contrast between the photo of young Rogoff in that post and an older Rogoff in Wesley So & Kenneth Rogoff (February 2015). Since there are many more photos of the older Rogoff on the web, it's those photos that have been used as the base for the composite image shown above.

As for 'plays chess with money', the only frame where money is obvious is the lower left. The round thing behind the board looks to be based on the seals you find on U.S. dollar paper bills.

***

Later: I received a message from A.L. saying, 'In the upper right frame, he appears to be tossing a gold coin.' It took me a few minutes to see it, but yes indeed, there is a gold coin near the center of the upper right frame. I missed it before because it is nearly the same color as Professor Rogoff's tie.

02 February 2025

A Sammarinese Artist

Several months ago, in Incarcerated, Self-taught, and Legally Blind (July 2024), I wrote,

When there are several choices on the short list for a new month's edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), I almost always go for any artwork.

Here's that link again -- Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010) -- and here's another example of artwork, one of two I had on the short list. The item pictured below was titled 'Nicoletta Ceccoli Limited Edition Print FOR YOUR EYES ONLY Signed by the Artist!'. It sold for 'US $375.00 or Best Offer', and as far as I can tell that US$ amount was the final selling price.

The description said,

Released in 2014
Signed by the Artist Nicoletta Ceccoli!
Unframed dimensions: 19 x 20"
Edition Number: 78/100
Edition size: 100 + 10 Artist Proofs (AP)
Medium: Archival Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Paper 308 g/m

Short Bio: Nicoletta Ceccoli was born in San Marino Italy and graduated from the Institute of Art in Urbino. Her paintings are beautiful and intriguing, consistently striking a delicate balance between disturbing and enchanting. At first glance, her work masquerades as youthful and innocent but a darker narrative inevitably unfolds.

Each painting is rife with symbolism that sparks the viewer's imagination and inspires a deeper level of consideration. Ceccoli's work has been exhibited worldwide including solo exhibitions in the US, Italy and France. The artist works in seclusion deep within the Italian countryside.

Re 'rife with symbolism', 'sparks the viewer's imagination', and 'inspires a deeper level of consideration', I don't get it here. Maybe I'm just too close to the subject of chess. For more about the artist, see Nicoletta Ceccoli (wikipedia.org; 'Nicoletta Ceccoli (born 1973) is a Sammarinese artist who is known for her richly detailed, dreamlike work.').

30 January 2025

World Championship Yahoos 2025 (1/?)

That title is an obscure reference to last month's Yahoos post, World Championship Yahoos 2024 ('2/2'; December 2024), which was largely about the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York City. I'll come back to that event in a moment.

First let's have some stats. This month's Yahoos post (see the footnote for an explanation of Yahoos) had 104 stories, of which one was an older post from mid-December. Those 104 stories were supplemented by two additional pages: 'Magnus Carlsen on Freestyle chess controversy' with 25 stories, and 'Gukesh beats Mendonca to lead Tata Steel Masters' with 57 stories.

I'll call those additional pages Freestyle stories and Tata stories, making a total of 104+25+57=186 stories. Of the 104 stories, 44 were also about freestyle and Tata, leaving 60 stories about other topics.

I'm covering the freestyle saga on my chess960 blog, because 'freestyle' is one of numerous aliases for chess960. The most recent post on that blog was A Freestyle Fight (January 2025), where the last link to a story was:-

2025-01-22: FIDE Slams Freestyle Chess For Creating 'Unavoidable Divisions,' Threatens Legal Action (chess.com; TarjeiJS)

The dispute is about FIDE's claim to have the exclusive right to any 'World Chess Championship'. I'll refer to January's Google News when I bring that blog up-to-date next month. As for the many Tata stories, one of the most recent was:-

After rd.10 there remained three rounds to be played. I'd like to say that next month's Yahoos post should have the final result, but I know better. Google News is top-heavy on recent news, usually from the last few days. Case in point: this month there was not a single story on the '2024 World Rapid and Blitz' tournament. I had to refer to my Google News alerts (I receive one combined alert per day) to be able to mention,

That agreement to share was controversial, as it was not in accordance to the rules of the event. Of the 60 stories about other topics, three were grouped into a headline 'Nodirbek Yakubboev refuses handshake with Indian GM Vaishali', with three more on the same incident scattered around the results. For example,

The only 'other' story I found compelling enough to mention appeared twice in the news. As with many of the top stories this month, it doesn't shine a favorable light on chess:-

In last month's post '2024 WCC (2/2)', I observed,

After all the positive press that chess has received over the past five years, it's curious that world class chess players are using their new-found status to struggle with dress codes and to call each other names.

This month we have an emerging fight between the world's best player and FIDE, two top players inventing their own rule to decide a major FIDE tournament, a male player refusing to shake hands with a female player, and a serious case of sexual harassment. What will next month bring?

[Yahoos (mainstream news stories about chess) are derived from Google News top-100 (or so) stories from the past month.]

27 January 2025

Chess Graffiti

In Chess Guy Likes to Talk (January 2025), I wrote,

For the third time in less than a year, the monthly featured Flickr post contains two keywords: Shoreditch graffiti.

While working on that post I discovered a new resource, an example of which is shown in the following image.


Online Graffiti Generator - Graffiti Empire
graffiti-empire.com

That example was constructed using the first offered 'font' plus the default 'style'. I cropped signatures to the left and right of the main image. The white stars/sparkles appear to be placed at random; the rest is repeatable.

What else could I use it for? Beats me, but maybe I'll think of something.

23 January 2025

FIDE Rating List - January 2025

This is the tenth consecutive year that I'm following a cookie-cutter approach to look at FIDE ratings for the new year. Following is the step-by-step checklist...

1) Identify last year's post: FIDE Rating List - January 2024 (January 2024).

2) Identify the source of the FIDE data: FIDE Ratings Download:-

STANDARD
TXT format (12 Jan 2025, Sz: 10.81 MB)

3) Compare some basic counts over the past few years. Going back to the start of 2020 gives pre-covid 19 as a reference point. This year I've added counts to show the increase (and one decrease) in the total and inactive counts.

2025: >486K players; >292K marked inactive [+46K +27K]
2024: >440K players; >265K marked inactive [+35K +12K]
2023: >405K players; >253K marked inactive [+28K +25K]
2022: >377K players; >228K marked inactive [+15K +54K]
2021: >362K players; >174K marked inactive [+8K -7K]
2020: >354K players; >181K marked inactive
[...]

4) Analyze changes in players per federation. The top chart lists new federations in 2025 (BIZ = Belize; GRL = Greenland; NCL = New Caledonia; NON = Gareyev, Timur and Ramirez, Alejandro; VAN = Vanuatu).

The lower charts show federations with the largest increase in number of players (left) and the largest percentage increase (right; for federations with at least 100 players at the start of 2024; NB: TKM = Turkmenistan, NAM = Namibia)

5) Identify ideas for a followup post. Last year's only followup post, Players under the FIDE Flag (January 2024), might be worth a revisit because FIDE's (FED = 'FID') percentage increase was the fourth highest on the right column. Another idea would be to summarize all of the posts I've done through the years on different rating topics. That might be a long list, but I've lost track.