Chess Playing Nations

There have been threads about the strongest nations, Russia, (most GMs), Iceland (most GM's per capita), Netherlands (most Gm's per square km), but why do some countries just not shape?

A while ago (maybe 10 years) I read that Japan was the largest population to never produce a GM, dont know if that's true anymore? Why is that?

And closer to home (for me), South Africa, with a population of almost 50 million has never produced a GM. The closest was Watu Kobese who got 2 norms, but that was also years ago.

If you take the top 6 players with the surname Milosovic from Serbia (population about 5 million?) and have a team match against the top 6 South Africans, the Milosovic's have a great chance of beating us.

Is it bad organisation? The fact that there are hardly any Fide tournaments here? Simple geography/economics, in that players have to travel to Europe to play Fide tournaments?

I worry about stuff like this.....

[edit: and to my mate, Zoran Milosovic, who played for Pretoria chess club for a while, and then returned to Serbia, if you read this, Hi from everybody at the club :)]

hikaru nakamura is japan-born, no?

granted, japan didn't produce any of his chess...

Making this kind of thread is not very productive. Only thing that will happen is some country will be called either stupid or put down in some form or way and people will be insulted. 

It is what it is and lets just leave it at that. 

How about San Marino?  It's a small nation of only 28,000 people -- I doubt you'd even find a chess club

well i'm sure japan have a heck of a lot more GO grandmasters than russia, just a matter of culture in that particular case.

as for south africa, i know very little about this country so someone else could probably figure out the why.

To sum up what was already said, and to add some of my own, factors leading to "poor" chess performance per specific country could be:

1) Competition from a similar game with cultural roots in the country (e.g. Shogi in Japan, Xiangqi in China)

2) Government bans on the game (e.g. Afghanistan, Iran)

3) Small overall population, or geographic isolation of a country

4) Lingering perception of chess as a Communist propaganda tool (applies to post Soviet-block countries)

5) High level of illiteracy in the population

6) Cultural stereotype of chess as a waste of time and an unprofitable activity 

7) War or guerilla activity ravaging the country

8) Lack of corporate sponsorship for tournaments/teams

[edit: corrected the spelling error pointed out by tyzebug] 

Definitely Japan. Most advanced country and yet not a single GM.  so sad

people already said it: but japan plays Go.

And shogi, too. Personally I find Go more fun than shogi though.

Nitpick: It's xiangqi, not xianqi. The pronounciation is different. [/spelling nazi] :P

Swaziland 

In Japan, western chess has to overcome the popularity of of both Go and Shogi as strategy games. That's tough sledding, especially considering the well-established professional Go circuit they have. I don't know enough about Shogi to say much but I think pretty much the same situation applies.

The state of Go in the US is fairly miserable, with just a few thousand members in the American Go Association.

I recently watched the anime Hikaru no Go which is a cartoon drawn from the manga (comic book) of the same name. I thought it was very good and I wish there could be some chess equivalent.

After watching it I was tempted to learn more about Go and find someone to play, but decided to hold off buying equipment and books etc. Even if I became an aficionado of this very worthy game, there's no where to go if I want to be competitive. Think of a good size local chess tournament of just a handful of boards.

So I think why bother. Western chess in Japan is probably in the same situation with a shallow cultural and player base.

BTW, the Hikaru no Go anime may be seen in its entirety on YouTube, and the manga can be read on the web. It's about a young boy who meets up with the spirit of an ancient and legendary Go player. Only the boy can see or hear him, and so the boy can play like the best player of all time, which confuses a few expert players the boy meets. Soon though the boy finds his own interest in Go to be blooming and cannot let Sai (the ghost) play any face-to-face games. The series becomes pretty quickly a coming of age story of this young Go player. who is on his way to becoming a pro.

It's entertaining and I like the values being taught as well.

Hikaru no Go. Hikaru chess.

On Mars in the country named Green Man they should not be very good at chess

That and maybe the Vatican. 'Bout how many metres square are they? :P

Japan has one IM, the worst chess playing nation is Bahamas (highest rated player is Fide 1911).

haha! That's believable! Wouldn't mind going up against the national champion :D

Actually no. Vatican City has a population of 826

Thanx for your responses. And I'm really not trying to insult anybody, I would dearly love to know why a country with many active players cant create any stars.

"crasychesspaya" hits the nail on the head...and this is why different countries have a competitive advantage in different sports, like the U.S.A. in basketbal...Europe and Latin America in Soccer...the Chinese in Table Tennis etc....most of it though is culture and money.

"Thanx for your responses. And I'm really not trying to insult anybody, I would dearly love to know why a country with many active players cant create any stars."

If a small % of the population plays chess , then it follows that the demand for chess stuff is small...and any revenues from this sector. The point being that not much money will be put in this area to build the chess population...there may be the odd individual who excels inspite of this but only by individual means...not as a social plan. Russia lead the world in chess because the Government at that time encouraged chess playing by offering chess players "everything" (they did not have to work, they were paid, clothe, fed etc...just play chess whole day...). This was an incentive for the population to improve on their chess...schools developed etc. pretty soon everyone was playing the game...and the more you play the better you get....so in this example Russia's chess supremacy is directly related to Government Inceltives...there are many other ways for a country to achieve great players in a particular sport...but underlying everything...there has to be an incentive for individuals to want to improve in that sport...money is the main reason.