Those categories of players both seem so strong to me, and players of those calibers seems to make spectacular moves. but what is something that we can generally see of that makes the border?

An IM has  beared kinda "george lucas" look. but a GM has good clean shave. I could be wrong you know.

I doubt there is anything you can say as a group. All players are different.

Unfortunately the answer isn't very spectacular.  It's the same thing that separates all classes.  GMs, in general, see more tactics, know more theory, make better practical decisions OTB, are better in endgames, etc.

Of course if you take any 1 GM and any one IM and compare them, the IM may be a bit better in one area.  But the IM will have a deficiency somewhere that's great enough that most GMs will be able to exploit it for a win, while the same cannot be said of the GMs when facing IMs.

Dzindzi's famous line was: All IMs want to be GMs, no GM wants to be an IM.

IM: Luke Skywalker in training with Yoda. Strong, talented but must learn to develop oneness with the force.

GM: fully developed Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan-Kenobi, Darth Vader, The Emperor and Princess Leia had all gained an intergalactic GM title.

OTB titles are all depend on entering tournaments over and over. GM's are stronger than all IM's is a false conception. I know some IM's even Carlsen can't win a single game. Don't ask me who are these IM's? But if you have spent enough time on this area, you'll verify my claim.

IM can tell you exactly how many chess books they have read,GMs have forgotten

Haha I don't think so miriskra. Carlsen can beat anyone on his day.

I'm asking.

@goldendog: I won't name the names, but I can give some hints that you can easily find out: Old Yugoslavian era IM's, immigrated or non-immigrated ones (if not die already in the war).

Why the riddles? Name them or don't mention it because I think you're talking rubbish.

Good point. So...who are those IMs that defeated Carlsen?

I agree with Scottrf, the people that post with vagueness in forums are just looking for attention.

Why these angry replies? I can understand your love to Carlsen. Maybe, I shouldn't put his name on my reply. Remove the name and read again. Also this topic can't be understood without chess politics knowledge. The following question is a good start: Why Valery Salov quit?

I know some people here can understand what I say about the true value of OTB or CC titles. If we are talking about CC titles, we're talking about centaurs, cloud computing power and money. You won't get a CC GM title without a good supercomputer or cloud computing. If we're talking about OTB titles, we should focus on tourney organizers and some match selling frauds. Should I continue?

Continue please, with the names of IMs Carlsen (or Anand etc.) couldn't beat.

This is getting interesting...please continue...and more popcorn please...

I kind of tend to agree that, at certain times, when one considers such factors as playing style, attire and moon phase, the stength of two players in a contest, while extremely important in being able to predict the outcome, just doesn't matter at all except when it does. Pretty clever, don't you think?

They always manage to drink that special cool aid and off they go.Forget Carlsen.I am political aware, and i have no idea why Valery Salov quit. I have info about tittles and computers......NOW, tell me names of players who could/should be at the top of the chess world ?

I thnk what Miriska is saying is total mince and there seems to be a large degree of attention seeking which I won't feed into.

But the idea of there being Ims that are better than GMs is interesting.

I know that Nezmetdinov was considered an amazing tactition and some argued better than Tal. Luckily the two have played games against each other. Here is one where Super Nez gets the better of Tal who he had a life time plus score against. See 3.4 on his wiki page: link below.

http://tinyurl.com/b8os8pb

Plenty more in the database if you look.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102217

"His games reveal the beauty of chess and make you love in chess not so much the points and high placings, but the wonderful harmony and elegance of this particular world." Mikhail Tal