Players getting stronger with age

[Chris Rice]

It's been mentioned here before about how well Short and now Adams are playing despite their longevity. This seems to have been reinforced with Onischuk and Akobian at the US Champs this year keeping out the 2800 young guns such as Nakamura and Caruana up to now. Everything could of course change in the last round. But when I saw Granda Zuniga beating Giri and taking him out of the top 10 it's getting to be a bit of a trend. Granda seems to get a higher rating every year. I just wondered whether anyone else had found this.

GM Pepe Cuena analyses Granda's win in the Bundesliga. https://chess24.com/en/live/video/peruv ... rld-top-10

[JustinHorton]

I did note, when Arthur Bisguier died a few days ago, that Wikipedia had him achieving his highest Elo rating at the age of 51.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Ivanchuk just won a 4-game friendly match 3-1 against Hou Yifan. The last game was a miniature due to a not-completely-obvious oversight by Hou.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I did note, when Arthur Bisguier died a few days ago, that Wikipedia had him achieving his highest Elo rating at the age of 51.

Though of course Elo ratings only came in around 1970-71, and he was already into his 40s then.

[Nick Grey]

USCF before then...

Many players in their 50s & 60s may reach a peak on ECF - one good year.

[Keith Arkell]

The aging player is fighting against reduced processing speed, and increased incidence of health issues. I think there can also be a reduction in motivation and drive to succeed.

However, where there is continued good health, and the motivation is still there, I believe a player can continue to become stronger as he/she gets older simply by continuously assimilating information and gaining experience.

Towards the end of his life, Tal, in a thought experiment, famously said that he would slaughter the Young World Champion Tal in a match. And, though at a more humble level, by the end of 2014 I felt the same re younger versions of myself. For example, in my 20s and 30s, there is no way that I was capable of reeling off 3 'GM norms' in a row, as I managed to at the Isle of Man, the World Senior Ch and Hastings.

Of course, on the downside, as a young man I probably would have quickly brushed off the virus which instead exhausted me and crippled my chess for 5 months, and which I finally recovered from early this year.

So, to sum up, because chess is partly an information based activity, the longer you stay in good nick, the more information and understanding you can acquire.

[JustinHorton]

Towards the end of his life, Tal, in a thought experiment, famously said that he would slaughter the Young World Champion Tal in a match.

Do you reckon he would though, or is that just an illusion we start suffering from in middle-age? I know that when I've occasionally looked at games I played in my twenties I've often thought well, I don't think I'd make that mistake nowadays, and I suppose my store of knowledge must have expanded along with my experience, but on the other hand speed of thought, capacity to recollect, level of concentration and so on must all be less than they were. Ultimately I'm not sure objective evidence is in our favour here.

[MartinCarpenter]

Well Tal in particular had a vastly broader style later on than he did earlier, so he may well have been able to beat his younger self in a match.
(Although the quantity of energy on offer wouldn't make it easy!).

[Brian Towers]

Towards the end of his life, Tal, in a thought experiment, famously said that he would slaughter the Young World Champion Tal in a match.

Do you reckon he would though, or is that just an illusion we start suffering from in middle-age? I know that when I've occasionally looked at games I played in my twenties I've often thought well, I don't think I'd make that mistake nowadays, and I suppose my store of knowledge must have expanded along with my experience, but on the other hand speed of thought, capacity to recollect, level of concentration and so on must all be less than they were. Ultimately I'm not sure objective evidence is in our favour here.

Really? You've made no progress? That's also what the grading record shows?

Looking at Cornwall's handy archive (http://www.cornwallchess.org.uk/html/ar ... 1987.shtml) I see that when I drew my board 14 game playing for Somerset A against Cornwall A my 31 year old self had a BCF grade of 142. Note also the comment at the bottom regarding Richard Tabor's game on board 8 "The result of the adjudicated game is unknown" and you will understand my confidence that my 61 year old 2017 self with 162 ECF grading (for what that is worth) would give him a damn good thrashing.

From 2005 to 2015 nearly all my chess was played at 90+30. 30 years ago it was all 36 in 90 followed by adjudication. My 31 year old self lacked the chess stamina and endgame knowledge that I have now along with all the theoretical knowledge and experience I have gained. To be fair to him he was working 50+ hours a week as a freelance software engineer at the end of an hour long commute from Bath to Templecoombe, playing chess for South Bristol in the Bristol league, Wincanton in one of the Somerset leagues and Somerset in the minor counties, playing basketball for Frome and in my spare time doing an Open University degree in Philosophy as a hobby . Just checked my training diaries; I was running 20 - 30 miles a week as well. Proper running mind. 7 minute miling not the 10 - 11 minute plod that is all I can manage nowadays. That this obvious overload had an effect can be seen from the fact that the 18 year old me, who really only had A levels to cope with and the fairly soft option of double maths, physics at that, had a BCF grading of 150.

Looking at that snapshot, Keith is absolutely right. Your energy levels do definitely decrease quire markedly as you get older. That sort of schedule would kill me in about a month now. I do still try and jog 10 miles a week but of the rest only the chess remains. It would be quite shameful if my chess hadn't improved!

Historians might be interested in scrolling a bit further down http://www.cornwallchess.org.uk/html/ar ... 1987.shtml where they will see that on board 15 of the Cornwall B v Somerset B match the ungraded D Colbourne beat a future IM who is currently looking forward to recording a 73 point rating increase in the next FIDE rating list.

[JustinHorton]

Really? You've made no progress? That's also what the grading record shows?

It shows I'm about a hundred points down on my peak, I believe, so your point eludes me.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Historians might be interested in scrolling a bit further down http://www.cornwallchess.org.uk/html/ar ... 1987.shtml where they will see that on board 15 of the Cornwall B v Somerset B match the ungraded D Colbourne beat a future IM who is currently looking forward to recording a 73 point rating increase in the next FIDE rating list.

And just below that...

Played at Buddle Lane Hall, Exeter
on 31st January 1987
CORNWALL A 8 - 8 WILTSHIRE A
1 219 M. Adams 0 - 1 M. C. Truran 210

[Roger de Coverly]

And just below that...

The archive doesn't feature the 1983 Counties Quarter Final between Bucks and Cornwall. Memorably the venue was the Pavilion at the Somerset Cricket Ground in Taunton and as far as I recall had Golombek on the Bucks side and Adams for Cornwall. They didn't meet as at the age of not that much, Adams had yet to graduate to board 1. If I've remembered correctly, the Bucks player who faced Adams had to meet Matthew Sadler in a match against Kent not so many years later, similarly a little down the order.

[Keith Arkell]

Towards the end of his life, Tal, in a thought experiment, famously said that he would slaughter the Young World Champion Tal in a match.

Do you reckon he would though, or is that just an illusion we start suffering from in middle-age? I know that when I've occasionally looked at games I played in my twenties I've often thought well, I don't think I'd make that mistake nowadays, and I suppose my store of knowledge must have expanded along with my experience, but on the other hand speed of thought, capacity to recollect, level of concentration and so on must all be less than they were. Ultimately I'm not sure objective evidence is in our favour here.

I think It's not trivial to find objective methods by which to compare our current level of play with former levels. One method is by using grades or ratings. My ECF grade is 240. This encompasses pretty much all of the 160 or so games of chess I played over the course of a year, in sickness and in health. I don't think that my grade was ever much more than this - not 1, 2 or 3 decades ago.

My ELO graph is more complex as it pinpoints quite strikingly the differences between periods of high motivation, periods of being under the weather, and, for example, the debilitating effect switching from a focus on competing in strong Internationals to playing in FIDE rated weekenders can have on your rating. Many high rated GMs simply refuse point blank to play in the latter!

Anyway, my peak ELO historically was 2545, in July 1996. In those days the list came out every 6 months, and I exactly maintained that rating 6 months later, in January 1997. By comparison, in August 2014 I was rated 2435, and then, after playing 89 rated games over the course of the next 6 monthly lists, appeared in the Feb 2015 list at 2510. I can't be bothered to do the maths, but I guess that the level of play required to push it up so quickly, using a sluggish 'k-factor' of 10, is not dissimilar to my peak level back in '96.

Some speak of rating inflation and some deflation. None can argue though with the fact that a few years ago the ECF had to take measures to combat deflation. It is easy to fall for the trap of believing that just because there are lots more 2700s around today than there were 30 years ago this is somehow proof of inflation. All it shows is that a lot of extremely strong players have emerged. There has been a worldwide chess explosion.

Furthermore, even those who argue for a modicum of inflation must surely accept that standards continue to rise. This is true of tennis, athletics, scientific knowledge and so on. How can chess, as an information based activity, be immune from the same pattern?

So, a 170 graded player today is stronger than he would have been had he had a grade of 170 thirty years earlier, and this increase in strength could have no more led to an increase in his grade than would the distance from Paignton to Blackpool measure 600 miles rather than 300 if the circumference of the Earth spontaneously doubled, along with the length of all measuring devices within it.

In answer to your question, yes I think there is an illusory aspect to the belief that you continue to get stronger with age. The illusion being that it is more difficult to perceive the reduced processing speed I referred to in my initial post, than it is the deeper understanding of the game we feel that we now possess. There is a constant juxtaposition between the two aspects: on the one side, the slowed brain processes, greater risk of impediment due to other age-related issues , and a possible decline in motivational levels; on the other side the constant addition to knowledge and understanding, the possibility of working on and ironing out the weakest aspects of your game, and simply benefiting from staying around and observing for yourself the worldwide development of the game.

It's my feeling that Tal was right, and the objective evidence would be in his favour were we to computer engine evaluate the level of his play in the mid-80s compared to in 1961. I think this is also the case with myself as a 240 graded player compared to the 236 graded 36 year old Keith Arkell of 1997. And ditto a 170 player versus himself graded 170 or indeed a different 170 player, from 20 or 30 years ago. And so on, whatever level of player we refer to.

[David Williams]

I've just had a look at the 100 Top Players over 60 list on the ECF Grading Database. Running a finger down the Standard and Previous grade columns the average grade of these people has increased slightly. Average of the top 100 over 70 has also gone up, though not by as much.

[Neill Cooper]

After 4 decades of trying I have finally got into the 180s - is it due to grade inflation, experience or luck?
In my case I think it is exercise.