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This all started when I went to Capablanca's Wikipedia page and noticed he was only listed as a "Chess master" and not a "grandmaster". This led to me finding out that of the world chess champions, only Max Euwe and beyond are officially listed as grandmasters. Though there is the infamous tale of the tsar of Russia officially declaring José Raúl Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker, Alexander Alekhine, Frank Marshall, and Siegbert Tarrasch the grandmaster title, officially speaking, the title wasn't established until 1950. Thus, none of these players officially have the GM title. Intriguingly enough, Tarrasch and Marshall along with the likes of Dawid Janowski, Carl Schlechter, Amos Burn, and Mikhail Chigorin were apart of the Ostend 1907 Chess tournament where they were referred to as grandmasters according to wikipedia. The players of the San Sebastián 1912 Chess Tournament were also said to be dubbed grandmasters, with the tournament's winner, Akiba Rubinstein, eventually becoming one of the first to officially be given the title in 1950. The first world chess champion, Howard Steinitz also lacks the official GM title as do some chess greats like Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy, regarded as the best players in the world at their time. I believe that in the case of the first 4 world chess champions, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine, there should be no question that they should officially be given the GM title. For the others, I argue that since they were some of the best players in the world at the time, they should also be given the title.