Todays Ratings vs the past

I played tournament chess back in Jr.High in the late 60's. My highest rating was 1835 USCF. Have not played in decades and started playing again at this site. My game is rusty but am struggling with 1300 -1500 players. They are all good players. My theory is back then people mostly played each other in person and maybe their were less players and less good players. Now a days, with computors, and chess web sites, millions more are playing the game. There are many more good to great chess players around the world and much more difficult to earn a good chess rating. Any opinions out there?

You can buy less with $1 than you could 40 years ago

"Have not played in decades"

You're becoming old

I agree with you, kwbu! It would be logical that an 1800 yesterday, is a 1600, or maybe even a 1500 today, w/ computers and all

Having entered the USCF in 1971, and knowing first hand what 1835 meant then, I would expect much more than a 1300 rating here from a former 1800.

How about 2000 to begin with?

Wait, so I would be about master level a few decades ago, lol? But, now I have to bust my butt off 10x more and read a considerable amount of books comparable to bobby ficher... =(

I would think such rating adjustments don't really apply to the masters, and grandmasters, but below the 2000 level. I would be willing to argue for that!

Hm, you may be underestimating the amount of chess publishing that went on in the former USSR. Fischer learned to read Russian in order to be able to follow these publications.

You'd be willing to argue for that because you'd could be about grandmaster back then! XD

I'm taking into account us being able to play chess constantly, and against stupid-strong computers whenever we wish. The majority of people back then, did not have nearly the amount of venues for becoming class A chessplayers, as now. I am NOT talking about masters, and grandmasters. Since I don't really understand them

I'm in the same situation, was a mid-strength player in my teens and early twenties but then gave it away for a decade or three.  When I joined this site I stayed at 13-1400 for about 6 months til I switched from blitz and long to standard format.  In a few weeks I reached 1750.  We don't think as fast as the young'uns, but we can hold our own in the long games.  :)

Hate to disagree, but as an 1800 USCF player circa 1972, I fail to see much change in the meaning of Class A, Class B, and Expert ratings in all this time.

New theories and styles in chess maybe? It has also been proven that average IQ also rise with time...

Pretty much...pretty much.

One point to note re computers etc. raising the standard of the average player across eras: While it may be true in general for very good players, and even partially true for plain old NMs, it hardly applies to us average Joes.

We are average because we just have barely filled up our cup of chess potential. Not because we only have--or had--books and magazines to work with, but because of a lack of good study and practice. Using the good materials well makes a good player of the average student across eras.

I'm one of the many average players who have a foot in the pre-comp era as well as one in the present. Believe me, I've got a nice pile of software for training and research.

I've also been the owner of about 350 books and used them without benefit of a computer.

The main advantages of the electronic materials is ease of access. Clicking through screen after screen of tactics exercises beats the hell out of setting up a board for each exercise, but that just makes it easier, not impossible or out of reach. Motivation and hard work gets one the same result with books of tactical problems.

Living in a relative chess backwater, having at my command a strong silicon opponent was a nice improvement over having no one strong to play with at all except when I went to tournaments. Practice really does make a difference, and if you didn't live in the right place or weren't lucky in your friends and neighbors, in the old days you just did without most of the time. One has to work hard even with the computer opponent; most people don't do this hard enough and long enough to rise above average. Again, what limits us is ourselves, not the kinds of materials we have.

Apart from the above, it's just a scarce negative for the average player in having just books and magazines to rely on.

Think about it; The endgame manuals were totally sufficient, as were the middlegame tomes. We had a sufficient variety of puzzle books, Informants for games (as well as game collections), and as for openings, we average guys spend too much time on that phase anyway. No advantage, really, in researching openings using Chessbase.

The old guy who put in the hours of sweat beats the computer-aided modern guy who didn't work as hard (all other things such as talent being equal). Denker makes a similar point in his The Bobby Fischer I Knew... that the masters of his era could routinely produce games with polished endgames, and that skill was less evident in modern times.

I agree with Sir GoldenDog.  Not that I know beans about it either way, but what I do know is that sweat often makes all the difference in almost any endeavor. Even setting up a board and playing through games that way tends to focus the learner in a way zipping through a game on Fritz doesn't.  I seldom set up a game on a board, but I do a lot of playing through descriptive notation games on winboard in order to put them into pgns.  That almost cruelly slow exercise also forces me to focus on the game and I seem to take away a lot more from those games than from games already digitalized.

Players in the 19th century didn't have computers and most played less games in their entire life and many, many people play online in a year - or even a month. Yet, even in spite of their relative lack of theory (or even databases), many of them played very high level chess. So, the amount of time spend, by itself, doesn't mean much; nor do computers by themselves; or books, magazines, whatever.  It comes down to individual talent (if such a thing exists), sweat and correct and efficient learning technique (in my opinion, of course).

It looks like the argument here is, that those chessplayers whom obtained an A, B, or, C level--pre-computer-- may have taken longer to develope that rating, but, they are just as capable as we are(post-computer). It makes sense. The post-computer era players, just don't have to put forth the same amount of work to achieve, ABC levels. Today, we have ridiculously strong chess engines to check our games. Today, we have instant access to master games(and the very hard-work of others). Today, there are probably more people playing chess than ever before, simply because of the leisure of computers. It has taken me almost a dozen years to reach whatever rating I have, but there is no way I would have tried to get better at this game, had it not been for the game being quite computer-friendly.

"there are probably more people playing chess than ever before"

Trysts, would you say that numbers has as much to do with it as anything?  i.e. more people playing; more new people taking up the game; more people continuing to play = a larger pool = more and better players, by total number even if not by %.
I could almost argue (if I was indeed mathematically or logically inclined)  that "instant access to master games," "not putting forth the same amount of work to achieve,"  may have less to do with overall improvement than sheer numbers.

I started my tournament career in Dec. '72, and I still remember the pre-computer era.  Back then, I was living in a small town in upstate New York (a town without a traffic light, even) and I'm still the only one who ever played tournament chess.  There were few players in the surrounding towns, so I had to travel 20 miles to get a few games with players who knew something about openings, middle games, endings, etc.  It was incredibly difficult to analyze games accurately, even in chess clubs; there were no players stronger than I, and I wasn't strong enough to answer the questions.  Now, I have access to the Internet, can play here or at ICC or at FICS; I can have games analyzed by computers, post forums about "what's this", watch videos by GMs/IMs, and have reached 2000 USCF for the first time in my career.  While I find that there are more players, and more knowledgeable players, there is a detachment among them--I don't find many players willing to travel 20+ miles one-way in a New York winter to play a few games at the local chess club.  In fact, here in Binghamton, there are two colleges, and neither one has a chess club.  So, my take on the ratings is this--with all the opportunities for analysis and play, todays players are more informed and can parrot back that information better, the older players are better at improvising and are more dedicated.  The older players seem more dynamic or tactical, as a rule of thumb; they learned to play this way without having their teeth kicked in by Fritz or Rybka, but the younger players are more solid, don't hang material as often, and don't cave in as easily.  In my estimation, an 1800 of 1972 would be more like a 1900 today, but he wouldn't be as informed or as fundamentally sound.  Computers and the Internet have helped those of us who live in backwater towns, but I think it will spell the end of chess clubs.

I'm assuming in the past, people would have a couple of strong players at their club. Or, a couple of friends that were total chess-geeks. Today, one could choose from many strong players to have a game with, day or night, any day of the week, e4 players, d4 players, etc. The number of people available to play, and the diverse amount of openings one goes up against, would seem to be in favour of today's players having more of a chance of getting better, than days gone-by.