Older Players Playing at Top Level and Improving Older Players

Considering that Vishy is ranked #2 in the world at 45, and Korchnoi was 70 when he last competed for the World Championship, it makes me wonder why we haven't seen someone begin playing chess as an adult and become an IM.  Has anyone read any good articles on this, especially neuroscience (or other scientific) articles?

The only individual I have known to start playing and sincerely seek to improve as an adult is a fellow I'll call Abe.  (Most people I know play and study intermittently, not consistently enough for me to view their progress/lack of progress as indicative of anything.)  He learned to play at 28, and played for a few years, earning a rating of  1200, but he quit for almost 25 years.  He took chess up again when he retired, and has played tournaments and studied consistently 4 hours per day moving his rating from 1200 to 1950.  He's 87, and he may crack expert in the next two years.  He's gaining exactly the number of points that I was told was reasonable for 10-20 hrs of study per week for an adult (20-50 rating points per year).  I once asked asked a neuroscientist what the deal with this was (i.e., why it is hard to imporve as an adult), and she told me that it is a battle with neurons operating slower and slower with age, etc., versus the speed at which someone can cut new neural path ways, induce (minor) neuron generation, etc.

I haven't known any neuroscientists who study brain activity with respect to chess, so I'm wondering if anyone has found any good articles discussing what's going on with aging and developing chess-playing ability?

It is nice to see someone 87 doing so well improving in chess at that age. I didn't just begin I was a "B" rated player when I was 23. I have just started trying to raise my rating with conviction. But it is a slow going struggle. I am focusing learning to play with the Queens pawn openings which I disliked because it seems like it is a slow positional play. So patience is the name of the game at 77.

DENVER

In my opinion, and as your own example might agree with, people still have capacity to improve at any age in good health, i think the problem is more around how old people have less contact to online chess and clubs, less ambition and overall many might not even believe they'd be capable, i guess only people that already played while younger were the ones that eventually might pick up on chess again after retiring or something of sort, because the common non chess player probably also has wrong misconceptions about his own potential and that he wouldn't be able to reach a decent level starting from older age, so it'd probably be hard to find someone with enough understanding of his own potential in chess and how to methodically achieve it.

I believe it takes time to get used to chess and improve your insight of positions and the dynamic of the game, for a beginner, chess seems rather chaotic because he can't understand the ideas behind the moves yet, so it's easy to feel overwhelmed playing chess and losing a lot when starting to play chess, it's only natural that some lose motivation from that too.

There is no research which will show that older people cannot improve to become strong at chess. This is so because no one will be able to find enough adult players to conduct a study, who are both financially independent with unlimited free time and zero responsibility, and who also have a strong drive to improve at chess. There is no physiological reason that healthy adults cannot become strong chess players.

There are limiting factors, but I'm not sure what they all are.  The noted example, slowing of neuron function, is one. 

Certainly there are, i didn't state the opposite, no one can really expect to learn at the same rate of a kid that is literally a sponge that can improve a lot in few years,on the other hand an older person might have the maturity and will to put more effort into it than a kid. Sometimes more important than the capacity to learn, is having the method to learn in optimized ways.

But just as an addition, what i've staten is more from personal experience from most veteran players i've known, or just adults getting into chess. I've seen quite some reach some good levels of playing just from casual playing, and public blitz tournaments around my region, but i must say despites their level of strenght, hardly any of them plays standard and invest themselves in more serious competition.

The greatest example i might know of, is a person that used to be captain from a local club, he was the typical club player that played more casually, mostly blitz tournaments and the sort, and for decades he never got any further than around 1700 rate, suddenly after retiring, he really dedicated himself into chess, and latelly not only he's been frequently winning local blitz tournaments, has he's been having quite some good results in standard chess by beating quite some 2k players and drawing with an IM as i heard as of late.

So despites this person being on a pseudo plateau of rating for decades, and was far from a new player, he suddenly became much stronger when he dedicated himself into studying it after retiring.

There's a long-time trainer in Pittsburgh who maintains that the average adult, without some special gift, can gain 20-50 USCF rating points per year with 15 hours of study per week; and that's been his experience.  It seems entirely reasonable that this is the case, and it gives a good sense of how much information is in 20 or 50 rating points, doesn't it?  I think the most discouraging thing is that so many adult players experience typical statistical variance due to slightly above-par and sub-par experience, luck of the draw (playing against certain openings or styles you do or do not do well against), or the rating distribution of the players you play in a tournament, and so on.  I did statistical analysis on Abe's rating progress (he plays 1-2 tournaments per month most months), and he is gaining 25 pts with better than 95% confidence every 900-1000 hrs of study he puts in.  It's no wonder adult players will put 40 hours and not feel they've made progress and quit the game periodically.  Quantitatively, there's almost no indicator that they're getting better!  You really need a long-run of results and analysis to see it.  

For me what your friend did is already remarkable : very few players manage to reach this level as such an advanced age. Definitely gives hope to all of us !

However, the fact that Anand and Kortchnoï managed to keep a very high level despite aging may not increase the odds to achieve a high level of chess expertise as an adult. It shows that two extraordinarily gifted players found ways to retain their strength - ie. that there are ways not to decline... Good news, but not good enough yet !

There are many debates over the talent vs. hard work role in the improvement equation. Even if you think talent is not the prominent factor, you still have to find some motivation to put the work in, and as you say, it's a lot of work to get a handful of elo points. Besides, experience suggests that you hit plateau on your chess improvement path, so what kind of motivation does it take for an adult player to overcome them ?

Besides brain plasticity and lack of time, I think there are also two other major obstacles that adult learners have to overcome :

- I've often seen adults trying to learn chess from a very conceptual perspective ; this is a tricky proposition, as on one hand you do need the conceptual shortcuts to help your chess development, but on the other hand, you need to internalize a lot of basic patterns to hope reach a good level. Children pick those by playing (thank you, young plastic mind !), but adults probably have to make a conscious effort here, and go over thousands of repetitions to get the same results (I suppose).

- Over-reliance on engines and engine-generated literature over human analysis. And in general, an attraction towards passive learning. This is also a very common trap. With the all-knowing engines and plethora of chess knowledge available for free, it's easy to drown in material that is just not adapted to your current needs, rather than build the solid foundation that can bring you to the higher levels of chess. Like in other fields, chess is flooded by too much information, most of it irrelevant when you're at a certain level. Without proper guidance, it's very difficult to make good use of the modern learning tools.

Considering they are older it is more likely they will have money to spend on a good coach . If they do I think it definitely could be possible for an older person to improve a good amount.. however much that is .

Sure, learning capacity does reduce with age, as pretty much everything else.

Muscle degeneration is another issue that age brings, doesn't mean you can't have a 6 pack or defined muscles when you're old. It's pretty much the same for intellectual activities, if you use it you won't really lose it. The brain is such a complex thing that even people that have massive brain damage from things like aneurysms, can still recover a great deal of function. Korchnoi already had quite some and i'm quite sure he can still beat the crap of several people in chess.

I think you are one of a few people who actually overestimates what a coach can do.  Most people vastly underestimate, I think.

Wow, I just thought to myself the other day that chess is one of the few areas of thought in which mostly high-quality literature exists.  There is some trash, but I don't think that much.  You have a better vantage point, though, being much stronger (and a coach).

I actually thought most people had the same opinion as I . Although i never had a coach so what do i know . Maybe people who underestimate coaching have had bad coaches themselves.

Boy, that 87 year-old has an impressive story!

I think there's plenty of room for older players to improve, though past 2000 it gets to be an iffier proposition.

However, it may be much tougher if an older player didn't have some younger experience to build upon as our 87 year-old friend did.

There are definietely two breeds of coaches: those who are strong players who can give some guidance and answer your every question, and then there are the systematic teachers who are pedagogically sound in their method.  Most coaches are of the former type, though many try to charge what the latter do.  Many strong players will pretend that they can accurately assess you, but they don't know what they're doing.  I know how pedagogy works: I was a good theoretical physicist (and still am), but I couldn't teach it for the life of me.  Then, I became a good teacher with methods, pedagogical theory, etc.  Doing something at a high level does not mean being able to teach effectively.  Most coaches do not give effective lessons.  I know, I've sampled the field. 

It makes some sense to me: adult can learn languages and just about anything we put our minds to, so why can't we progress in chess, even if ever so slightly?  Even if a player makes it to 1800 at 50 years old, why can't they make 10 points of progress per year for 30 years with study (and sufficient exercise and health)?  I realize many adults, who are too numbers-oriented, would become discouraged, since a particular year's stretch might be a loss on paper, even though they are 10 points stronger --and I think this is what happens in practice.  It seems preposterous to me that a 50 year old could eat, sleep, live chess, and not learn and make quantitative progress, no matter how slight.  I realize there are extreme mitigating factors, but no progress seems odd to me.  It would be like saying that there are certain tasks that adults can no longer learn.  That's an odd thing to think.

Doing something at a high level does not mean being able to teach effectively.

Milliern: Amen to that!

I'm impressed by those who make it to Master or more, but that's no assurance they can teach chess well. (Or frame a coherent argument on chess.com for that matter.)

Even if a player makes it to 1800 at 50 years old, why can't they make 10 points of progress per year for 30 years with study (and sufficient exercise and health)?

Milliern: I'm with you here too. I suspect the limiting factor (for ratings less than master anyway) is motivation.

Chess is hard work. When you're young, you not only have a keener mind and higher energy, you also have hot fires of ambition burning under you to make your mark.

The best coach I've had, and who has done the most with only a few interactions, was a (well-known) NM, while my primary coach is a GM.  In the arrangement I currently have, an NM guides my individual lessons with the GM.

I would bet my bottom dollar that someone like Silman, who is both pedagogically sound and strong, is among the best coaches you could have without seeking out a particular GM who is known to be a great teacher.  In fact, I think Dvoretsky, the great GM creator, is only an IM; and the best book on strategy that I've read was written by an IM, Grooten.  I think tat goes to show that strength is not quite as important as the ability to convey, instill, and engender the information.

I might agree with that, but maybe not.  I don't know.  I think that any instance in which rating progress seems to disappear probably isn't an insurmountable  "magical knowledge wall," but a indicative of the fact that 10 rating points, say, from 2050 to 2060, contains (i.e., requires) more knowledge than a jump from 1250-1260.  If my friend, Abe, consistently made 25 point increases per year, then it becomes 10 points per year at 88 (supposing he makes 2000), it might not be age, but the fact that there is more information to learn and technique to develop in a ten-point span in the Expert division.