Adult Improvement

[Nick Burrows]

What is the highest rating (or strongest player if pre-ratings) achieved by someone who learned chess as an adult (20+) ?

What rating would Magnus Carlsen reach if he had first laid eyes on a board aged 20?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Joseph Blackburn is supposed to have learned to play when he was quite old (just checked on wikipedia, which says he was 17 or 18).

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Yoshiharu Habu, who I believe is considered one of the strongest shogi players ever, learned chess at the age of about 22 (see https://en.chessbase.com/post/when-a-sh ... rns-to-che) and achieved the FM title 12 years later. At the time I think I read that his FIDE rating was ~2400.

[Nick Burrows]

Yoshiharu Habu, who I believe is considered one of the strongest shogi players ever, learned chess at the age of about 22 (see https://en.chessbase.com/post/when-a-sh ... rns-to-che) and achieved the FM title 12 years later. At the time I think I read that his FIDE rating was ~2400.

Thanks Jon, I didn't know about this guy. However, Chat GPT tells me: "Yoshiharu Habu, the legendary Japanese shogi player, learned the rules of chess when he was around 11 or 12 years old.
He first encountered chess through books and later began playing more seriously in junior high school"

[Nick Burrows]

Edward Formanek reportedly did not learn chess until age 20 (while at college).

He improved rapidly afterward, and by his 30s was one of the top players in the U.S.

He earned the IM title in 1977.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Mikhail Chigorin reportedly only learned the moves at 16, and did not play seriously for a while after that.

[Nick Ivell]

I would say you are not going to be world class these days if you learn the moves after the teenage years.

[Geoff Chandler]

Apparently Howard Staunton learned the moves at 20 but did not take up the game seriously until he was 26.