Abolish all chess titles: Nigel Short

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Mumbai, Nov 18: Former world no two Nigel Short today called for the abolition of the titles in chess like Grand Masters and International Masters which he said served no purpose except leading to corrupt practices by several players who were not averse to buying these titles.

“My personal opinion is to do away with these titles in chess. I know several instances of tournaments being fixed in order to help players attain the required norms and then get the GM titles. There have been instances of players throwing away matches for money to enable their opponents get these titles,” GM Short said.

Short, who is here to play in the November 20-29 Commonwealth Chess Championship as well as in his capacity as the president of the Commonwealth Chess Association, minced no words in saying the world body FIDE did little to stamp out these malpractices and, on the contrary, even encouraging them.

“To me rankings are sufficient to guage a player's worth. There are over 1000 players -- both past and present -- who are holding GM titles. The titles are not the same as they were twenty years ago,” said Short who explained how the lowering of the qualifing standards deliberately by FIDE has devalued the titles.

“In olden days if a person had to get a norm after a 13-round tournament, he or she had to play extremely well throughout, but currently they can play well for nine rounds and play like fools in the last four but still get the norms,” Short elaborated.

Short, however, said that despite these corrupt practices that have lowered the game's image, the standards have remained high thanks to the advent of laptop computers.

“The standards have remained high due to the ubiquitous laptops which help the players maintain their high levels,” said Short who is to travel to Doha for the December 1-15 Asian Games as the coach of the Iranian team.

Short, has been coaching Indian prodigy Parimarjan Negi, predicted a bright future for the 13-year-old, but said he had a long way to go and cannot be compared to Viswanathan Anand.

“Negi is a very diligent and hard-working player. He's very talented, but still has a long way to go. He cannot be compared to Vishy Anand. The very fact that he's in the top 300 players in the world at 13 years of age show how good he is,” the British GM said.