Great Players Without Official Ratings

Can you get extremely good at chess without having an official OTB rating? I mean like grandmaster strength.

So pretty much the only time you play OTB chess is maybe in a few local clubs against other people and the rest you learn from playing on the internet. Is there a point where playing on the internet can only get you so good? What if you buy books, do chess mentor and even have a virtual internet coach as well?

Also, do you think there would be many people in the world who play at a master/grandmaster level but have never ever played a single official rated tournament or game?

So Kasparov used to be grandmaster strength before he joined his first official rated game?

Not really. He had played in the world Cadet's championships, finishing 3rd. He didn't apparently get a rating out of it though, for a reason that escapes me.

Maybe that was weak GM? Don't know.

NO

I think master level there should be a handful of people... maybe as many as 5 in the world.  I think of some of today's top talents at a young age or from the past people like Morphy.  If left undiscovered and only played casual games vs family and friends these super-talents could conceivably be master strength within a few years IMO.

5 in the world?

That's insane.

Master strength isn't all that high a bar to hop over.  Mastery of a good endgame manual, lots of practice with Fred Reinfeld type tactics books, and enough practice in a handful of openings, and anyone can play at that level with a few years' dedication.

Used to see it when I played in Chicago.  There were a few guys that routinely played and beat rated, master-level players, who had never played a tournament game in their lives.  Just loved playing social chess, and did so for decades.  But that was without any kind of focused, dedicated study.

If I, who personally know maybe 50 chess playing people in the whole world, can anecdotally think of 2, the number has got to be in the thousands.

On the flip side, I agree with the sentiment that there's a huge leap from master (which is really just another way to say, "pretty good chess player") to GM.  When you talk about people of that strength, you're talking about a lifetime dedicated to competing at the highest possible level...and that's probably just not feasible without playing a hell of a lot of competitive and top-level chess.  If only because that's where the people you need to play to reach and sustain that level lurk.

That's where I'd guess there's no more than maybe a handful in the world.  Maybe none.

One way or another I think you've misinterpreted your experience with these players.  Was it blitz chess?  Was it actually a positive score?  Was the master still active or floored?  Things like this.

In any case it's not an easy bar to hop over and can't be reached by anyone with only a few years of dedicated study.  At the very least you misunderstand how strong master level play is.

I'd like to think there is an old man in a park somewhere who has never been in a tournament, has never been officially rated, but can beat anyone in the world.

That old man probablly doesn't exist, though.

So, why havent you hopped over the bar yourself ?  

I believe I remember WGM Pogonina mentioning in one of these posts, that players in Russia do not consider any title other than GM as having any value. She mentioned this in reply to news of a non-rated player winning some Russian tournament...her comments were along the line that this was not unusual in Russia, for strong players only interested in GM norms, and nothing else.

I believe the point was that chess titles have been devalued by the number of people who achieve them. There are thousands of GMs and many more lower FIDE titled players. I personally believe it is not merely inflation, but that there really are more highly competent players these days.

Originally the term was far more select than it is now. While the story that the title was first given to 5 players (mostly world champions) by Tsar Nicholas is probably apocryphal, but FIDE first awarded it to 27 people who were considered the greatest living players in 1950.

[@LilAnarchies, conversely, master standard is not that low a bar to jump over. There are thousands of FIDE masters, but millions of chess players. If you can be the best in your town of 100,000 you might be a master. That's not an achievement which can be achieved merely by reading a couple of Reinfeld's books although that may be enough to make you imagine you are a master ]

Winning a game or two, or even a few, here and there in blitz against masters , even GMs, does NOT mean one is "master strength ".  The titles of master are earned through classic otb play , not blitz. Not all masters are really strong in blitz , many are but not all. Botvinnik for example didnt like blitz and has claimed he only played one blitz game in his life. If you play a dozen games of blitz with a master , who is also known to very strong in blitz, and score 50% you might have an argument for being "master strength " , in blitz, but not at standard time controls which is where master titles are earned. I win a lot more games in rapid and blitz against IMs and GMs than I win against them in standard. Is it possible ? Sure, anything is possible but I think it indeed very rare to find a master strength player that has not played organized chess. 

Why would a GM be playing blitz with your uncle if it wasnt in some organized event ? 

In fact, in Russia two titles are respected - master (IM, WIM) and grandmaster (GM, WGM). There are heated debates on whether FM is a "fee master". CM is not in contention since it's despised by the general public.

And yes, there are hard-core Russian candidate masters who have a playing strength of 2400-2500+. But those are exceptional, not widespread.

Also, young talents sometimes "skip" the IM title so that not to pay the fees to FIDE twice. But, once again, it's not a rule. Some do that, others don't.

I think I remember that article as well. However, if my memory doesn't completely deceive me the player in question wasn't unrated but only without a title (he had ELO rating that would entitle him for aplying FM).

Does Jeff Sarwer have an official rating?  I know he was given a FIDE provisional rating of 2300 after he competed in a G/30 tournament a few years ago.  He drew with 2 Grandmasters(and lost to another GM) and beat 3 Masters in that tournament and finished in 3rd place.

Should he count since he did have an official rating as a child?  Also, given his crazy childhood, I'm wondering how much coaching he actually had.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is someone that could on their best day, beat a GM having an off day, but has never played in an official tournament.

But there's the rub. Part of playing at a GM level is not just being able to pull off a good game here or there, but to be able to perform consistently well in tournaments and matches - complete with all the stress, the exhaustion and pressure that playing every day brings. It's not just how well you can play but how well you prepare for the field you face.

Jeff Sarwer used to be the world champion in under 10. so him being so strong without a title is not at all improbable.

I'm a great player, and I don't have an official rating. (If you want to call me a great player for my ratings; lol)