Can an average person ever break 2000?

Kingpatzer, here's a huge problem, your argument goes beyond chess. You are essentially claiming that past 25, it is impossible for someone to develop a mastery of skills in any domain that requires hard work and a high level of learning.

If we can't bring up a specific 2000+ player who started after the age of 25, I'm sure we can find examples of age 25+ adults who have become excellent at some other craft. People begin new things past the age of 25+ and become excellent at them, all the time. Chess is just another skill, like anything else. Your model of the brain (and "Science's" model of the brain) is just not good enough. Your view is certainly not proven, and if it is indeed not proven, why would anyone adopt the belief that they can't do it, and put limits on themself?? (Or why should we place those limits on others?)

Actually I have never claimed past 25+, I've claimed past "30 or so" or "about 30" because there is natural variance in when brain development stops, and the effects of diet, genetics, physical fitness and so forth have on neurobiology. 

Finding someone who has started a completely new activity unrelated to anything they did before that requires a high level of knowledge and refined skills to achieve top end performance 97th percentile or better, and who succeed at doing so is a non-trivial search. 

Moreover, I'm not saying that it is entirely impossible for anyone to ever do so. I'm saying it is so statistically unlikely as to be effectively impossible.

My claim is not that there isn't some person out there who did it. My claim is that it is such an outlier event that any such occurrance is effectively a unique non-repeatable evevnt. 

Actually, there is precisely such a group of people available. London taxi drivers must get "the knowledge" to pass a licensing test to become a taxi driver. People of all ages study for and take that test. The test requires a person to learn all the streets and major businesses in London. Psychologists have used this test to gauge the plasticity of the mind and perform other cognitive and neurological examinations. It turns out that people well past 40 can study for and take this test. And yes, the physical changes the brain goes through in preparation for the test are quite impressive.

Other studies have shown that low levels of physical activity in middle age are greater risk factors for low performance than age itself.

"We conclude that specific, enduring, structural brain changes in adult humans can be induced by biologically relevant behaviors engaging higher cognitive functions such as spatial memory, with significance for the “nature versus nurture” debate."

Source: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S096098221101267X

Yeah, that's quite a reach.  You don't have to win a damn' thing to learn trigonometry.

The competition aspect of chess puts it in a much different category than some static knowledge like trig'.

Ok... fair enough. I just see your point as being more relevant if we were talking 2400+ or something... not so much 2000. I believe the "practical limit" is higher than you're saying. I also believe you're overstating the limits of the aging process, as SmyslovFan has given a good example.

In "Outliers: The Story of Success" Malcolm Gladwell makes a convincing arguement that regular people can acheive great things by hard work and a little luck.

Luck has 2 definitions

1) A random act that can not be explained

2) Where preparation meets opportunity to succeed and taken full advantage  with a positive outcome.

I find it amusing that the same person that keeps saying that chess abilities are in no way correlated to IQ is also arguing that only as a child you can develop magical things in your brain that will make you good at chess.

Plenty of skill applications have no correllation in IQ. IQ is not some magical measurement of all cognitive ability and neurofunction.  
 

Yes. But the tests commonly used to determine IQ are strikingly similar to the way chess works, don't you think?

E.g. recognizing and understanding a pattern.

Music is similar as well - yet musical performance ability doesn't track to IQ either. 

Skill application in chess is different from chess knowledge.

In any given chess position there might be a half-dozen or more patterns that one might know. Yet their significance varies based on the overall positional evaluation. High performance in chess seems to correllate not so much with if one knows the patterns or not (though that has something to do with it) but also with if one intuitively ignores the less important patterns or not. 

And this is where the age of the learner seems to be important - in developing the cognitive intuition to ignore what isn't relevant in positions and thus focus one's calculation to what is critical. 


 

I started dental school at age 40. I went back to school at age 37 to complete the required courses to apply. My DAT score (dental admissions test) was 99.9 percentile and I learned many new skills past the age of forty. Now I hope to develop into a decent chess player after not playing since I was 10 years old.

Once again no one has stated that adults can't learn new things or pick up new skills. Nor that adults can't be intelligent. 
 

Mgmitch I am sorry but as the fact I am 42 and you are over 40 means that our age crystals are now defunct and the sandman is coming for us.  We have nothing to offer;)

In seriousness the one thing that many people who are older have that many youngsters don't is life experience, patience, and insight into human motives.  Particularly in the realm of emotional control in the face of stress.  Why would this not translate into chess?

I love the reference, jbSkaggs! You're showing your age by knowing that movie!

I think with the proper training and determination, an average (Intellegence) chess player could easily break 2000. It will just take a lot of time and work.

That is a very good question which I would like to be better explained by a master. Chess is art but also learned behavior. It would be so much better if it wasn't so much about learned behavior and more art. The art on chess is so pretty.

Its mostly about how much time you put into it, since I retired and decided to actually 'study' chess rather than just hope that by playing a bunch of games I might learn by osmosis I know I think differently and see more at the board. Despite having pretty much zero natural ability I can now look at a position and pick out the important elements and at least try and make a plan based on those factors. A year ago when I was working full time and had little spare time I would play when I was dog tired and made next to no improvement.

If I had taken the game more seriously 25 years ago I'm sure I could have reached 2000 and like I said I don't think I have any kind of natural aptitude at all, knowledge is power and arming yourself with that knowledge will win you a lot of games against people who are better at calculating variations but don't know the differences between a winning, equal or difficult position...

Being titled is beyond just hard work and putting in the effort.  Alot of players are really good work really hard at it but don't cross that mark.  What Im trying to say is ok, the average guy learned the openings and the theory behind them.  Has done a ton of tactics and knows how to close a won endgame.  The sheer number of complex multi positional dynamics that could arise in a game is going way beyond that.  Being able to calculate that deep OTB and not overlook secondary moves ect . . .  Having established this skill as a child is far and away an almost neccesary requirement to becoming titled.  From what Im learning its just so much to reach that ultra elite level of play..  IDK, maybe Im wrong. 

You can score a perfect on SAT's.  You can learn and study and have a perfect grade point average thus earning your degree.  Even if you don't burn out and are excepted into some of the most demanding graduate programs you are still dealing with questions that have correct or widely established as correct answers.  That takes hard work and alot of study.  But Chess; is there not an almost elemental quality to the game?  Millions upen millions of possible combinations in the mid game.  Thier is no correct answer but 2 win.  A move that upon scrutiny or peer review could turn out to be incorrect, yet still win's the game. That is the stuff of Master's.  Not an average guy who quit mowing his lawn and is now letting the siding fall off his house because his trying to get really good at chess.