Get your facts straight

Those aren't facts, they're just your opinion.

There are 101000 active players with a FIDE rating and 1200 active GMs.

101000/1200 = 84

Then, one in every 84 FIDE rated active players are GM.

Where did you get that number? (Not saying you are wrong, just curious, I did a search on male and female members with a rating)

Lol, I guess that does anwser the question to the 'can anybody become a gm' topics. No, just 1 in 84 :P When active :P

In the 'advanced search' you can 'exclude inactiv' (under the 'date of birth').

Wow, I guess club level chess is in a bad state. :( Then again, chess is also so much easier to play without being in a club on the internet these days.

'Active' means 1 game played in the last 12 month, it's not so much (GM usually played 50-100 games a year).

I think that only answers the question DOES anyone become a GM.  Which, of course, we already knew the answer to.  No way the other 83 are all putting in GM-level training.

I agree and while I would have picked  bit longer, maybe 2 years, your calculation is better than the one I did.

I was joking  ;) And yes, you are right.

I confess, I had to go look it up.  

There are 5000 FIDE rated active player above 2300. If everyone agree that 'anyone could become 2300', that means our ratio become 1 in 4 (5000/1200). If we only consider those who have played more than 200 games (most of GMs play >50 games a year and have played for many years) in the last 4 years, and those who really worked, the ratio become 1 in 2, or even more.

Can anybody become a GM ? Absolutely not : only 5 or 8 in 10 can.

Actually, it would have to be 1 out of hundreds of thousands because only a very small % ever even play tournaments to get a rating & out of those very few have a fide rating. I think I read an estimate by somebody connected with fide that there are about 600 million players on the planet. 

We all agree on that part Damon, but since we don't have those numbers, we have to do with the numbers that we do have... Therefor I also stated, 'rated players'. I agree with you, but 600 million people playing chess, also includes all the people who don't play it, but know the rules. Without en passant ofcourse :) And it's nothing more than an estimate. Could be 10 milion, could be 100 million. It's anyone's guess. But rated players, we can actually count.

It's a useful concept since it explains alot of human behaviour, espsecially on the internet.  In essence it means that people will ignore any evidence presented to them that conflicts with their existing worldview.

I make no apologies.  The only way to communicate with someone like Fonz is on their own level...and who doesn't enjoy a good troll (using that as a verb) every now and then. 

Spoken like a true gentleman Amartalon ,your insight is an inspiratation. We have been subjected to: three word stories,is chess dead,can anyone become a grandmaster,fun word games, what is the best opening,is e4 a good move , 5 best players of all time ,is white better than black, am i alive,how do you think ,I am confused and other threads for so long it is sometimes nice to take a break from it all. This thread has delivered some interesting statistics on GM' s ,had a mudsling ( the equivilant of a car chase in a movie) ,sucked in a few people and even had some supporters ,with the right backing it could be sold to Pixar as a script.

@ Billy ,deep down you loved it.

Mr Billy Can, no problem at all we can all have a bad day, and it takes maturity to admit ones errors.

As for the other two, well they do say that the height of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, however if this kind of stuff is in fact what you want - good luck.

Paula J