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Aging in Chess

This is nonsense on stilts. It's unreal how motivated chess amateurs are to find intrinsic limits on chess ability when what they are finding is correlation, mostly a matter of flagging effort.

Korchnoi, Smyslov, Polugaevsky etc played very well long beyond this deadline here. And don't give me this nonsense about not in 2024. Even if you computer analyze their games you won't find it's a low level and 1980 chess was bad or something like that.

This is nonsense on stilts. It's unreal how motivated chess amateurs are to find intrinsic limits on chess ability when what they are finding is correlation, mostly a matter of flagging effort. Korchnoi, Smyslov, Polugaevsky etc played very well long beyond this deadline here. And don't give me this nonsense about not in 2024. Even if you computer analyze their games you won't find it's a low level and 1980 chess was bad or something like that.

Oh my god... One of the best blogs I have ever seen in my 5 years of Lichess... Really good explanations and factual statements. Yeah, it is true that 5% of the brain shrinks every decade, and how the average year of retirement for chess and other sports is 40 years old or less. The Hikaru part was emotional and the result statistics are very clear, so it makes the blog real good. I suggest you could add more quotes as you did to Hikaru in the future to make the following statement clear? Last but not least, thank you for sharing this. Lichess put the blog here in purpose.

Oh my god... One of the best blogs I have ever seen in my 5 years of Lichess... Really good explanations and factual statements. Yeah, it is true that 5% of the brain shrinks every decade, and how the average year of retirement for chess and other sports is 40 years old or less. The Hikaru part was emotional and the result statistics are very clear, so it makes the blog real good. I suggest you could add more quotes as you did to Hikaru in the future to make the following statement clear? Last but not least, thank you for sharing this. Lichess put the blog here in purpose.

@GlennJamesMax
I appreciate you taking the time to comment, but I have to disagree with your assessment. This could only be true if I cherry picked evidence, which I did not. I took the top 10 from 2000, excluding cases who quit chess not because of age. I am not saying no one above age 40 plays well, Anand is an example I mention. This is a general principle, not a sweeping statement applying to all instances.

@GlennJamesMax I appreciate you taking the time to comment, but I have to disagree with your assessment. This could only be true if I cherry picked evidence, which I did not. I took the top 10 from 2000, excluding cases who quit chess not because of age. I am not saying no one above age 40 plays well, Anand is an example I mention. This is a general principle, not a sweeping statement applying to all instances.

@Clementlau
Thank you so much!! Really appreciate it!

@Clementlau Thank you so much!! Really appreciate it!

@ebk1976
I followed you and liked the blog!!!

@ebk1976 I followed you and liked the blog!!!

@GlennJamesMax
It's true that other players have played very well long beyond this deadline here, but then you are only listing SOME players, ebk1976 is talking about average. But even to this point, you should appreciate how ebk1976 made this blog and stop using dang churlish words.

@GlennJamesMax It's true that other players have played very well long beyond this deadline here, but then you are only listing SOME players, ebk1976 is talking about average. But even to this point, you should appreciate how ebk1976 made this blog and stop using dang churlish words.

@ebk1976 said in #24:

@Clementlau
Thank you so much!! Really appreciate it!

No problem, I'm your fan.

@ebk1976 said in #24: > @Clementlau > Thank you so much!! Really appreciate it! No problem, I'm your fan.

@GlennJamesMax said in #21:

This is nonsense on stilts. It's unreal how motivated chess amateurs are to find intrinsic limits on chess ability when what they are finding is correlation, mostly a matter of flagging effort.

Korchnoi, Smyslov, Polugaevsky etc played very well long beyond this deadline here. And don't give me this nonsense about not in 2024. Even if you computer analyze their games you won't find it's a low level and 1980 chess was bad or something like that.

Are you sure it is nonsense? I suppose the opposite. Besides, the author of this blog didn't even say it's a low level and 1980 chess was bad or something like that. And of course, the players you listed's prime were actually BEFORE they were 40.

@GlennJamesMax said in #21: > This is nonsense on stilts. It's unreal how motivated chess amateurs are to find intrinsic limits on chess ability when what they are finding is correlation, mostly a matter of flagging effort. > > Korchnoi, Smyslov, Polugaevsky etc played very well long beyond this deadline here. And don't give me this nonsense about not in 2024. Even if you computer analyze their games you won't find it's a low level and 1980 chess was bad or something like that. Are you sure it is nonsense? I suppose the opposite. Besides, the author of this blog didn't even say it's a low level and 1980 chess was bad or something like that. And of course, the players you listed's prime were actually BEFORE they were 40.

@ebk1976 said in #23:

and why do you think that the top-10 is a well chosen group size and 2000 some particularly relevant year? Also it is a bit questionable that the elo inflation in the early 2000s and the elo deflation of late 2010s early 2020s was not mentioned at all. Same with the drastically changed chess landscape in general (more tools, more focus on blitz) So in that way older players may be an interesting sample to compare with if we assume that chess progress was in some way slower in - let's say 60s-80s compared with today, at least outside of the absolute top players. Also many of the players of this generation kept their lifestyle for decades which can't be said for many of the 2000 top players in your sample. You mentioned yourself that motivation is a huge factor as well (which might be not that easy to implement in a formal model)

So it is an interesting observation but rather a starting point than something to draw conclusions from IMO.

@ebk1976 said in #23: > and why do you think that the top-10 is a well chosen group size and 2000 some particularly relevant year? Also it is a bit questionable that the elo inflation in the early 2000s and the elo deflation of late 2010s early 2020s was not mentioned at all. Same with the drastically changed chess landscape in general (more tools, more focus on blitz) So in that way older players may be an interesting sample to compare with if we assume that chess progress was in some way slower in - let's say 60s-80s compared with today, at least outside of the absolute top players. Also many of the players of this generation kept their lifestyle for decades which can't be said for many of the 2000 top players in your sample. You mentioned yourself that motivation is a huge factor as well (which might be not that easy to implement in a formal model) So it is an interesting observation but rather a starting point than something to draw conclusions from IMO.

I thought this was a great article. It has enough science and data collected to be interesting and enough intrigue to be thought-provoking and inspiring.

As a female chess player who took up the sport at 40 -- I am fully aware of my limits and have no grand plans of improvement. I took up chess precisely because it works on aspects of my brain I could feel were aging, in part due to the isolation and stress of working as a physician during the pandemic. Working memory and processing speed are specific mental processes that are measurable and that decline with age from a neuroscientific standpoint. What improves with age is the broader strategic thinking that is less common for people to achieve at a younger age. My visual processing capabilities were also much better when I was younger and I was able to "magically" memorize textbooks, puzzles, etc, in a way that I cannot do now .

Aging, however, is a privilege, and is not something to mourn. What I do hope is to continue to enjoy chess as I age, so I can make lots of great friends along the way -- while keeping my brain strong!

I thought this was a great article. It has enough science and data collected to be interesting and enough intrigue to be thought-provoking and inspiring. As a female chess player who took up the sport at 40 -- I am fully aware of my limits and have no grand plans of improvement. I took up chess precisely because it works on aspects of my brain I could feel were aging, in part due to the isolation and stress of working as a physician during the pandemic. Working memory and processing speed are specific mental processes that are measurable and that decline with age from a neuroscientific standpoint. What improves with age is the broader strategic thinking that is less common for people to achieve at a younger age. My visual processing capabilities were also much better when I was younger and I was able to "magically" memorize textbooks, puzzles, etc, in a way that I cannot do now . Aging, however, is a privilege, and is not something to mourn. What I do hope is to continue to enjoy chess as I age, so I can make lots of great friends along the way -- while keeping my brain strong!