Quote:
Originally Posted by kingstalker
You gotta wonder what Western Chess organizers will think about the infiltration of Chinese players into international chess events. Right now, it has novelty value. But in 5-10 years, these events could be swamped by Chinese players, which could hurt the selling of chess to Western audiences.
I'm curious what makes you think this "infiltration" is happening... or will in the future? Also, I've been wanting an excuse to play around with the filters on 2700chess.com's new "all FIDE players" listings. This seems like a good opportunity!
Currently, in order to crack the "top-100" list of European chess players, you need a rating of 2634 or above. There are currently 9 Chinese players rated 2634 or above. And presumably a European player is more likely than a Chinese player to participate in a European event (which is what you meant by "Western" I presume?) So a European event catering to "top" players could probably expect to see at most about 1 in 15 entrants be Chinese. There are several Chinese players in the 25-50 range of the world rankings (6 of them, to be precise), making this ratio higher in that rating range, but then at the "elite" level there is also only one Chinese player in the top 24 right now. I'm not convinced this qualifies as an "infiltration", it's just a few very good chess players from the same country. Kudos to them for that.
So what about the future? If there is a large glut of Chinese juniors, then perhaps we could expect these ratios to change in the future. You did say 5-10 years out was your time frame.
The 100th best European Junior (players born in 1997 or later) is rated 2332. The number of Chinese Junior players rated 2332 or above? 6.
Going younger, the 100th best European player born in 2000 or later (kids 15 or under) is rated 2149. In that age range, China has 9 players rated 2149+
How about the pre-teens? The 100th best European player born in 2003 or later is rated 1863. How many Chinese 12 (and below) year olds are rated 1863+? 7.
Looks like the ratios stay pretty steady as we get younger, so I don't see any strong reason to think that 5-10 years from now China will be much more prevalent on the world chess stage than they are now. Certainly there are a few great Chinese players (and one who I happen to obsess over as he continues to shatter records for youngest player to achieve various rating milestones... records mostly held by Carlsen at this point). It doesn't really seem to me, though, that anyone is being "swamped". Either now, or in the foreseeable future.