It seems pretty unlikely based on these stats masters are everyone from candidate masters and up , that is , everyone with an Elo rating of 2200 . There are about 10 , 000 titled players in the world , of which 2 , 443 are Russians . This proportion is slightly bigger than in Germany 1 , 318 , much bigger than in France 405 or in England 270 , etc . At a glance , of the top 20 countries only small ones like Armenia , Hungary , Czechia , Cuba , and Israel have a larger proportion . Almost all are , not unexpectedly , from the old Soviet sphere or in Israel ' s case have a lot of Soviet immigrants . Map is of players with an Elo of 1800 , but I really doubt that the relative weight of different countries will be very different between 1800 and 2200 . I have tried using the database linked from the map but haven ' t been able to figure out make it spit out that data .