Media comments on chess

[Brian Towers]

If we look at the evidence of the top 100 rating list, it is very apparent that over 50s, with the possible exception of Nigel himself, cannot play chess to the required standard. So does the wiring deteriorate with age?

Does your experience not confirm this? - http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=405213 .

[Roger de Coverly]

Does your experience not confirm this? - http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=405213 .

The decision of the ECF to revalue all the domestic grades distorts the issue, but my national grade reached its highest value in the last five years. My international rating has been hit by games with juniors about 400 points or more below their current strength. At one time because of the then inflation in the International system at the entry level of 2000, my International was consistently 100 points or so above my national as converted.

[Mike Truran]

Mark Cavendish on sprinting: 'It's not like playing chess' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/33222937)

Wow! Really?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Does your experience not confirm this? - http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=405213 .

The decision of the ECF to revalue all the domestic grades distorts the issue, but my national grade reached its highest value in the last five years. My international rating has been hit by games with juniors about 400 points or more below their current strength. At one time because of the then inflation in the International system at the entry level of 2000, my International was consistently 100 points or so above my national as converted.

Roger, do you think the strength of your play (independent of any rating system) has improved, deteriorated, or stayed the same with increasing age? This is a separate question from why your rating and grading has varied.

[MartinCarpenter]

I saw a very plausible comment about rating and age somewhere. iirc in relation to Gelfand. Basically suggesting that the biggest effect was that it gets very hard to maintain a constant level of motivation.

That means you'll have some ropey tournaments - obviously hurting your grade - but your actual strength when properly motivated isn't so badly affected.

Different for amateurs I suspect as keeping a sane level of motivation is already so hard at times You can easily see things like retiring, having kids move out etc that might well leave some people with much more time and energy for the game at 50+ than before.

[Phil Neatherway]

Apparently, sprint cycling it not like chess. I quite agree.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/33222937

[Stewart Reuben]

Roger >If his scoring is to go by, did Fischer think in descriptive?<
I don't know how Bobby thought. But in my experience he was equally conversant in either descriptive or algebraic. That is probably still true of me, although it is 60 years since I have used descriptive.

My FIDE Rating has gone down from its maximum by about 200 points, 2270 to 2050. I am 76 years old.
I have given up playing poker because I was no longer winning. If one isn't winning, then one is losing and that is costly. Where I was playing in a casino, it cost £20 per hour to play, plus taxi expenses. I still play chess because it is relatively inexpensive.
Why has my playing strength at chess deteriorated?
1. Deteriorating physical health. I take 11 pills a day and one or more may have a detrimental effect. Blood circulation has deteriorated.
2. Diminished motification. e.g. I can't be bothered to study new openings.
3. Greater difficulty maintaining concentration.
4. Greater tendency to blunder.
5, Deteriorating memory.
6, Yet the use of cumulative mode has made it EASIER for me to ration my time efficiently.
7. The ego being less apparent, can lead to MORE objective thinking.
8. I don't play many children competitively.

[Brian Towers]

Roger, do you think the strength of your play (independent of any rating system) has improved, deteriorated, or stayed the same with increasing age? This is a separate question from why your rating and grading has varied.

I'm not Roger but my impression is that I improve steadily from year to year. This just seems self evident because of all the stuff I know now which I didn't know 40 years ago. However secretly I suspect that I am a bit like the character in the old Billy Connolly joke who ends up saying to his doctor: "Now that I'm 64 I can tie a knot in it. So, tell me, am I getting stronger?" There is also the evidence of gradings and ratings across several federations and decades which, while it has gone up a bit and down a bit, is not much different to what it was 40 years ago. There is also the evidence of scorebooks from past decades. Sometimes playing through old games I am surprised at how well I played and wonder if I would do as well today.

[Ian Kingston]

A quote from The Guardian's report on England's victory over Norway in the World Cup yesterday:

Judging by his love of tactical surprise [Mark] Sampson should make a fine chess player.

[JustinHorton]

MARCA, the leading Spanish sports daily, devoted much of its back page to chess today.

[JustinHorton]

From the previous day: Brigitta Sinka.

The piece says:

then in 1960 Hungary was part of an Eastern Bloc boycott.

Is this quite right? There doesn't seem to have been a Women's Olympiad in 1960, but I didn't know that before today and have no idea of the whys and wherefores.

[Stewart Reuben]

Justin >There doesn't seem to have been a Wonen's Olympiad in 1960, but I didn't know that before today and have no idea of the whys and wherefores.<

I just looked up the FIDE Golden Book and it shows that the Olympiads have had a chequered history.
Women played from the start, but the book refers to the 'Men's Olympiad. At my behest, it is now Open and Women's.
Sometimes the event was held in odd-numbered years.
1956 had the Moscow Olympiad.
1957 The Emmen Women's Olympiad.
1958 Munich Olympiad.
1960 Leipzig Men.
1962 Varna Men.
1963 Split Women. England didn't even play, but Scotland did.
1964 Tel Aviv Men.
1966 Oberhausen Women
1966 Havana Men.
It wasn't until 1976 Haifa that the two events were regularly played together.
Initially the women's teams were of two players plus one reserve. Then it moved to 3 players plus one reserve. Now it is the same as the open, 4 players plus 1 reserve.

[Roger de Coverly]

Sometimes the event was held in odd-numbered years.

http://www.olimpbase.org/olympiads/women_results.html gives the history. Every three years from 1957 until 1972 and every two after that, merging with the Open/Men's from 1976.

There is a gap in the sequence in 1960. As to why it didn't take place, that isn't documented.

The Eastern bloc countries boycotted the Haifa event in 1976 and one or two countries refused to play in Dubai in 1986 as a team representing Israel would not have been allowed to compete.

[JustinHorton]

[
There is a gap in the sequence in 1960. As to why it didn't take place, that isn't documented.

Yeah, I saw that. I wondered if anybody knew the reason, or if there even was a "reason" as such.

[Matt Mackenzie]

The first Olympiad to have "men"/women events together was actually Skopje in 1972 I think.

But the events were again separate in 1974 (no idea why) before "uniting" permanently two years later.