Who is the oldest person ever to become Grandmaster?

Not sure, but you can take a good guess by doing the math from this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_grandmasters

I couldnt resist actually doing the analysis on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_grandmasters :)
Note, this is an incomplete list, some entries did not contain the year when they achieved the title, and I did not incorporate off by one for achievement-before-their-birthday issue (in other words, I assumed everyone's birthday was January 1st).
Anyway, according to wikipedia, the oldest GM was Enrico Paoli who was GM'd at 88. He was Italian.


Jānis Klovāns (April 9, 1935 – October 5, 2010) was a Latvian chess Grandmaster. He was a career officer in the Soviet Army.
Jānis Klovāns won the Latvian Championship nine times (1954, 1962, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1975, 1979, and 1986), and participated in several Soviet Championships. He was a member of several successful Latvian youth teams during the early to mid-1950s, along with stars such as GM Mikhail Tal and GM Aivars Gipslis.
He played for Latvia in two Chess Olympiads. In Manila 1992, at second reserve board (+0 −0 =2), and in Istanbul 2000, at third board (+5 −4 =4).
Janis Klovans thrice won the World Senior Chess Championship, in 1997, 1999, and 2001. Still an active player in his seventies, he played regularly in tournaments all over Europe, and maintained a FIDE rating of over 2400, making him one of the strongest players in his age group.
He was awarded the International Master (IM) title in 1976, and the Grandmaster (GM) title in 1997, following his win in the World Senior Championship. This achievement is notable in that he was probably the oldest player to be awarded the GM title for current achievements, rather than an honorary or retrospective title. This can be explained by the fact that although he was a strong master for many years, he was rarely allowed to play outside of the Soviet Union, and therefore had few opportunities to gain FIDE titles. Likely his career as a Soviet Army officer hampered his international chess opportunities. In 2001 he earned the International Correspondence Chess GM title.
He was married to the six-time Latvian Champion Astra Klovāne and had two daughters.

Is this a personal inquiry? Women have a baby clock. Is this supposed to be the male equivalent? the window of time when your brain is functional enough to dominate? lol.

And others as Jens Kristiansen got the GM at an advanced age by winning the World Senior Championship in 2012. That tournament is an open for players that are at least 60 years old.
Kristiansen was 60 at that time and he had been an IM since 1979.

Some of the winners of the World Senior Chess Championship were real stars: Geller, Smyslov, Taimanov and Korchnoi.

I would be interested in the oldest player to earn the GM title from norms only - in the US? in the world?

is possible to become a grandmater or international master in age of under 40 or 50 with 2000 rating

I would love to hear a story of somebody inching their way along and putting in the effort, slowly gaining rating until they hit GM at 65.
Hasn't this happenned before? I feel like even if your learning ability slows down, you still only get better at chess as time goes on.
Should exclude titles by winning senior championships etc. This is like giving gm title to women's world champ, they may or may not be gm strength. Ben finegold made it at 40, not sure if he is oldest to do that.
Should exclude titles by winning senior championships etc. This is like giving gm title to women's world champ, they may or may not be gm strength. Ben finegold made it at 40, not sure if he is oldest to do that.
Senior players who play at real GM strength do exist. Korchnoi did it up until he had his stroke I think. Of course he had received his title earlier already, but he easily played well above 2500 strength even at high age.
So biologically, it should be possible to get a real GM title even at high age, the human brain can do it if a player is talented enough.
If they are truly playing at GM strength and have 2500 fide rating, they would have made the gm title by getting the norms, it is not gm norms are that hard for gm strength players. The fact that they could get hot for one tournament and get the title does not mean that are really gm strength.
That is why Susan polgar always tell everyone she is the first woman to get the gm title by norm, while Hou is the youngest woman to get the title by norm.

Should exclude titles by winning senior championships etc. This is like giving gm title to women's world champ, they may or may not be gm strength. Ben finegold made it at 40, not sure if he is oldest to do that.
Senior players who play at real GM strength do exist. Korchnoi did it up until he had his stroke I think. Of course he had received his title earlier already, but he easily played well above 2500 strength even at high age.
So biologically, it should be possible to get a real GM title even at high age, the human brain can do it if a player is talented enough.
It's more complicated than that, I think. Sure, it's possible for a great player like Korchnoi to be playing at GM level at a fairly old age, but he'd been playing at that level for a long time and had won the title long before. If he hadn't had all that playing to win the title before, would he have been able to get up to GM level by the time he was that old?
To rephrase that a little more briefly: it's possible for a strong GM to not completely lose his ability at an old age, but if you haven't already reached that level is it possible to get up to it?
I always hear people talking about the youngest grandmaster in history, but I have never heard anything about the oldest grandmaster. Does anyone know who is the oldest person ever to become grandmaster? Just curious.
Thanks