People who take chess seriously see themselves as members of an enormous food chain.
It begins at the bottom with the lowliest beginners, rises up through the ranks of club members, then to weekend tournament competitors and reaches a top plateau of the elite species who get to take part in international tournaments and matches.
The elite are no longer so rare: The number of players on the world chess federation rating list topped 150,000.
That’s more than double the 67,000-plus who took part in international events just seven years ago. During that time, the number of Americans with international ratings doubled, to more than 3,000.
Of course, some “international” players get to play in better events than others.
For example, 10 top-rated grandmasters will begin a tournament next month in the world’s most famous art museum, the Louvre in Paris.
Vishy Anand of India is the headliner in the tournament, dedicated to the memory of one of his predecessors as world champion, Alexander Alekhine.
Alekhine lived much of his life in France after leaving Russia. The second half of the tournament winds up at the Mikhailovsky Palace of the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.