Chess prodigies vs the old school

Has the new generation boxed-up the old-school mindset of "analog" learning?

With players of a younger age than ever reaching International Master and Grand Master status in the past decade, there have been musings - even from Magnus himself - about the future of Chess in the age of "computer & AI-augmented" players. Let's chit-chat about that while the next prodigy gestates in their mother's womb!

A quick lookup on Google won't fail to  deliver thousands of pages of results:




From the time of Paul Morphy (mid to late 19th century) and Capablanca (late 19th to mid-20th),  the Chess World has seen the rise of Bobby Fisher (who played the "game of the Century" vs Donald Byrne, 1956 at 13 y.o.) and a couple of decades later the well documented Josh Waitzkin (who was the focus of attention in a docu-fiction movie you might know: "Searching for Bobby Fisher"). Fisher went on to become one of the cornerstone figures in the history of chess. Waitzkin still has an ELO of 2400 to this day, and is top 5 bullet worldwide on Chess.com, sometimes standing #1. They fall on the side of the prodigies who capitalized on their potential, but not all geniuses are equal.

Among the world youth champions of the 21st century, Youtuber Chess personality Daniel Naroditsky has been upping the ante by becoming a Grand Master, sure, but also by publishing his first chess book at the age of 14. There is a step between playing and teaching, yet Daniel has delivered an compelling corpus to peruse (on Kindle digital ebook cuz the physical manuscripts are asking for a hefty price on amazon and ebay).

Danya is one of the reasons why I've returned to chess after a 20 year hiatus. His youtube channel offers deep insights on many topics. Among the Chess media figures, Danya is closer in popularity to GM Hikaru Nakamura than their ELOs would indicate. All because of the approach to social medias! This ought to count as a sign of a career developping well for a young genius, no matter what their field of expertise happens to be.

[ https://www.youtube.com/@DanielNaroditskyGM ]

Next in line is the heralded prodigy of his generation, the honorable Grand Master Magnus Carlsen. Not to be left aside, Magnus played Kasparov at a young age, getting a meeting from the legend and later netting a draw in their first matchup (Reykjavik, 2004, see Game Details Here). We all know in hindsight though, that in the end he sure got the number of GM Kasparov, no matter how the wise Russian played his craft.

Should young players taking the chess world by storm scare you?
Carlsen was allegedly quoted talking about the multiplication of prodigies in recent years with the quality of classes and assistance of computer analysis. And things are getting quite restless with the new generation! (Sadly, no interview or citation were found at the time of writing the present blog. Drop a comment with a link if you can find it.)

The last in line for consideration is the young Russian toddler who faced Anatoli Karpov in 2016, at the age of 3.  Misha Osipov was the pride of Russia when he managed to impress the world by taking on a legend. Some detractors would say that the progression of his ELO isn't on par with others that have won tournaments since.



And you might be right : Misha stands around 1000-1200 ELO in most time control formats currently .  Was the media publicity too much? Did the pressure catch up with the prodigy? Only time will tell, some might argue Danya demonstrated that junior success won't replicate necessarily at the adult stage of a young champion's life.
[ See his stats: https://ratings.fide.com/profile/34285520/chart ]



So we could ponder this conundrum for hours and never get a clear result : Will computer analysis, Stockfish and Komodo chess A.I. make the new generation even better? I being a prodigy a gift or a curse? Does it fast-track the player while also bolstering detractors and hyper-charging the pressure? Do early success create false hopes? Broken dreams? What do you think about those prodigies who manage to end up kicking the table and flipping the board against legends of the art of Chess? .... have they no respect for their elders? No?! But maybe YOU should! Next time we will delve into these questions and look through the ranks of the 2020s child prodigies who are gonna turn the Chess world upside down!

Photo credits : screen captures taken from Google/Wikipedia, on Chrome, April 2023.