How does the age affect to your thinking capacity in chess? Is being young an advantage?

I wonder how the age of a player affect his thinking capacity in games. 

At 53, I dont have the desire to put in the effort anymore.  I just want to have fun when i play.

Lost sense of competivity?

Could be...but honestly, I get more satisfaction out of teaching, and going to tournaments and watching.  Its nice to finally be able to just watch others play.  The whole competiveness thing isnt that imortant to me anyway.  I much prefer to have fun.  The worst time i had playing was when i was younger and felt my life depended on how i did in a tournament.  I measured everything by my rating.  If i lost to someone i didnt think i had any business losing to i was miserable.  If i beat someone higher rated i deserved that win, and i was better than they are no matter the rating.  

I was miserable.  I didnt enjoy the game.  I finally let that go, and learned to enjoy the game.  that was when the true improvement came.  

Well what can i say.  I don't share that perspective since i like watching the will to win in a competitor. And i am actually lacking in the competivity field and i wish i had more will to win, so then i would have the need to improve. Btw, if i understood you well, you said that the improvement came when you stopped taking it seriously. Are you sure about it? Was it really like that?

Yep...my greatest improvement came when i learned to take the game for what it is, a game.

Maybe it's not a certainty that age has a negative affect but probably very likely for most players. But it's relative. Age 20's + or - calculating maybe a little easier than 30's + or - and 30's maybe easier than 40's but probably 50+ or - is very tough. And of course, health is probably a big factor, too.

Speaking from my 50's + experience, maybe not pure calculating ability drops but accuracy suffers mostly from brain fatigue. By the middle of the second game of two relatively near standard time games or if tired and by the 50th move in a very tough game, it gets very hard to do heavy calculation or see far enough to picture the results of a unclear plan.

I think Tal mentioned in his 1960 WC book where he said something like Botvinnik said he relied more on positional inclinations than Tal's deeper calculation which Tal found odd. Until Tal became a little older and realized the necessity of saving energy play without, hopefully, any meaningful loss in essential accuracy.

''I was miserable. I didn't enjoy the game.  

I finally let that go...  

that was when the true improvement came.''

acceptance is the key

bwankbwank

In a general sense, the body (including brain and nervous system) undergoes gradual decline later in life. And in a general sense, the body is still developing in ways that affect cognitive ability into the early 20s. So age is somewhat relevant, but it could be oversimplified very easily.

. . . 53 that's not age . . . that's the now midlife . . .

. . . I'm 80 that's 3/4 Life . . . I don't feel old and if I choose I focus learning something or being analytical on a Chess problem . . . As far as a younger having an advantage I think that is so . . . But I find that somethings I don't have to find it new because it is familiar . . . .

It makes a different when young adult men are talking about something and I can interject things they weren't familiar. with and they learn from me . . .

Then again I also learn new things from kids new methods ways of doing things . . .

They can learn new technologies easier than me . . . . IMHO

. . . TOO BAD THAT YOUTH IS WASTED ONLY ON THE YOUNG! . . .

DENVER

.

The experience of this 61 year old patzer comparing his thought processes now and 'then' (i.e. when he was 21).

Advantages

- better positional understanding and better eye for tactical opportunities deriving from greater experience partly of patterns and motifs

- more patience in terms of (a) using time on the clock more effectively and (b) not rushing into 'situations' without making useful preparatory 'quiet' moves

- greater willingness to spend time looking for errors in my own play after the game

Disadvantages

- calculation skills not as sharp, in part due to no longer participating in matches or tournaments and in part, no doubt, due to loss of brain cells

- blundering more frequently due to occasional (but increasingly frequent) 'senior moments' ('they're stealing my trousers')

- less evidence of that killer instinct I (thought I) once had as results become in some way less significant and the aesthetics of the game become more important

- a lot a mental distractions coming from the responsibilities that life tends to throw on you as you march through adulthood

Young people have an advantage coz their brains are fresh...more neurons...the older people have more experience mostly...but on the whole you better be young...there is an advantage..

Well, if it takes 20 years to reach your ultimate potential ( a considered estimate) then you are leaving things a bit late if you only start working at it when you have retired from your day job.

[Check some actuarial tables.  The probability of a random 60 year of dying in the next year is 1/10,000 and that is 10x what it was at age 20]. 

You (and Treesong) might try learning something about neuroscience before making simplistic statements  like this.  

And usually is!

here is my opinion...

whatever advantage lies in the brain....  the Youth's biggest advantages are:

* Time (per day; to study or to play)

* parental support (which is usually an order of magnitude bigger than spousal support)

taking in account, maturing and growing increases in logical abilities, emotional maturity, and patience--  the best opportunity for growth lies in high school/college.

I don't entirely buy or agree that the brain mysteriously has Much better ability to absorb patterns at age 15 than 25.

the only other thing to say, is that one of the more educated individuals about this is DaveMilliern  who started chess at 25 and thought long and hard of these issues.

he's knocking on the door of the expert rating. (1900).  so I wouldn't say that his age was a total deal breaker.

Boris Gulko in his book "Lessons with a Grand Master"

Discusss with a friend who is a psychologist, physiologist (or something like that) How the brain has 2 types of memory.  The one for tactics starts to decline as we age, while the memory type for strategy remains.  

Psychologist, more likely.