One even asked why we are there as if it's their page by eminent domain.

Being a premium member, I probably have more of a right to post there.

As "Brocho," don't you have an eminent right to post anywhere on the internets you want to?

I didn't get where I am today by trying to censor posts by <Brocho>:

When FIDE created the official GM title in the 1950s, the decision was made not to award the title posthumously. Hence Lasker, Morphy et al remain non-GMs today.

Titles aren't all that important, but do you know if there was any push-back at the time to that decision (not to posthumously entitle), or if anyone has proposed since then that the elite players of yesteryear be called GMs?

I have no facts to shed light on your exact query.

You might well have already investigated this, but <Edward Winter> has written a great deal about the history of FIDE, though I don't recall him addressing this exact subject.

Possible other places to ask around there- Biographer's Bistro.

I will offer an opinion- I think it's anachronistic, in a negative sense, to label a player like Morphy a "GM" or even a "World Champion."

It's a bit like awarding Fred Flintstone a title in the American Bowling Association.

(although as a Flintstone afficianado, I have seen Fred win many a championship)

I can tell you some general facts on the subject- the term "Grandmaster" was certainly in use before 1950, though there exists no hard evidence that the Czar inaugurated the title after St. Petersburg 1914.

Some pre-1950 National organizations offered the GM title "in house" at various times, including in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

There was also a "convention" during this period that is described by Galina Petrovs in her memoir. I posted her recollections in this bio Vladimir Petrov, where she is discussing the unofficial label of "Grandmaser" applied to her husband after he shared 1st at <Kemeri 1937>:

<Petrov also earned the title of <<<Grandmaster,>>> due to a widely recognized convention in European chess at this time that if a home town player won a tournament in which at least six foreign Grandmasters participated, then that player would also be recognized as a Grandmaster. Petrov's surprise victory at Kemeri created a stir among European chess journals, which now began referring to him as a "Latvian Grandmaster.> (3)

Sorry, I have not checked my forum recently. I have been too busy playing over all these excellent games from the World Cup.

And no, I am not <The Last Straw>. I do not have -any- puppets like the So fans all seem to do.

It will be a few days before I get internet in my apartment.

In the mean time, whilst alone in the office, I can update recent events. I received several emails from <FMs> letting me know that my web pages are <THE GREATEST THEY EVER SAW. NO OTHER PAGES COME CLOSE>.

I was happy to hear this feedback, especially since I don't actually *have* any web pages.

<doggimus> no, I just pulled a boner with the stout <offramp> who had the class to simply ignore my post, which is good advice at the best of times.

However, your post made me laugh, because it made me think how funny it would be if you changed the bios on the <Ben Johnson> and <Kurt Cobain> pages to be "straight chess bios" instead of just a set of links leading to articles about cheating.

heh....

I always say "go <Big Bio>- accept no substitutes."