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

@Uncle_Bent:- Chess databases and chess books are perfectly ok.

@Philidor_Legacy  I took a look at Mary Kuhner's blog and it is excellent.  In some ways, her annotated games are more relevant to me than super GM games.  Very honest and critical analysis of her triumphs and failures.  If anyone wants great examples of how to analyze your games, see her blog. (@mkkuhner)

In one of her annotated losses, she notes, "I now change the pawn structure to one which turns out not to work. During this game I had an insight about what I would need to become an NM: I can't be choosing pawn structures by guesswork, familiarity, or fondness, but need the tools to make an objective choice. It's a concrete goal for study, anyway."  Wow!  thumbs up on learning from a loss.

@Philidor_Legacy: We're almost neighbors. I'm in Fredericksburg. Planning to play in the Virginia Senior Open in June. Are you going also?

With regards to the suggestions about how to make a successful re-entrance into the computer era of tournament chess (after a long hibernation) here's what I'm hearing and thinking.  Correct me if I'm off base.

1.  Tactics, tactics, tactics.  I'm sure it was this way back in the 70's and 80's, but it seems to me to be really pronounced.  Do tactics here, lichess, or chesstempo.com.  Buy tactics book.  Learn motifs and solve many tactical problems each day.

2.  Learn how to use a chess engine.  There are many free ones.  (I haven't used one yet.)

3.  Go over the games of Masters.  First, the Classical Masters, then later on, the Modern Masters.  Towards that end, I have purchased Reti's books and a collection of Morphy's games.

A.  When going over the games, play "Guess the Move" by taking the side of the hero.  Write down my moves and variations that I saw, and compare it with the actual move played.   Time-consuming.  Or...

B.  Play over the Master games rather quickly, don't do Guess the Move, and learn from the annotations.  Not as time-consuming as A, but trying to see if quantity of games will produce sufficient "pattern recognition.

C.  Some mix between A and B above.

D.  Get Silman's Complete Endgame Course, and go through it thoroughly.

E.  Openings?  Figure out whether I'm a 1. e4 player or a 1. d4 player.  Choose 1-2 defenses as Black for each of these openings.

F.  Play lots of training games that are not USCF rated, and annotate your games, particularly your losses.

Any other suggestions?  What have I left out?  What should I take out?  What sequential order?

Much thanks in advance.

It would be my pleasure to meet you there. Except over the board, of course, where you would probably crush me. lol. Seriously, I would like to further discuss your post about Chessbase. So far in my "comeback" I've used only books and my trusty analysis board.

I am 71 years old and just played in the Red River Shootout in Davis OK. Won my first game as black and lost the second (same opponent) as white. Wish I could post the first game. I played pretty well for an old out of practice patzer. Been enjoying the lessons and hating the tactics on Chess.com

A follow-up to my comment #58 about how to catch up to today's modern chess tournament competition.

I listed WHAT I see so far.  I forgot to write down MY WHY.  Why do I want to get better in chess?  To invest massive gobs of hours and time into improving my play?  To get back into competition and experience again the magnified emotions of exultation and agony over wins and losses?  Why do all that at my not-yet 60 age?  I have to answer MY Why so that the What and How makes sense, yes?  Without the motivation, or knowing the motivation, I won't be able to do the requisite work very well, yes?

So here goes.

o    Ego.    WTF?  Seriously?  Yeah.  I want the self-satisfaction of accomplishment from getting over the 2000 barrier.  And, if time and fortune and health are on my side, to be a National Master.  The Certificate, Recognition, and free Diamond membership would produce a huge Cheshire Cat smile from me.

o  It's fun.  Competing with people from all ages and countries is fun.  I was watching American Ninja Warrior with my family.  These guys put massive hours of training for an event that's only minutes long.  And it's really a sport for young, superfit guys.  An old guy like myself can only marvel at what they do.

But chess?  I can compete (in the same class) with the young padawans!  While there's no way I can compete with them in Ninja Warrior, I sure as heck I can go toe-to-toe with them in chess!

Moreover, getting back into the sporting world of chess tournaments is going to force me to work out.  I have to get my stamina back in order to not collapse from mental exhaustion in the 3rd or 4th hour of a chess game.

o  Respect.  I mean, let's be real, many, if not most, of the people outside of the chess community could give a hoot whether you're a Chess Master or Chess Expert or not.  Many think it's a silly game way past its Expiration Date, and superseded by far by Video Games and E-Sports.  (There's hundreds of thousands of dollars in video game competitions.  YouTube stars and everything.  In terms of money, video games far surpasses chess.  Speaking of which, chess is a mere pimple on the azz of Texas Hold-Em Poker.)

But I don't care.  I see old guys at the golf driving range.  Why are they playing and spending so much time and money?   They're only getting the respect from their fellow club members at the 19th hole, laughing and talking about their last round and their best shot.  And that's good enough to motivate them to practice their swing, practice their short game, and buy new equipment.

So why not chess?  People look at your rating.  They judge you by your rating.  Like it or not.  Just like in golf.   What's your handicap?  These old guys practice like mad to try and become scratch golfers, if they can.  Actually, I think they practice so they can beat their buddies and talk trash afterwards.  Or at least, so that they don't get trash-talked so much.

I don't know what else to put in MY WHY.  Does anybody else have different reasons to invest the time for competitive chess?   Don't get me wrong, I love the art and beauty of chess, but the sporting aspects of chess is what drives me.

FWIW, I was browsing through the Forum Topics of Chess Players and found a post about "Inspirational Adult Improvers."  It has 503 comments and I've read through 6 pages.

It dovetails quite nicely with my post.

The post's originator, Chessmo, wrote:   "The point of this thread is, let's put together some empirical data to prove that adult improvers have in fact made Expert level.

For my own inspiration and motivation, I want to put together a list of other people in my circumstances who have achieved the goal I've set for myself. If I can put together a list of a dozen or more people who have done it--it removes certain psychological barriers.

On the other hand, if we cannot put together a list of actual examples of this happnening, then we have to look hard at why smart adults fail in this pursuit. Then we can and must fall back to our theoretical discussions."

I haven't seen any older guys in my country fighting for chess. Maybe I need to search more old guys? But I can assure you, our old guys are busy/victim with/of family politics.