Aagaarde of Scotland has just become a GM. His win over Hebden pushed him above 2500. He has a T-shirt TEAM SCOTLAND! He sacrifices queens 'unsoundly' to win (according to the SCOTTISH CHESS magazine). He's done us proud!  Chessica

Yeh! But isn't he Danish??

Well, we've got all kinds and colours that are now SCOTS, and we are a' Jock Tamson's bairns. And as the Nigerian player on our site, Eniola, says, in the chess family we are all one people.
Aagaard is VERY welcome to call himself a Scot!   :-)

Hi Chessica - yeh, you're right, and so is eniola, we are all the same old mob. It was just that I thoiught you Scots had started copying the age-old English habit of asserting - or implying - that any talented person who has the least connection with them is one of them. Think of such great "Englishmen" as David Hume and Oscar Wide!!! Cheers...Tony

Sorry, Chessica - I meant Oscar Wilde; not Wide!!

Sorry Tony...it's not that we Scots imply that any talented person with even the slightest connection to Scotland is one of us. It's just that, because they're so talented, and because there are so many talented people from Scotland spread throughout the world...we automatically invoke 'Scottishness' upon them. This grand attribute is a 'celtic' compliment...rather than an 'anglo-saxon' curse.

Was Idi Amin, dictator or Uganda!

Even Saddam Hussein was telented! Was he also Scottish?

People who obtain a FIDE rating of 2500-2599 don't deserve the title "Grandmaster".One should have to obtain a FIDE rating of 2600 + to earn the title Grandmaster,but even with that criteria there would be over 200 people with that title active today on the FIDE rating list.Also once you earn the titles Master,International Master or Grandmaster that title is yours for life,no matter how low your rating falls,which is absurd and should be changed.If you fall below the minimum rating requirement for any of the  above titles then you should lose the corresponding title.

People who obtain a FIDE rating of 2500-2599 don't deserve the title "Grandmaster".One should have to obtain a FIDE rating of 2600 + to earn the title Grandmaster,but even with that criteria there would be over 200 people with that title active today on the FIDE rating list.Also once you earn the titles Master,International Master or Grandmaster that title is yours for life,no matter how low your rating falls,which is absurd and should be changed.If you fall below the minimum rating requirement for any of the  above titles then you should lose the corresponding title.Because the rating range for the title Grandmaster is so broad you there are some 1200 people with that title on the FIDE ratings list,which renders the title meaningless.One might as well call any specialist in the field of medicine a world renowned specialist.

I love the seeing chess problems that he contributed to chessbase, I have become a way stronger player(Class B!!)  by training tactics with those.