Statistics of chess players and events

Within the FIDE Development Committee we have been discussing a lot about how to measure the development of chess in a simple but a clear way. The objective is to have several performance indicators to give to the chess community information that covers the main trends, to motivate individual federations to think about the situation and to provoke a healthy competition at the same time.

In total there are six indicators discussed by the members of the Development Committee.

1. Number of active players with FIDE rating

The trend is very clear and positive: during the last five years the number of active players with FIDE rating has been almost doubled. 164 national federations contribute to the statistics. The table below shows the top 20 federations as they stood at the end of 2013:

#	Federation	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
1	Spain	6 973	8 430	9 195	9 527	10 149
2	Germany	7 538	8 258	8 553	8 780	9 384
3	France	5 409	6 684	7 606	7 986	9 019
4	India	2 475	3 736	4 735	5 209	7 014
5	Russia	5 196	5 704	6 268	6 511	6 649
6	Czech Rep.	2 297	2 879	3 123	3 463	3 703
7	Italy	2 318	2 811	3 087	3 279	3 437
8	Poland	2 442	2 788	3 062	3 256	3 385
9	Hungary	2 534	2 967	3 060	3 150	3 350
10	Greece	1 214	1 571	1 813	1 985	2 201
11	Serbia	1 422	1 696	1 825	1 955	2 142
12	Slovakia	1 126	1 390	1 563	1 734	1 890
13	Netherlands	1 303	1 553	1 675	1 763	1 840
14	Austria	980	1 203	1 426	1 513	1 662
15	USA	828	1 194	1 415	1 544	1 646
16	Denmark	864	1 155	1 284	1 438	1 619
17	Turkey	660	834	1 000	1 146	1 554
18	Croatia	1 184	1 397	1 427	1 474	1 532
19	Ireland	554	731	1 193	1 393	1 528
20	Belgium	707	922	1 044	1 155	1 371

The top 20 federations have around 74% of all active FIDE rated players in the world. Just two of these federations, India and USA, are not members of the ECU. The share of all 54 European federations is therefore even more crucial.

2. Number of open tournaments

The trend is very positive. Open tournaments are mainly about the mass promotion of chess, about giving possibilities to weaker players to play with stronger ones. The increase is by 37% during the monitored period. But who organised the most of opens? Let's have a look on the top 20 federations in this group:

#	Federation	2010	2011	2012	2013
1	France	629	565	697	703
2	Spain	479	497	570	512
3	Russia	354	417	517	503
4	Italy	419	454	515	486
5	Germany	299	311	331	363
6	Poland	230	280	325	344
7	Greece	186	212	259	258
8	Hungary	154	155	172	250
9	USA	155	212	245	211
10	Netherlands	149	168	166	200
11	India	96	132	150	180
12	Denmark	83	126	151	168
13	Czech Rep.	96	114	149	145
14	Turkey	79	79	82	133
15	Brazil	104	118	136	130
16	Portugal	116	118	129	125
17	Romania	96	106	132	124
18	England	45	55	86	116
19	Croatia	112	95	117	104
20	Austria	44	59	70	103

The top 20 federations organised 71.45% of all open tournaments in the world. With the exception of India and the USA, Brazil was the third non-European federation that got into the top 20.

3. Number of round robin tournaments

The number of round robin tournaments went down in 2013. These tournaments are more about quality (of course not always) and therefore more demanding on sufficient sponsorship. The global financial crisis probably had some influence too. The analysis of the average rating of these tournament and the trend could be another interesting topic for further analysis.

#	Federation	2010	2011	2012	2013
1	Denmark	71	139	155	187
2	France	102	79	165	141
3	Russia	139	171	145	105
4	Spain	86	81	77	82
5	Hungary	84	97	95	76
6	Germany	67	70	56	62
7	Ukraine	74	58	52	56
8	Sweden	30	35	34	46
9	USA	33	44	53	41
10	Poland	46	40	37	35
11	Argentina	43	34	39	34
12	Brazil	37	61	39	33
13	Czech Rep.	30	34	25	26
14	Australia	21	18	24	25
15	Mexico	18	20	19	24
16	Serbia	13	16	11	17
17	Romania	15	12	24	17
18	Cuba	43	42	24	15
19	Yemen	0	0	0	14
20	Norway	2	7	9	14

The top 20 federations organised 71.43% of all round robin tournaments. The number one position of Denmark is a surprise, but here again we only compare the number of tournaments, not their objective strength. Stronger tournaments are probably organised more in France and especially Russia.

4. Number of games

In 2013 there were almost one million FIDE rated games played in total around the world. Each day an average of 2737 games are played. The trend is also quite positive and it's quite obvious that there is still a very promising potential.

#	Federation	2010	2011	2012	2013
1	Spain	155 675	163 243	174 018	189 945
2	India	86 652	125 131	131 830	182 640
3	France	127 061	151 458	160 598	180 281
4	Germany	114 761	119 678	121 692	139 928
5	Russia	121 929	134 884	137 486	137 614
6	Poland	57 665	65 598	64 807	81 508
7	Czech Rep.	62 943	67 633	63 577	78 871
8	Italy	59 849	70 263	74 314	72 702
9	Hungary	60 046	61 747	59 942	71 116
10	Greece	37 055	53 985	52 584	55 841
11	Serbia	25 994	28 101	32 759	35 039
12	Turkey	24 290	19 241	35 559	34 856
13	Austria	19 905	27 894	23 355	34 319
14	USA	23 100	29 442	33 001	33 421
15	Romania	25 468	26 678	27 409	32 823
16	Slovakia	24 388	27 891	31 479	32 530
17	Denmark	17 659	22 934	26 145	31 419
18	Ireland	15 217	19 433	26 824	30 665
19	Croatia	33 441	24 986	30 603	29 328
20	England	15 961	18 483	21 040	26 631

Spain, India and France are leaders in this group, with the growth of FIDE rated games in India being the most promising. Probably the former World Champion has had some influence.

5. Number of games played by foreigners in the country (chess export)

This indicator is interesting from the point of view of organisers of chess tournaments, who want to know whether they can attract foreign players. The trend is not so important – the fact to remember is the 25% of all games are in average played by foreign players. The federation that has the higher indicator (for example 28%) is successful and most probably very active in getting foreign players in the country.

#	Federation	2010	2011	2012	2013
1	France	16 434	18 936	17 694	17 460
2	Germany	12 152	10 999	13 301	15 837
3	Czech Rep.	15 162	13 740	8 972	15 530
4	Spain	16 702	14 962	13 881	15 161
5	Austria	5 492	8 498	5 326	10 270
6	Poland	5 668	4 162	4 484	8 807
7	England	5 681	6 619	8 702	8 565
8	Greece	5 363	14 492	8 748	7 592
9	Russia	16 229	9 576	8 818	7 453
10	Montenegro	505	492	679	7 208
11	Italy	7 831	10 562	8 649	6 890
12	Switzerland	6 428	7 073	6 139	6 409
13	Croatia	9 235	4 126	6 359	6 359
14	Hungary	6 852	6 611	6 948	6 329
15	USA	3 580	5 018	6 597	6 179
16	Bulgaria	4 262	9 218	8 094	5 508
17	UAE	1 390	2 337	4 402	4 608
18	Serbia	5 137	2 256	3 048	4 400
19	India	2 919	3 227	3 812	4 016
20	Netherlands	3 319	4 002	4 827	3 977

France and Germany are leaders of this group. The Czech Republic ranks the third and proves that it belongs to the world's top chess exporters.

6. Number of games of the country players played abroad (chess import)

Chess import reflects the travelling of national players abroad. There can be at least three reasons:

Travel to an interesting destination and combining the pleasant stay with a hobby.
Trip to a tournament of better quality to gain experiences or titles.
Play abroad as an invited player with a title to try to make money.

#	Country	2010	2011	2012	2013
1	Germany	17 023	19 461	15 532	20 403
2	Russia	15 975	14 997	14 730	19 160
3	Ukraine	8 987	9 729	8 476	8 730
4	Netherlands	6 450	6 821	6 123	7 113
5	India	5 531	5 228	7 107	6 734
6	France	5 974	6 366	5 202	6 664
7	Poland	5 630	6 066	5 570	6 300
8	Serbia	5 566	5 359	5 261	5 892
9	Italy	5 396	5 072	5 248	5 535
10	Hungary	4 293	4 736	4 732	5 075
11	Belgium	4 373	4 372	4 446	5 068
12	England	4 261	4 067	4 663	4 955
13	Norway	3 505	3 839	3 718	4 715
14	Romania	4 160	4 631	3 897	4 660
15	Czech Rep.	4 746	4 199	4 439	4 462
16	Spain	3 333	4 073	3 084	4 258
17	Slovakia	4 035	4 223	2 956	4 017
18	Slovenia	2 679	3 111	2 787	3 694
19	Sweden	3 150	2 817	3 044	3 622
20	Bulgaria	4 112	3 855	3 591	3 608

Germany, Russia and Ukraine are leaders in this group.

It would be interesting to analyse “chess trade balance” whether a country attracts more foreign players to its tournaments (chess import) or whether its own players tend to travel to play abroad (chess export). Slovakia for example has a negative chess trade balance totalling minus 1210 games. It means Slovak players played 1210 more games abroad than foreigners in Slovakia, in 2013. To make the balance equal there would be a need to organise a few more open tournaments in Slovakia, and probably there would be a market for such a step.