Foreign Requirement for Titles

I think every game should be against a foreign opponent.

I agree with others that have posted that said that the current system is working.  I also agree with others that what is needed is responsible T.D.'s that will supply the proper opportunities for those playing to achieve norms. 

And even though the U.S.A. is large, working towards similar conditions as in Europe could be the only answer.  Perhaps working with The Chess Federation of Canada and Federacion Nacional De Ajedrez De Mexico, or other T.D.'s from Canada and Mexico could help.  I believe that there are 5 active GMs and 26 active IMs in Mexico, as well as 6 active GMs and 31 active IMs in Canada.  Perhaps by courting these individuals to participate in events in the northern and southern part of the U.S. could help?  As well, American players may find it easier to go to events in Canada and/or Mexico than travelling to Europe?  (Perhaps this is already ongoing, and I just was not aware of it)

several years ago, Yasser Seriwan and others suggested that FIDE should only award 5 GM titles and 25 or so IM titles per year.  This would restore a lot of the prestige that the title used to have. 

Yes, the quality of chess has improved, but the bar should be raised accordingly to account for those changes.  100 meter dash times have improved tremendously since Jesse Owens day - but the Olympics still only allows no more than three qualifiers per country.  The same can be said of ANY sport. 

Having over a thousand GMs that are completely outclassed by the top 10-20 players cheapens the title for the top players.   There were less the 100 GMs in 1970, now there are over 1200.

Maybe we could persuade all states, provinces and territories to secede en masse, then we'd have 71 chess-playing nations in continental North America. Think of it -- Europe would lose its domination of FIDE.

I don't think that the "lost prestige" arguments make much sense. The basic hierarchy is as follows:

1.People who play chess casually

2. Amateurs who get involved in tournaments and obtain a rating

3. Titled players (the middle class of chess)

4. Chess stars (known by their last names, not titles).

The last group includes maybe 20 male and 10 female players. All the others are known only by devoted chess fans, not even by casual players.

actually, we will have all the territiories, states, and provinces off the coast of mainland North America become a country, then we will have Louisiana, Oregon, British Colombia, Alaska, Florida and the Texas Republlic become countries, and we have Mexico increase its' size by 66%, and the United States only have 20 states and shrink its' size by 2/3. (I still live in the US, whoo hoo)

I tend to think that it doesn't make sense that every federation gets to exempt ONE tournament from the foreigner requirement (usually the national championships), and think that bigger countries should get more. I should note that when I say bigger, I mean bigger in chess terms, i.e. Russia is much bigger than the U.S.

wow, we'd have more votes in fide elections than the former yugoslavia!

George W. Bush for FIDE president !!

I don't think this is going to happen, because many small eastern European countries were pushed around quite enough by their larger neighbor. The idea of assigning privileges on any basis other than the status of sovereign nationality can be seen as something to avoid on principle.

if we have bush for FIDE president we might as well have palin or christine o'donnel for that same position. 

If the GM's are so bad...why aren't there even more??  Seriously, GM is hard enough to make as it is.  I might be in favor of adding a super GM title, given out just a few times a year.  I think we know who'd be winning that accolade.  In fact, many top players are already colloquiolly called super GMs. 

@Natalia, I'd also think that the gap between 2 and 3 in your list is pretty big, both in terms of numbers and playing strength.  In my world, an IM, considering there are only on the order of magnitude of 3000 in the whole world...and only ~1000 GMs, they are both incredibly special, and any titled player is a star.  Albeit, some are brighter than others :D

Persuade the US embassies of friendly powers to host chess tournaments. That would technically make the US players foreigners

Who says "[Super-GMs] are actually the only players that should have the GM title?"

Just because the best of the best are special doesn't downgrade the merely exceptional. That's like saying Muhammid Ali is the only real boxing champion, because he was the best of the best.

I think the GM title was granted to people who had attained a certain ability/status.  Just because there's a hierarchy of which GMs are better than each other misses the point that there are simply MORE strong players now than ever before.  Having lots of great players doesn't downplay the ability of the really good players.  There are still only so many tournaments a year where a GM norm can be earned, it's not like a ridiculous amount of players are getting it by beating easy competition. 

but do keep in mind that Robson would pummel Siegbert Tarrasch. or Frank Marshall. :-)

debating who would beat who when one or both of the players is no longer living is analagous to debating whether superman or batman would win in a fight.

Yackity smackity blah blah blah.  Too many of this.  Too many of that. I like fewer people holding the title.  In XXXX there were ZZZZ and that was too many/too few/just right.  I like more.  I like less.  Blah blah blah.  Gestalt feelings.  White noise.  Rage and fury with no meaning.

Scotch rules.

My thoughts exactly.

Obviously, Superman wins. Batman can't turn back time. I saw the documentaries: Superman 1&2. And before Superman broke his neck, after he fell off a unicorn, he was quite invincible.

bsrasmus, kryptonite is hard to get, believe me, I've tried. Batman needs too much solitary 'me-time' to go through the necessary steps it takes to get a hold of "krypto".

And men should wear tights...