Which GM's have you met in person?

Judit Polgar!Really!

Chud, I'm afraid of approaching masters, let alone GMs.   For some reason, I think they probably hold patzers like me in contempt.  Rational or irrational fear?

The ones with gigantic egos might, but most of them are pretty friendly.   I wouldn't try to talk to them during a tournament game though.   They are usually pretty distracted, thinking about their game.  I've only met three GM's.  Dmitry Gurevich acted nervous when I tried to talk to him.  I don't think his English was very good, so maybe he didn't want to speak in English.  Michael Rhode was kind of stuck up.   He would probably be the type to look down on patzers.   He complained that I took too long to move during our simul game.   He got a kick out of me asking him to sign my Chess Life magazine, that had his picture on the cover though (this was way back in the late 80's/early 90's).   Roman Dzindzichashvili was very friendly.   I could have talked to him all day, but he had lots of people around him, so I just introduced myself and told him that I enjoyed his latest book.   I thought about asking him about Bobby Fischer, but I didn't want to piss him off.   It was an honor to meet Roman.   

Irrational. Holding people in contempt is a personality trait - an extremely unpleasant one. It has no connections to one's title or accomplishments. There are 1300-level players who think they are gods among men and look down on anyone 1299 and below, and there are super-GMs who are friendly and personable and love being ambassadors for chess to the general public.

I'm not a GM, but I'm always happy to help out "patzers", both online (as you've seen) and in person at tournaments. I've met both friendly and unfriendly GMs. It really just depends on the person.

I met and talked to GM's Anatoly Lein and Leonid Shamkovich at a chess tournament shortly after they defected to the west from the Soviet Union in the late 1970's.  They were on the cover of the latest issue of Chess Life magazine and I got both their autographs on my copy.

Shamkovich actually watched one of my games for 5-10 minutes and I felt very honored. Years later, I finally realized the reason he stood right next to my chair was that I was playing a pretty woman named Monica, who was wearing a low-cut dress.

That's funny.  You made me laugh.  Great story.

Was the dress blue?  Did it have a stain?

David Bronstein , Garry Kasparov , Jon Speelman , Raymond Keene , Yuri Averbach , Kotov , Tony Miles , Michael Adams ,David Smerdon........played simuls with Averbach and Kotov , drew with the former , crushed by the latter at the Pancake Manor in Brisbane .  Met and often shared many coffees with the ever-helpful , generous , humble raconteur Bronstein at Gray's Inn Market in London discussing chess-politics and life stories of Paul Keres , Ludek Pachman  Mikhael Botvinnik and his Own .   ....met and discussed games with Kasparov and Keene at the Athaneum club on Pall Mall where Kasparov commented on business and his encounter with Sophia Polgar who tried her hand with the Rossolimo.......a great PR 4 player social event "downed" with champers .   Accumulated many works of the above and memorabilia and autographs to "hold back time".

The latest figures inducate that there are not many more than 1600 GMs currently in the world.

If there are, as a ball park figure, about 16 million players of at least patzer standard in the world, then only about one in 100,000 "chessplayers" somewhat worthy of the name exist.

The equivalent in military terms to a GM would thus be would be a higher ranking General approaching 5 stars.

So, as anyone could see, GMs are rare.

Most that I have encountered are reasonably friendly, given a sociable situation, and are not overly stuck up.

They are simply relatively famous people.

Sean Connery, surely very famous, gives an interesting story about an aircraft journey where he was seated next to a presumably fairly ordonary person. Somehow, they did not recognise him, and Connery nver said who he himself was.

Connery said it was the most enjoyable aircraft journey he ever had. It was a luxury to engage in an an ordinary conversation.

Averbach was the only GM i ever played in a simul, although I did play others who later became GM's. 

Needless to say, all had easy wins. Interestingy, apart from Averbach, who simply played a stock GCD, the others tried quick early sacrifices which opened my defences to nasty attacks.

Thomas luther, kasparov, gelfand, psakhis, sagachick, krush, panchanathan, naroditsky, akobian, Shulman, yotov, serper, and ftacnik

He said the woman was pretty.  That rules out the one you're thinking of.

Interestingly, Averbach, at least where I was in the room, played 1. e4 and 1.d4 only and alternately, which meant I guess that there was no easy copying of a player close by. 

In the 1959 US Open in Omaha i met [sorta met] Benko. It was about the 6th or 7th round of the 12 round tournament and he was leading the tournament.

As it turned out Benko came in 2nd place and Bisguier won the tournament.

i was playing Clark Harmon at the time and Clark was junior champion of his state. Clark was getting the better of me but for some reason Benko was watching our game from about 2 tables away. I thought to myself: "Why would a grandmaster be viewing a game where one of the players [me] was a not rated player?" Then i remembered he was a great expert on the endgame!

I sacrificed my knight for 2 pawns. This left Clark with a bishop and pawn and king against my lone king. But it was a draw!

After i made that sacrifice--Benko immediately came to our table and in a rather loud voice exclaimed: "This is a draw!" This is a draw!"

Clark looked stunned but just for a second--then he quickly agreed to a draw.

At that tournament was Arthur Bisguier with his brand new wife. However i never met him in person.

The next time i met a grandmaster was the US Open in Chicago in 1973. I played the White side of this opening and won...

The grandmaster was Arthur Bisguier. RIP

no GMs

Miguel Najdorf--in the elevator after the 9th game of the Kasparov-Anand match.  He said, "I must tell Garry to treat my variation better (GK had just lost as black with the Najdorf)."  I opened my mouth to say Who are you to think the Najdorf is named after you when I realized who I was talking to and said (because he saw me open my mouth) "It's an honor to meet you.  Zurich '53 is one of my favorite tournaments; you really raised some hell there."  "Ach, not enough hell" he replied.

Larry Christiansen--in an elevator during the '87 World Open, LC asked loudly, "Are there any USCF delegates here?"  I answered back loudly, "That depends.  How much are you paying?"  Everybody had a good laugh, and the rest of the ride was comments about how corrupt the USCF was.

During the 1995 WCC match I talked briefly to Anand (on the escalator before the 10th game) as well as Dzindzhi, Serawan, De Firmian and others during commentary on games 9 through 12.

During the 1974 World Open I ran demonstration boards for Bent Larsen and Walter Browne.  Browne's machine-gun style of spitting out variations in the post-game is something I'll never forget.

I met Nicholas Rossolimo several times in his studio in Manhatten.  We were just discussing getting four of us together to split the cost of his per hour fee when he died suddenly two days later.

elevators and escalators XD

GM R.R Laxman from India