child genius

tonight on channel 4 at 9pm is about child genius chess prodigy joshua altman who is 9 years old and beating everyone at chess.and wants to be gm by 13 and world champ. should be a good watch.

Saw this advertised too. Thanks for the reminder. Should be a good watch indeed!

No, he can't beat everyone, he's only rated 131 ECF (weak/moderate club player).

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?players=altman

150 ECF is 1800, right? (Only reason I know that is because I play the 150 Attack with White )

ECF 131 is approximately 1698 FIDE. Mighty impressive for an imp, but won't get you far in a decent club's internal championship.

He's the youngest candidate master in UK history.

Oh, I see another bogus title haha. Candidate Masters on the ECF scale are normally 195+.

p.s. He's actually only 1601 on FIDE's list:

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=426210

p.p.s. Here's the masterly performance that secured that title:

It says on his twitter account and at chessgames.com that he's a candidate master?

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=141939

Yes, he is indeed a CM, granted by winning a junior tournament (see my "p.p.s" above). The fact remains that he's 599 FIDE rating points shy of the normal qualification (2200).

All these bogus titles must be good for business, that's all I can think.

So it's like Anna Ushenina winning the WWCC and becoming a grandmaster even though her rating was below a grandmaster title. Isn't it just as legitimate to achieve your title by winning a special tournament than by rating? Isn't the term "grandmaster" based upon those people given the title prior to the advent of ratings?

Winning the Women's WC title is a long way from playing nine kids, six of which were unrated (his only FIDE rated games to that point).

Trysts, if you sat down opposite CM Altman, you'd likely crush him. Does that sound like the play of a Master?

Then why is that tournament so prestigious? Is he the first to win that tournament with such a low rating?

I don't know on either score. However, I expect Masters to be masterly, not some patzer kid, who has been thrown a bone.

I guess we'll find out very soon whether or not he was deserving of the title. If you're right, then I think it is very insensitive to award such a title to a nine year old and get his hopes dashed by mere illusion. 

Also it would be weird to become like Shirley Temple and have the peak of your career at nine

This is my issue with the ECF master points system.  If we had just a national master title like the USCF, with a required ECF rating of, say, 200 (perhaps over a period of 3 years), then that might be worth having.  I don't have a problem with a 200+ rated player being called a master.  But there's all these numpty titles like 'team master' and 'club master', and the most offensive of all, 'chess maestro', a title with such a low rating requirement that literally anyone can get it unless they've been lobotomised, so it devalues the entire system and makes it utterly worthless. 

Even though there is a title for 200-rated players, it is contaminated by its association with all he other junk titles - there's no prestige to calling yourself an ECF master, when every patzer in the country can do the same.

Beating everyone... sure... lol.

This is my issue with the ECF master points system.  If we had just a national master title like the USCF, with a required ECF rating of, say, 200 (perhaps over a period of 3 years), then that might be worth having.

The English National Master title is awarded for having 200+ ECF (approximately 2250 FIDE), two seasons in a row. Though I have yet to see even one 200 player claim that title. They do exist, just that none of the 200 players that I know can be bothered.

He probably crushes most people of his own age, but that's a long way from crushing most people.

We've got a 9-year-old in our club who is 1400 and improving fast, so not a million miles behind this lad.

He's 9.

Imagine all the people he plays though. He is probably beating them. In a match, you play people graded around you, it's obvious his rating cannot keep up with his actual playing strength (because he's rapidly improving), therefore he is playing people slightly worse than him, and winning, giving the illusion he can beat everybody.