Thursday, December 10, 2015

Higher! Higher!

So, Polgar reckons 700 million? Kirsan can do better!


Any advance?

[605 million index]

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here is one I just ran across, back in 2009 David Jarrett was estimating the number of FIDE members as 1 million?

"According to David Jarrett, executive director of the World Chess Federation, women make up about 10% of the organization's estimated one million members, 7.6% of 100,456 rated players ..."

The second number I understand exactly, but what is an estimated member?

From Barbara Jepson, 14 Oct 2009 proposal in WSJ to eliminate women's chess titles.

Yillimo said...

If you inflate the "600" million number at the same rate the population counters tick up (since 2005), maybe "800" is not so far off?

Side question: what do you think of world population estimates? I think in Nigeria (1991), they were off by about 30% (lower) from UN estimates (World Bank) when they held a census. Probably both the census and the estimate were partly in failure. Definitely (some) countries have reason to exaggerate, as do regional or ethnic subclasses in them. The UN has (some) reason to exaggerate too (fear factor). The most extreme critics think it is closer to 4-5 billion, rather than 7 billion. Myself, certainly 10% error is possible, 20% is on high side. I don't know any who think the UN number is low by much, probably because inertia and policy makes the UN cite or project the highest number available.

ejh said...

If you inflate the "600" million number at the same rate the population counters tick up (since 2005), maybe "800" is not so far off?

I think using this data it would be around 680 million, though of course not only is the initial claim absurd, but so is the methodology, i.e. making the assumption that we could just extrapolate from a population increase a similiar increase in a given social activity.

About controversies in world population estimates I am afraid I know nothing!

Andrew Gelman said...

Stupid people can play chess too, no?

Anonymous said...

I agree Andrew, the hyphen might not be appositive but segregating.
Or maybe a slogan "One billion chess politicians - one billion crooked people" is apt.

Lerchley said...

It used to be "clever" people, not "smart".

http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/2012_07_20/FIDE-motto-one-billion-of-clever-people

Necessarily, with 600 million in 2012, to meet the 1 billion goal by 2018 as stated, the growth must have reached 800 million by now. Basic maths in the 5-year planning scheme.

ChessBase said Anand had one billion fans already in 2003, maybe they were the earliest claimants?
http://en.chessbase.com/post/anand-speaks-to-one-billion-fans