4 ms·
As someone who has lost to a child on national television; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL5GE6S7LEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL5GE6S7LEk I can sympa
by billforsternz 10y ago
As someone who has lost to a child on national television;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL5GE6S7LEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL5GE6S7LEk
I can sympathise with the author of the article. The cruel truth is that it is very difficult to improve as an adult. I think the analogy to learning language is a good one - to get really good learn as a child.
As far as I know there are no instances of a player learning to play as an adult and reaching grandmaster status. Akiba Rubinstein, an all time great who didn't learn until 16, was (nearly) an exception. Another famous (almost) counter-example is one of the pioneers of the Russian school of chess who learned chess from scratch twice - the second time as an adult after suffering total memory loss from a war injury. Unfortunately my Google Fu is failing me and I can't summon any confirmation or recall his name.
- billforsternz 10y agoIt turns out it was Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky, I thought as much but his Wikipedia page makes no mention of it. http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=20026 http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=20026
- rpgmaker 10y agoI never knew about chocolate chess. Thanks for posting it!
- billforsternz 10y agoI wouldn't say chocolate chess was a thing, per se. Just a one-off promotional idea I think.