When is it too late to start playing (and getting good at) chess?

Based on personal experience, I'd say 65 is too late to get "serious" about chess and expect to get "good" .   Luckily you can still have fun even if you never get past patzer.

Somewhere around 150 or so. If you are looking to play professionally look to taking vitamins and supplements and exercising.

The mind can very sharp up until a very old age. Especially if you use it like a chess player! Hint! Hint! I know people say you can't play as well as you get older but I don't believe it. I'm 57 and continuing to improve from 1630.

A chessmaster told me he once tried and tried to become a chessmaster and failed ... Until he quit trying and began to enjoy the game. He was a chessmaster in 6 months.

<Estragon> Ok, so you say that WGM Pogonina was simply giving her honest opinion and shouldn't be chided for that. Fine. You may be right. 

It's just that her title and fame may cause someone to believe her, where maybe they shouldn't... that's all...

As a musician, I saw many times how teachers and authority figures push people away from music by making them believe that 'they have no talent' or no future or whatever - and people remember that as traumatic sometimes 30 years later. 

This is why I think that especially the stronger guys should give others hope, rather than brutally dissuade them from pursuing their dreams and desires. 

But that's just me. If it's all fine by you then I rest my case. 

<ErnestoSim>

I'm strong in chess, but not quite as strong as some of my esteemed colleagues here... I don't think I'm currently much more than 2000 FIDE strength - maybe 2050. 

I started to play at 5, but never met any real player until joining a club at age 17, when my playing strength, as shown in my first tournament, was 1200. 

I started then to read books, analyze my games and ask people questions. By the time I was 19 I was playing like an 1800, and my Israeli rating shot up into mid-1700s. 

Because of certain choices I made, I took long breaks from chess... but at 26 I got back to it, played a couple of tournaments just to find myself suddenly a high-1800s player

And my current level was reached probably a few years ago, also without a lot of investment. 

Currently I can't say that chess is one of my three top goals in life - but when I get the time for it, I play some blitz, do some TT, go over some games - always analyze my games carefully, also with an engine and also consulting some stronger friends I have. I study openings that I play, look at games by strong players in these openings to get ideas and do work on the endgame. So I do expect to improve further. 

I currently don't plan having a coach - but I might change my mind at some point. 

I don't know how much time it will take, but I certainly don't expect to deteriorate just because my body celebrates more birthdays!

I know it happens to other people - but not to everybody. It's definitely possible to improve. 

Just how far, is a question of talent, of how much you put into it, of doing the right things when you study - and of course, of your constitution and your general state, which certainly becomes more of a factor, as bodies are normally in better conditions when you're 20 than when you're 40 or much more than that. 

Keeping your body in shape is an issue in itself. A body in bad shape won't contribute to any plan of improvement. But bodies can be in good shape at any age, and then it doesn't really matter. 

That's my opinion :-) <Estragon> doesn't have to agree, and I know that I will have some more opposition. 

solskytz,

If you were my music teacher, I could have played my guitar much better;

If you were my chess coach, I'd be a master I'd boast.

But I'm just an oldie trying hard to improve-

Reachin' my dream they disprove.

An oldie? Looking at your date of birth you looked like a youngie to me :-)

Those of us saying "if by good you mean master strength then no." are also saying "but you can be a really strong club player, maybe even expert strength, with dedication and hard work."

Do folks really think that being a class A or expert player isn't good? Sorry, but a strong class A a player is better than 94.6% of the rest of the active chess players in the USA. How is that not "good?"

All we're saying is that a late start means you almost certainly won't make the top 1% of players who have titles. That's not the same as saying someone can't be a force to be reconned with at the local club. 

Well, as this forum goes, 20 seem to be the new 60 for most of the experts and scholars here. (I'm lookin at ya Kingpatzer)

<KingPatzer>

There is still another fallacy there... who is so 'wise' as to tell somebody - 'you can make expert (USCF 2000) but not master (USCF 2200)?

Ridiculous!

When I got familiar with elos, I wanted to be a 1850 player. When I got there, my dream was 2150. Now I want to be a Fide Master. What will I want once I get there?

It's all about making goals, meeting them, then making new ones. There will always be people who'll try to make you give up. Get used to it. 

The dogs bark and the convoy passes (we have this expression in Hebrew)

<Ernestosim> Lol !!!! That was a strong one :-)

20 is the new 60 :-) 

Memorable!

You summed up their entire position in five Golden words (the capital G isn't accidental)

If 20 is the new 60, then what does that make of 41??

You made me laugh so hard, I'll now need to get into the pharmacy and get myself a new diaper!

2050 FIDE is equivalent to 2150 USCF. Is someone here seriously trying to tell me that I can't go 50 or 100 points higher than my current playing strength??!! <Dedicated to Mr. Kingpatzer>

*sigh*

Hey, people can have all the unrealistic expectations they want. But frankly I think it's better to have realistic goals than unrealizable dreams.

Less than 1% of all players are at the master level. No one can point to a single known documented case of a person making master who learned to play as a matured adult (roughly age 25 or later). 

Everything we know about mastering other semiotic subjects suggests that it is extremely unlikely (even less unlikely than it is to be one of the 1% in the first place).

Aiming to get as strong as possible is great. Only being  happy with the unattainable is not.  

Well, if I started to play chess at 25, and suddenly became an 1600 player, I'd be happy as hell!

But I'd then want to make 1800. I'm sure that you get my point. 

And about starting late - well I can tell you about myself. At 35 I didn't speak a word of French. Today at 41 I'm extremely fluent, can easily follow films in French, and I even receive professional translation work from French into the other languages I speak. 

When we came to France my daughter was 2. She also learned French from nothing, and it's her main language - however, I can still help her with French and teach her stuff in it - we started at the same time, she was 2 and I was close to 35. 

There were other subjects that I started to learn about in my '30s and became pretty knowledgeable, and I'm sure that I can start any subject that interests me also today, and reach proficiency. 

Another example: My doctor is an Israeli Chiropractor, aged 75 and in excellent shape (as in, runs 6 km every morning). 

He was an engineer, and at age 40-something he decided to change profession - so he went for four years into chiropractics school, got himself a diploma, and built and outstanding practice in the following three decades. 

Age is no barrier to learning or to getting better. But invalidation from others is.

If you want to play the role of the guy who stifles others' ambition, go ahead and do it. It will cause damage, but you still have free choice to do as you please. 

To your first point -- do native french speakers know you aren't a native speaker? My guess is that they do, even though they can communicate with you just fine, there are likely many nuances that still point out to native speakers that you are not. I'm not saying this to be dismissive, just that is the norm. 

And that's my point: chess has a deep semiotic component. It is very much akin to a language game: symbols create logical puzzles that need to be decoded and replied to by the players.

People who learn languages young (like your daughter) may not know all the rules and generalizations and grammar points, their is still plenty that even non-native speakers can (and should!) teach them. But when it comes to the act of communicating, they become indistinguishable from a native speaker while the adult does not. 

That means they end up eventually being able to be more successful at language based activities.

That's just a fact. And while there are exceptions, even those exceptions are almost always people who started learning multiple languages early. That is, you might find someone who speaks English and is indistinguishable from a native English speaker but who didn't start learning English till they were in their 30s, but invariably they will have already learned several languages by then so they understand the semiotic tasks involved in a way someone learning their first foreign language does not. 

If we ever do find a documented case of someone learnign the rules of chess for the first time and becoming a master, I will be willing to bet a hefty sum that they where already quite good at a game that shares some aspect of play with Chess like Go, Shogi, or what-not.  

To your later point, I'm very interested in seeing people get as good as possible. I've spent some time studying coaching, and I teach 3 different subjects (music, marital arts and scuba diving). I am fanatical about people achieving their dreams. 

But I'm also about making dreams attainable, because nothing is more frustrating for someone than to have a dream they can't reach.

I've had  students who were very frustrated they could be Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix. They eventually gave up learning the guitar because they couldn't, even after years of hard work, be like some guy who played their whole life, for hours on end each day.  Had they had more realistic goals, maybe they would have kept playing and trying to get better, and they would have gotten a lot closer to playing like their heroes. And maybe they would have learned to have fun along the way. 

You shouldn’t tell anyone they cannot do something, just because we might be wrong and we can't predict the future. The day will come someone will make GM in their late 20s, mark my words.  It’s good to give your opinion, but you shouldn’t discourage others.

When I was a child, some teachers told my mom I shouldn’t go to secondary school because I was a poor student. However, my parents still wanted me to go to secondary school. The same thing happened to me. I was so discouraged I stopped going to school and lost 4 years, they finally destroyed my self-esteem. When I was 20, I met a girl my age, and she changed my life forever.

I went back to school, but to a different one where nobody knew me. I will never forget my first A+. I had an excellent reputation there, to the point one of my teachers kept a paper I wrote, a 90-page paper whereas the other ones where 9-10 pages long.

I started university when I was 22, I was one of the oldest students. No problem, 3 years later I was granted a scholarship to Cambridge, England, the most exlusive scholarship you could get for my degree in Spain. There in Cambridge I was the best student of my class. In case you are wondering, yes, I have let my former teachers know what I achieved. I even had the pleasure to teach some of them so they can improve in their career.

<KingPatzer>

I see the positive points of your attitude in the last couple of paragraphs. You just don't want people to be satisfied ONLY with reaching the top - of course, this is a problem that I also run into as a coach. 

Of course, with each attained level, the next one becomes accessible, at least "dreamable", with further dedication. 

About my French, of course I couldn't be mistaken for a native speaker BY A FRENCHMAN. People of other nationalities sometimes err :-) as I'm really fluent, associative and use a rich language, with awareness of grammatical points. 

Italian I speak since age 22, in a similar way - and I never spoke it before. Here though, it happens rather frequently that ITALIANS think that I'm Italian - this started to happen to me in the last 5-10 years... getting better all the time.

And last - I'm not sure, that "sounding like a native speaker" in a foreign language, is comparable with "Attaining the strength of FIDE 2100 (= "Master" in the US)" in the semiotic language of chess. 

Another point is, that I never made it my goal to sound as a native speaker in any language I speak - just to become proficient and to communicate (English is also a foreign language for me). 

The Ambasador to Germany in Spain:"You can say beautiful, intelligent things in English with a German accent, or you can say stupid things in perfect BBC English." "I didn't become Ambassador because I speak 7 languages, but because of the things I say with these 7 languages."

Telling people they can do something we have no documented evidence of anyone ever achieving and that they are reasonable for doing so is a far cry from telling people to not try to be the best they can be. 

Realistic goals are superior to unrealistic dreams because succeeding at meeting goals boosts one's confidence and gives the mental endurance and conditioning necessary to work even harder at the next goal. 

Unrealistic dreams are never achieved, and once a person realizes how far they still have to go many people are discouraged and give up on the dream. 

If someone is starting to learn chess for the first time, a realistic, but difficult goal, like "obtain a rating of 1600 and play in one major national tournament, scoring at least 50% and not losing any games to simple tactical blunders, oversights, or unsafe moves" is a far better goal than "get a title."

Why? because that goal will take the average person just starting out years to achieve in and of itself. And they can modify it as they go. If they get to 1600, but they just haven't been able to get a 50% score in a major tournament, or they're still having oversights that cost them games, then set it at 1800 and go for another couple years till that level is reached. 

Or maybe you aren't yet 1600, but you just scored 100% at the Chicago open in the under-1300 class, then you can just drop the "at least 50% score," check it off. Mission accomplished. And then maybe you can set getting a 50% ratio for the year, or some other hard to acheive, but realistic, measurable target.

In this way, you have long-range goals. But you are seeing success. You are achieving. And I guarantee that for the average person, goal setting in this method will result in greater achievements in the long run than setting pie-in-the-sky dreams that no one as ever acheived as the target.

Indeed, if we ever do find the guy who learned the game at 25 and became a titled player I'll be willing to bet their method of goal setting will be a lot closer to what I just outlined than the "I want to be 2900 and a world champion" method.  

(Ben Finegold was 40 when earning his third GM norm.)

A few days ago I've "met" a FIDE Master here on chess.com and we were talking about chess (what a surprise!). I told him I am too old to start playing chess seriously. I am 24, turning 25 in July. His response was that his current coach was older than I am now when he started and he is now an International Master.

Once you have died, I would say that, generally speaking, it is too late.

Unless you are a Tibetan Buddhist who has cultivated some extremely rare siddhi powers in the Bardo.  Of course, if it turns out we are reborn somehow, into a situation where chess is present, and playable, there may be further opportunities.  Who am I to say?