can you still improve your game even if your playing for more than 20+ years?

Do you believe that a player can still improve his/her games after playing for more than 20 plus years or it's just going down?

I've known so many players that after playing  for more than 20 years it seems that there's no more room for improvement but all going down.

It certainly depends on your current level. But if you're stuck, say, under 1600, you probably can still improve your game, provided you get good guidance (i.e. teaching/coaching) and the will to work.

Yes, I think it definitely can be done.

Are you referring to people who have been playing serious/tournament chess for 20 years or social players, or both ?

I reckon the changes doesn't exist that much even for a serious players or social players. If your chasing some of the best players of the world, like Anand or Kramnik, after playing that long, it doesn't improved that much in ratings though I know their trying and doing their best to be the best. And a player like Korchnoi who played for about 50 years, you can see how he declined he's playing style. I had a friend who is rated 1320 and playing for about 40 years but he plays even dull this time than he was 15 years ago. it mean to say that its by maturity of your game and yourself that improving the game is very unlikely as you  get older.

Consult with a good coach who can identify your "chess behaviors" and suggest incremental ways to change the ones that are blocking further improvement. 

Depending on your current level, a bad behavior could be playing hope chess (if you are lower-rated), muddled middle-game play (if you're someone like me) or something more nuanced and subtle if you're plateau-ed at a higher rating level.

Pretty sure a good coach will find your "blocked" chess artery and write you up a good prescription.

I hope that I can still improve my chess after playing for more than 30 years now. As Shivsky says I need to find my "blocked" chess artery and I need a good coach. But the problem is there's not much money involve in chess so I just played it socially and I'm not that really a master level. Hopefully we can still improve our games though we're playing for the old same style after 20 plus years.

Forgot to add: You really have to come to terms with your brain's sense of inertia. We repeat certain behaviors because we're content with them ... an alien presence (good advice) asking for us to change is often rejected stubbornly...especially if we are happy where we are.

Personal example: My first ever chess club was hosted by a wonderful old timer called W.  A medical doctor and professor by profession, he had an outstanding chess library and organized tournaments and if it weren't for him, I would have never realized how much fun serious chess can be.  He was rated around 1100 for years and years and he seemed perfectly happy playing other senior players each week and participating in a tourney every now and then. I can still remember him at the club, murmuring something about the Najdorf and the Samisch while us young whipper-snappers (rated much higher, though fairly ignorant about openings) were busy trying to get better at keeping our pieces safe.  

Once in a while, a strong A player would come along and give us all good advice ... W. would pay attention ( suggesting that he cared about getting better) but a week later, he would fall back into his ways and do exactly the opposite of what the A player told us to do the week before.  He was content and it took me a while to figure out that it was okay to be that way :) 

So yeah, if "fun" means enjoying your chess and your small social circle of friends at the club whom you have 50-50 chances of beating each night, you don't need to get any better, period.   If "fun" means getting your rating up or challenging a stronger bunch of players, I think you may have to deal with the inertia and figure out a way to fight it.

I learned to play chess more than 40 years ago.  But I didn't start studying it until fairly recently.  I'm definitely a better player now than I was ten years ago, and I intend to be noticeably better in 1 or 2 or 5 years than I am now.

I figure I've got way way way more left to learn than what I've already learned to this point, so how can I not improve?  

--Cystem

Of course you can. I know this from personal experience.

I been playing for 30 years and i am unrated player. One time I played in Begonia open here in Australia last week. From IM to beginners are welcome to play. There were 123 players and I was in 122 on the bottom of almost all players. If not for one unrated player who enter last, I will be the last person on the rating list.on round 1 I played the last board which is board 62 with the opponent rating of 1619. This is the first time I was exposed to serious tournament but unlike any other player I was not nervous. At the end of the game I won my first round, then round 2, I played  with a 1639 rating with black piece and I won the second round. Then third round with 2050 rating on board 10 then had a draw and round fourth with 2094 rating a draw and played fifth with 12 years old with rating of 2026 and lost ( the kid is playing under 12 on world championship by the name of Justin Tan previously). The Sixth  round with 1885 and won the game and the last round with rating of 2141 by the name of Nigel Barrow, I beat him with black pieces in 26 moves. I got 5/7. And they put my playing strength about 1770. Some players complaining because I got the prize on the category B which they reckon I am already stronger player than they are. But I was unrated and that is the first time I played the tournament. I got the inertea of what Shivsky says and my level of playing  is improved heaps unlike when i just playing in the club with the same old people of ten.

"Do you believe that a player can still improve his/her games after playing for more than 20 plus years or it's just going down?"

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We can all improve regardless of age. We may have been playing for 40 years, but that says nothing about the level that you have reached, or even the effort that you have put in, to improve your game. In order to improve the most important thing has to be motivation. If you do have "the will", then "the way" is easy to find, many of which have already been posted here- coach, tactics trainer, books, an analysis of your weakness plus a plan to improve each, plenty of practice with higher level players than yourself, expand opening knowledge etc.

Good Luck