Aging and Chess abilities

To what degree does aging affects your ability in chess? Does it it decline or progresses? Or it shouldn't matter at all ?

So, is the decline more on aging or the desire to compete?

Why does avg. ELO go up from age 91 to 96??? I know...the euphoria of making it that far....

lol red- i saw the same thing; i guess a novice middle aged fart like me has something to look forward to when i hot the big nine-oh

Funny that this forum topic popped up.  I just purchased "Chess for Life" by Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan which is all about how chess style and abilities vary with age.  There is even discussion about opening repertoire and age.

 

What I've noticed is that many of the top players retire from OTB rated chess games and tournaments to move into other areas as they get older, while us aging patzers and returnees like me, still play or want to play OTB rated tournaments!  

According to chart, is this the case for GM Magnus Carlsen? He happens to be 26 yrs old and shows vulnerability with his games now while GM Wesley So who is 23 is still peaking up?

Kramnik is currently just reaching his peak nowadays, and he is over 40.  Lasker, Portisch, Korchnoi and other strong senior players managed to continue playing well well into their 60s.  The oldest person to reach GM was 50 at the time he managed to do so.  There's hope!

thanks for the correction!  Yes Kaufman became a GM at the age of 60, during the time he was heavily involved in the development of the Chess engine Komodo.  As long as you want to reach it, there will always be a way

Go Garry Kasparov!!!   Coming back to competitive OTB rated competition!!

There are a few reasons why playing strength increases after age 95. Certainly, there is the obvious fact that more than enough time has passed for osmosis and crystallization of chess patterns through decades of exposure, even without deliberate effort. Besides that, however, there is the rapid decline of other brain cells/neurons that are not chess-oriented, such that 95 year old who is trying to improve at chess isn't likely doing much of anything else other than routine bodily functions and has no other learning tasks competing for the residual neurons. In addition, a 95 year old who studies chess very much enjoys it and reverts to a more child-like rapid learning state as old misconceptions and patterns fade (cognitive decline, ironically, improving playing strength) and the pure love of the geometry and logic of the game (as opposed to interest in higher ratings, achievements, as a gauge of intelligence, etc) takes over. Because 95 year olds likely no longer fear death, having lived this long and experienced cognitive and physical decline, and the death of many friends and family members over a long lifetime of cosmic change (compare the world now with when Alekhine beat Capablanca, before the Great Depression, WWII, nuclear weapons, computers, etc), risk-taking in chess is no longer equated with the possibility of dropping rating points, so learning becomes more varied, balanced, synergistic, and far more effective.

To me it seems like Magnus lost some interest in the game after he won all the world champions in 2014, he became less active on social media in 2016/2017, just seemed to care less. Maybe is considering marriage?

Either way I think Magnus peaked in 2014 when he was 23-24, now Wesley is that age but is a late bloomer so we haven't even seen his peak. Wesley So surpassing Magnus is elo is inevitable if you look at the currint rating trends.

At age 62 after decades of wild partying, I have less than 100 brain cells left, but they're really tough cells that have been through a lot.  I'm looking forward to my second childhood!

Dannyhume,

I found your speculations wildly amusing, but I might suggest that a 95 year-old may or may not be just as fearful of death as a 25 year-old. Fear of death is largely a legacy of evolution, not the conclusion of a thought process or accumlation of circumstances. Nevertheless, while perhaps not overburdened by peer-reviewed research, your narritive was delightfully creative. 

I suspect that the up-tick in the 90+ age bracket is just a result of the much smaller statistical sample. There will be far fewer FIDE-rated 97-year-olds than 27-year-olds, so one or two outliers can distort the data for that entire age-bracket.

Personally, I'm with OregonPatzer (post #19). I'm 62 and most of my brain-cells have tossed in the sponge long ago... but the ones that are left are real troopers.

Survival of the fittest!

 

Thank you, and I certainly agree with your "may or may not be just as fearful as death" and "a legacy of evolution."  I would also suggest that such an evolutionary fear is based primarily on the fear of not passing one's selfish genes forward in time ... this would largely apply to 25 year-olds (and/or their young offspring) who were at risk of suddenly dying at the hands of a sabre-tooth tiger, typhoid, or the gods' whimsical and extended withholding of rain moreso than 95 year-olds who were supposed to never have exist. 

At age 95, reproduction is a rare and unexpected occurrence, one's own contribution to one's own legacy and genetic descendants is already complete, and the ability of such a 95 year old to contribute to the well-being of his or her descendants (the evolutionary role of grandparents, perhaps) has not only dissipated, but is often detrimental, as the care, time, and financial needs of a 95 year old continue to escalate with the inevitable mental and physical decline that is programmed in our telomeres, requiring diversion of precious resources accumulated by the later generations to the opposite of evolutionary intent.

I suppose that, statistically, a particular outlier 95 year-old could have a greater level of baseline fear in general at a young age due to unfortunate circumstances, and, even with the inevitable reduction in fear of death that would occur over the next 70 years, could still have enough fear to out-fearful a particular outlier 25-year old who is too obtuse to understand his/her mortality, but I think this would be far more speculative, wildly amusing, and delightfully creative than anything else I have said.