Who's the Oldest Competitive Amateur You Know? Why Does He Play?

That old man is totally disgusted.  He has to look at one of those cheapo red-and-black folding chess boards!  Is there no more beauty left in this world anymore?

Red-and-black?  Aaaaack!

Absolutely Mickey.  

I'm just thinking out loud here.  But it seems to me that chess players get upset more at their losses than other players in other sports do in their losses.  Using your examples, older bridge players and older golfers don't get mad at themselves in quite the same way as older chess players do.  So while chess is fun, it's also more agonizing too.

You're right.  I've never been to a single Bridge tournament in my life.  I learned Bridge when I was about 12 from a neighbor, and only played family games with him and our families for a year or two.   I always thought you would just blame the cards or your partner.  

But a Chess Loss, oh it's agonizing, especially when you make the last blunder.  That's not too fun.

We have a winner!  Well, we had a winner, since longtime Chicago master/expert, Erik Karklns recently passed asway at the age of 102.  Karklns played tournament chess as recently as 3 years ago, at the age of 99.  He was at his rating of floor of 2000, but it should be noted that he did not hit is floor until 2013, For the last 25 years of his life he played in over 100 chess tournaments.

Here's a link to an article on Mr. Karklins.

http://www.il-chess.org/history/368-erik-and-andrew-karklins-143-years-of-chess-and-counting

@Philidor_Legacy  I'm glad you enjoyed reading about the remarkable life of Mr. Erik Karklins.  I noticed that your goal was to become the USCF's oldest first-time master, and it may be Karklins' record you're trying to beat!

btw, are you familiar with the book, "Chess Master at Any Age" by Rolf Wetzell? https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Master-at-Any-Age/dp/0938650580

Rolf is a long-time chess associate of mine, who, after years of being a 1900-2000 player, finally became a master in his mid-60s  The book was written just before the chessbase/internet boom, so many of his methodologies seem dated to all "kids" who have had computer chess since kindergarten.  But, the book is a very inspirational guide.

I first knew Rolf almost 40 years ago, where he was one of the top two players in my chess club.  After the games were completed we would go out for coffee, and he would pull out these hand-made diagrams of his own game and sometimes a postion from my game, and ask me, "Why did you do that move?"  Rolf retired from his work almost 25 years ago, but he was so hyper-active, his wife made him rent a small office space where he would spend the day on his investing, and chess and even writing a book on golf.  In his mid-80s, he still plays chess, traveling down from Southern Vermont, to play in the open section at my week-night chess club.  (The open section, btw, usually has a couple of IMs and a half dozen masters.)  Rolf is now close to or at his floor, but he is still a damned, fiersome opponent for this A player!  And, yes, at times, he still takes out his hand-made diagrams and asks me, "Why did you do that move?"

Great posts by Uncle Bent!!  You mentioned that Rolf became a Master in his mid 60's.  Other places in the internet says that he became a Master at age 52.   Either way, his story is inspirational.

Thanks for the stories about Rolf!  Very cool.

I guess it's better than sitting at home and watching TV Shows. On the other hand, the knees might not be good enough to do football or basketball.

Ah... so he was 52 in the early 80s, when I had stopped playing for a while.  I know he flirted with 2200 for a while, but the USCF rating formula (at least at that time) only gave 75% of the rating point gain/per game, once you reach 2100.  (Which makes that last leg of the trip to master, even more difficult.)

The point is not that Rolf's method is the only method, or even the right method for another player -- but, you must work on developing SOME method of advanced training.  I remember reading his book, 20 years ago, and liking the idea of his diagrams, I bought chessbase, and was going to print out key diagrams from all the opening tabiya, typical middlegame and endgame positions from my opening repertoire.  I spent days setting up the whole procedure, buying special perforated index-card paper and stickers.  Then I did very little followup.  If I'd just used Rolf's hand-made diagrams I would have made the whole process much simpler, easier and used my time more productively.  Focus!  Focus!  Focus!

One more legendary "Oldie but goodie" from my chess career: Harlow B, Daly http://chessmaine.net/chessmaine/2006/07/chessmaine_profiles_rememberin.html

Harlow's chess career spanned over 75 years, from the beginning of the last century to the mid 1970s.  I'm not sure if he ever achieved master level status, but he was a very strong expert, when the rated pool of players was under a few thousand.  As the link describes, he won the Maine State Open 7 consecutive times in his 70s, and then won it two more times in his 80s.

When I was still in school, Harlow Daly was living with his daughter in Framingham, MA.  In 1973 he used to play in weekend tournaments at the Mullen Chess Studio in the neighboring town of Ashland.  Harlow was still rated as an A player in his mid 80s.  I played him, once, as he gave me a lesson in a minor piece ending.

By playing Harlow Daly, I only have 3 degrees of separation from Paul Morphy.  Harlow played Jacques Mieses in 1903, Mieses had played Louis Paulsen, and Paulsen had played Morphy.

What's your Morphy number?

Hi Uncle Bent, et al,

I've come out of hibernation, a period of chess sleep that spanned nearly 3 decades.  My last OTB USCF game was back in the mid-to-late 80's.    I just returned to chess earlier this year.  

Question:  What would you recommend as a training/study program to re-acclimate myself to today's competitive chess environment.  I am strongly considering playing tournament chess with classical time controls.  I "retired" with a 1762 rating, but my self-assessment is that I am at best a Class C patzer.  How do I use a "chess engine" like all the current players do?  

Also, I remember covering up moves in a book with an index card, and trying to guess what the next move would be.  Took forever to go over a master game.   Is that the "dumb" way to do things these days in the age of computers, online web, and chess engines?  

What new stuff do I incorporate, and what old stuff do I get rid of?

@SeniorPatzer

We seem to be in similar places. I left chess "forever" 25 years ago with a 1796 USCF rating and I too think that my current playing strength is maybe a solid class C. Also like you, I am trying to figure out how to use modern tools and methods to improve.

I'm pretty sure that it's a mistake to rely too much on engines. To play well over the board, you have to be able to analyze concrete variations. Running to an engine when you're stumped won't help you improve. Kotov recommended setting up a complex position from an annotated game and spending half an hour analyzing it. Then write down your analysis and compare it to that of the annotator. Seems to me that an engine could take the place of, or supplement, an annotator in that kind of training. But I don't see any way to improve without the hard work of analyzing, analyzing, and analyzing some more.

<To OP> The "sexist" premise doesn't seem to be so true. There are also older woman players - in Belgium I can immediately think about a couple of such women - one is in her early 50s and rated 2000+, the other is close to 60 and rated 1700+.

Like the men, I suppose - they play because they love chess. 

Hi Solskytz,

It's rather rare in America.  Kinda like the old adage about "The exception proves the (general) rule."

@SeniorPatzer

Give me a day to come up with some suggestions.  I stopped playing chess for a few years and then returned just as the internet arean was taking off.

Beware of using engines too much, only because they can make you into a "passive learner," where you get used to letting the engine do all your thinking for you.  BUT, engines are great for pointing out all your tactical shortcomings; opportunities you missed, as well as how you could have escaped your opponent's onslaught.

Chess databases are great.  The best way to learn an opening is to play about a dozen daily games (or any email correspondence tnmt), play your openings and then go to an opening explorer and decide what branches you want to take.  Before you decide on which branch, look at lots of master games to see the different strategic plans that were chosen, and even look to see if certain endings arose repeatedly.  It's a lot of work, but it's fun.  You're competing and learning and experimenting at the same time.  

more discussion later.  Time for bed.

Who knows? I'm not sure that it's an exception...

Woman chess players are already a small minority - so it makes sense that they will remain a small minority also in the advanced age groups. Who knows - perhaps indeed fewer of them remain in tournament circles... my sample size certainly isn't big enough.

@OldPatzerMike,

So funny that when we returned, we both picked usernames that had the word "patzer" in it.   You should try to get reach Class "A."  Your only 4 rating points away.

Me?  My memories of tournament chess are probably more glowing than they should be.  But I just remember that it was kinda fun to "duke it out" over the chessboard with a fellow chess player.  Back then I was about 90 pounds lighter and in far better health.  Maybe now, my 'ol ticker can't handle it.

Look forward to hearing more tips from both you and Uncle Bent.  Thanks for what you've said already.

Engine use in a live rated game is against chess.com's Terms of Service and will lead to your account being closed when detected.

Nhm... I'm guessing here since I never really went to a chess tournament( but I did go to other kinds of tourneys). It's probably the thrill and the tension that fills the place, some people, like me, really enjoy this kind of feeling you can only feel when you're taking part.

And... I'm not sure if that's what you were really trying to say, but your post is implying that people play chess for the 'ladies' which is... pretty unreasonable, lol.

@pam234  Yes, engine use is not allowed, but I believe in "Daily Games" chess databases are allowed.  They fall into the same classification as chess books.  I have played hundreds of games in email correspondence groups.

@Philidor_Legacy  I agree with most of your points about Chessbase and engines, but, I want to repeat my warning about become too much of a "Passive learner."  Don't let the engine do all the thinking.  If you are going to put your games into an engine for analysis, first analyze the game yourself, and them compare to see what you have missed.

Going over master games is a good idea, but I remember how much of a chore it was to try and go over a deeply annotated game from a book, and then work out some alternate variation and then go back to the main variation and put a piece on a wrong square.  Well, a good chess database solves that problem, but there is something lost, since you are no longer moving the "wood" yourself.

One great way is to select a classic GM game from your chess database -- without annotations.  Spend 20 - 40 minutes on it, doing light annotations.  Avoid games that are full of tactics and try to annotate games that have significant strategic fulfillment.  Try to pick out the key moves, and the key ideas, and where and why and how the winning player was headed.  Make written notes!!  THEN look at an annotated version of the game in your chess database, OR, even better, watch a video of the game where a great teacher like IM David Pruess (the best, IMO) spends 30 minutes going over the game.  And make notes as to what you missed and what you understood when you did your annotations.  30 minutes of active work, plus 30 minutes of chess coaching.  And, if you enjoy this, do this once a week, EVERY week.  Or, if your time is constrained, do it every other week or once a month.  But do it.  Stick to your schedule.  Btw, some of the best strategic games to review are by Vassily Smyslov.