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Chess is one of the few fields where dominance can easily stretch into several decades - if you're a young prodigy you may breach into top level in your teenage

Chess is one of the few fields where dominance can easily stretch into several decades - if you're a young prodigy you may breach into top level in your teenage years and last well until your 50s or 60s. Of course you won't be #1 this whole time (check out Lasker's longevity though) but you will always remain a top contender.

ganeshkrishnan 6y ago
I would like to differ on this. It's getting harder and harder to maintain dominance. Kasparov was the one to hold the longest. Magnus, even though he is one of the best ever, is already losing out to Alireza in bullet, blitz and even almost in classical. Chess theory has a new Renaissance due to neutral networks and we will see newer GM's adapting to it.
- vpa10 6y ago
  This is not how I see it. Carlsen lost one insanely long online bullet match on lichess. He narrowly lost an online banter blitz match. This is not blitz, since also you have to talk while playing, which does not seem to suit Carlsen's personality. In classical, you can often "almost lose", except that Carlsen does not "actually lose", as exemplified by his ongoing record non-loss streak.
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    In the banter blitz I saw, they aren't really bantering, just making offhand comments during downtime.
    - glxxyz 6y ago
      They don't really banter in 'banter blitz', they explain the position and their strategy, which is much more interesting.
    - thom 6y ago
      I watch a variety of games on Twitch, and I am fairly sure that no player would claim they play optimally while commentating themselves and explaining their thought processes.
  - jquery 6y ago
    People are reading a bit too much into this loss. It is a big deal that someone was able to beat Magnus Carlsen at any time control, especially in this era where Magnus has seemingly reached a new level of chess skill, but bullet is by far the the easiest for a champion to make a mistake or series of them. Magnus is ridiculously strong at bullet but I’ve watched his live-streams and sometimes he blunders really badly, that’s just part of bullet. Although he is incredibly strong at bullet, probably 50-100 points higher than the world #2. Anyone not a high ranked GM wouldn’t stand a chance of beating him in a series of more than 5 games. But I’ve seen him lose to players he is obviously better than. He’s the #1 so they try their hardest. Nothing comes easily for Magnus.
    - pedrosorio 6y ago
      “Although he is incredibly strong at bullet, probably 50-100 points higher than the world #2” Are you forgetting about Hikaru Nakamura?
    - freyir 6y ago
      > "probably 50-100 points higher than the world #2" He can't be 50-100 points higher than himself. Hikaru is #1. https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men_blitz https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men_blitz
      - Taek 6y ago
        That's blitz. Bullet is a faster time control
        freyir 6y ago
        Oh, you're right. Google pulls up FIDE's blitz rankings when you search for bullet chess rankings.
        ganeshkrishnan 6y ago
        Bullet games are not officially rated
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    The classical time control chess is boring. It really feels like an exercise in memorization. I stopped watching those as almost every tournament ends in armagedon. Its a statement of the incredible skills top players poses, but its incredibly boring to watch draw after draw. Quicker time controls are more dynamic and allow to play subpar move to throw off your opponent. Often you can see some crazy attacks.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  And I thought short time controls were Magnus' forte. I guess it may be the one where age related decline sets in the quickest.
  - jpmoral 6y ago
    Isn't he ridiculously strong at all time controls?
    - emerongi 6y ago
      He is. Carlsen is a unique player in many respects and he usually comes back even stronger from losses. To say that he is "losing out" to someone is a bit premature I would say.
  - throwaway6575 6y ago
    Magnus is so incredibly strong that people think he's about to decline when suffering one (1) loss from another rising star in a niche online format. This is like when Capablanca didn't lose a single game between 1917 and 1924 and everyone acted like "the Schachmachine ist kaputt" when he broke his streak. The fact is that competition is incredibly tough and differences betwene player levels are imperceptible to all but the very most trained eyes. In fact that's why championships need so many games and tie-breakers - the people are so equal in ability that the most likely result from a match between to top level players is a draw.
- thom 6y ago
  I think if anyone has benefited from the coming of AlphaGo and Leela, it's Magnus himself. 2019 was such a renaissance for him partly because all these intuitive positional lines with pawn sacrifices opened up, and I felt in the years previous to that that his love for the game seemed slightly on the wane as he regularly became mired in others' Stockfish prep (while still being able to mostly pull it out due to endgame technique).
- dmit 6y ago
  In fact, it was Magnus himself (currently 29 years old, as of April 2020) who said his favorite chess player was himself, when he was around 23. That Magnus apparently saw things on the board that current (overwhelmingly dominant) Magnus can't any more. So even in chess there's a physical prime, just like in pretty much any other sport.
  - nal100 6y ago
    He said that (jokingly) before his fabulous 2019 year. Right now he's spending a lot of time promoting chess24 with banter blitz, hanging around on lichess playing 100 games bullet matches, commenting on chess24 and other things that would profoundly ruin anyone else's concentration. So, no big deal if he very occasionally loses (online!) games.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Carlsen losing is exceptionally good advertising, and makes him the center of more attention. It reminds me of the tennis player John McEnroe, win or lose we remember him for his outbursts, he made a lot of advertising money because of that. In short, Carlsen was probably beaten, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he was just winning at a different game (exposure or money).
- dejv 6y ago
  I am really curious if we are going too see players adopting AlphaZero tactics. Games I saw goes so against current intuition and it would be interesting to see chess evolving. Current crop of GMs benefited greatly from short feedback loops by using computers, but they still operate in explored problem space.
  - gamegoblin 6y ago
    For what it's worth, Magnus has recently hit an all-time ratings high after a very, very slow decline over the last 5 years. And he attributes his recent bump to studying the AlphaZero games. https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=1503014 https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=1503014
- buzzdenver 6y ago
  Come on, it's not like Kasparov won all the tournaments. Magnus is far from invincible, but currently he's still dominating.
dntbnmpls 6y ago
> Chess is one of the few fields where dominance can easily stretch into several decades Easily? No. The only player to have the top rating longer than 10 years is kasparov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_number_ones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_numbe... > if you're a young prodigy you may breach into top level in your teenage years and last well until your 50s or 60s. Of course you won't be #1 this whole time (check out Lasker's longevity though) but you will always remain a top contender. No. There is nobody 50 or older in the fide ranking ( top 100 ). https://ratings.fide.com/ https://ratings.fide.com/ Chess is a mentally and physically draining sport. Top players tend to drop off considerably in their late 30s and 40s as younger talent takes over.
- thom 6y ago
  Anand, Gelfand, Dreev and Ivanchuck are all 50 or older, unless you just mean blitz, in which case it's just Anand and Dreev.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Anand is about 100 Elo points weaker than Carlsen at all time controls. It's impressive that Anand is still #15 at his age (50 years), but he's the only 50-year-old at that elite level (2700+ Elo). The age distribution of the top 100 Classical players is: 16-19: 5 20-29: 39 30-39: 40 40-49: 12 50-51: 4 The 20s and 30s are really the peak ages for chess.
    - thom 6y ago
      Wasn't disputing that, just the inaccuracy of the previous comment.
- V-2 6y ago
  Korchnoi was still in the top 100 at the age of 76. Of course "easily" is a vast exaggeration.
  - 6y ago
Waterluvian 6y ago
FWIW this is why I've adopted Curling after playing hockey for a decade. It is an incredibly skillful and physical game and yet you see 80 year olds at the rink playing it. You can get good at it and be good for a long long time. You don't get too old.
- exclusiv 6y ago
  Also the beauty of golf. You can enjoy it until your 70s, some even older. You can do outings with several generations. Has shorter tees for younger, older, ladies if they want to use the. It also has a legitimate handicap system so everyone can compete. I also really love fishing, mostly for different reasons, but it's multi generational too of course.
Nokinside 6y ago
Formula 1 racing is similar. Drivers become aś good as they every can in pure pure driving skill in karting when they are still teenagers. All skills needed for driving fast are developed early. Rest of the career in F3/F2/GP2 feeder series to F1 is just maturing psychologically, getting experience and learning stuff you need outside the track. Ultimate skill level is already there or not. Drivers will eventually fade out when their physical performance declines in late 30's. (actual career performance depends on cars, teams, money, business and marketing)
- dominotw 6y ago
  same with skiing and many other sports.
  - hyperbovine 6y ago
    With chess you do not stand a nontrivial chance of dying each time you take to the field. So not the same, it seems to me.
    - mrosett 6y ago
      The dominant risk when I ski is traveling to and from the resort. So I suppose your point stands if you only play from home. Even so, it seems a bit irrelevant to the discussion.
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        Maybe for you the travel to skiing is dominant, but I've known many people (UK acquaintances) who've been injured skiing but none who've been injured on route to go skiing. And that's just leisure skiing, in racing I'd imagine injuries are far more common.
        antasvara 6y ago
        They were responding to the assertion that skiing holds a larger risk of dying than the travel to the ski resort. Statistically, it seems more likely that a person would die in a car accident versus skiing.
edgarvaldes 6y ago
See the great Viktor Korchnoi[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Korchnoi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Korchnoi

ganeshkrishnan 6y ago

I would like to differ on this. It's getting harder and harder to maintain dominance. Kasparov was the one to hold the longest. Magnus, even though he is one of the best ever, is already losing out to Alireza in bullet, blitz and even almost in classical. Chess theory has a new Renaissance due to neutral networks and we will see newer GM's adapting to it.

vpa10 6y ago
This is not how I see it. Carlsen lost one insanely long online bullet match on lichess. He narrowly lost an online banter blitz match. This is not blitz, since also you have to talk while playing, which does not seem to suit Carlsen's personality. In classical, you can often "almost lose", except that Carlsen does not "actually lose", as exemplified by his ongoing record non-loss streak.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  In the banter blitz I saw, they aren't really bantering, just making offhand comments during downtime.
  - glxxyz 6y ago
    They don't really banter in 'banter blitz', they explain the position and their strategy, which is much more interesting.
  - thom 6y ago
    I watch a variety of games on Twitch, and I am fairly sure that no player would claim they play optimally while commentating themselves and explaining their thought processes.
- jquery 6y ago
  People are reading a bit too much into this loss. It is a big deal that someone was able to beat Magnus Carlsen at any time control, especially in this era where Magnus has seemingly reached a new level of chess skill, but bullet is by far the the easiest for a champion to make a mistake or series of them. Magnus is ridiculously strong at bullet but I’ve watched his live-streams and sometimes he blunders really badly, that’s just part of bullet. Although he is incredibly strong at bullet, probably 50-100 points higher than the world #2. Anyone not a high ranked GM wouldn’t stand a chance of beating him in a series of more than 5 games. But I’ve seen him lose to players he is obviously better than. He’s the #1 so they try their hardest. Nothing comes easily for Magnus.
  - pedrosorio 6y ago
    “Although he is incredibly strong at bullet, probably 50-100 points higher than the world #2” Are you forgetting about Hikaru Nakamura?
  - freyir 6y ago
    > "probably 50-100 points higher than the world #2" He can't be 50-100 points higher than himself. Hikaru is #1. https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men_blitz https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men_blitz
    - Taek 6y ago
      That's blitz. Bullet is a faster time control
      - freyir 6y ago
        Oh, you're right. Google pulls up FIDE's blitz rankings when you search for bullet chess rankings.
        ganeshkrishnan 6y ago
        Bullet games are not officially rated
- me_me_me 6y ago
  The classical time control chess is boring. It really feels like an exercise in memorization. I stopped watching those as almost every tournament ends in armagedon. Its a statement of the incredible skills top players poses, but its incredibly boring to watch draw after draw. Quicker time controls are more dynamic and allow to play subpar move to throw off your opponent. Often you can see some crazy attacks.
im3w1l 6y ago
And I thought short time controls were Magnus' forte. I guess it may be the one where age related decline sets in the quickest.
- jpmoral 6y ago
  Isn't he ridiculously strong at all time controls?
  - emerongi 6y ago
    He is. Carlsen is a unique player in many respects and he usually comes back even stronger from losses. To say that he is "losing out" to someone is a bit premature I would say.
- throwaway6575 6y ago
  Magnus is so incredibly strong that people think he's about to decline when suffering one (1) loss from another rising star in a niche online format. This is like when Capablanca didn't lose a single game between 1917 and 1924 and everyone acted like "the Schachmachine ist kaputt" when he broke his streak. The fact is that competition is incredibly tough and differences betwene player levels are imperceptible to all but the very most trained eyes. In fact that's why championships need so many games and tie-breakers - the people are so equal in ability that the most likely result from a match between to top level players is a draw.
thom 6y ago
I think if anyone has benefited from the coming of AlphaGo and Leela, it's Magnus himself. 2019 was such a renaissance for him partly because all these intuitive positional lines with pawn sacrifices opened up, and I felt in the years previous to that that his love for the game seemed slightly on the wane as he regularly became mired in others' Stockfish prep (while still being able to mostly pull it out due to endgame technique).
dmit 6y ago
In fact, it was Magnus himself (currently 29 years old, as of April 2020) who said his favorite chess player was himself, when he was around 23. That Magnus apparently saw things on the board that current (overwhelmingly dominant) Magnus can't any more. So even in chess there's a physical prime, just like in pretty much any other sport.
- nal100 6y ago
  He said that (jokingly) before his fabulous 2019 year. Right now he's spending a lot of time promoting chess24 with banter blitz, hanging around on lichess playing 100 games bullet matches, commenting on chess24 and other things that would profoundly ruin anyone else's concentration. So, no big deal if he very occasionally loses (online!) games.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Carlsen losing is exceptionally good advertising, and makes him the center of more attention. It reminds me of the tennis player John McEnroe, win or lose we remember him for his outbursts, he made a lot of advertising money because of that. In short, Carlsen was probably beaten, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he was just winning at a different game (exposure or money).
dejv 6y ago
I am really curious if we are going too see players adopting AlphaZero tactics. Games I saw goes so against current intuition and it would be interesting to see chess evolving. Current crop of GMs benefited greatly from short feedback loops by using computers, but they still operate in explored problem space.
- gamegoblin 6y ago
  For what it's worth, Magnus has recently hit an all-time ratings high after a very, very slow decline over the last 5 years. And he attributes his recent bump to studying the AlphaZero games. https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=1503014 https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=1503014
buzzdenver 6y ago
Come on, it's not like Kasparov won all the tournaments. Magnus is far from invincible, but currently he's still dominating.

dntbnmpls 6y ago

> Chess is one of the few fields where dominance can easily stretch into several decades Easily? No. The only player to have the top rating longer than 10 years is kasparov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_number_ones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_numbe... > if you're a young prodigy you may breach into top level in your teenage years and last well until your 50s or 60s. Of course you won't be #1 this whole time (check out Lasker's longevity though) but you will always remain a top contender. No. There is nobody 50 or older in the fide ranking ( top 100 ). https://ratings.fide.com/ https://ratings.fide.com/ Chess is a mentally and physically draining sport. Top players tend to drop off considerably in their late 30s and 40s as younger talent takes over.

thom 6y ago
Anand, Gelfand, Dreev and Ivanchuck are all 50 or older, unless you just mean blitz, in which case it's just Anand and Dreev.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Anand is about 100 Elo points weaker than Carlsen at all time controls. It's impressive that Anand is still #15 at his age (50 years), but he's the only 50-year-old at that elite level (2700+ Elo). The age distribution of the top 100 Classical players is: 16-19: 5 20-29: 39 30-39: 40 40-49: 12 50-51: 4 The 20s and 30s are really the peak ages for chess.
  - thom 6y ago
    Wasn't disputing that, just the inaccuracy of the previous comment.
V-2 6y ago
Korchnoi was still in the top 100 at the age of 76. Of course "easily" is a vast exaggeration.
- 6y ago

Waterluvian 6y ago

FWIW this is why I've adopted Curling after playing hockey for a decade. It is an incredibly skillful and physical game and yet you see 80 year olds at the rink playing it. You can get good at it and be good for a long long time. You don't get too old.

exclusiv 6y ago
Also the beauty of golf. You can enjoy it until your 70s, some even older. You can do outings with several generations. Has shorter tees for younger, older, ladies if they want to use the. It also has a legitimate handicap system so everyone can compete. I also really love fishing, mostly for different reasons, but it's multi generational too of course.

Nokinside 6y ago

Formula 1 racing is similar. Drivers become aś good as they every can in pure pure driving skill in karting when they are still teenagers. All skills needed for driving fast are developed early. Rest of the career in F3/F2/GP2 feeder series to F1 is just maturing psychologically, getting experience and learning stuff you need outside the track. Ultimate skill level is already there or not. Drivers will eventually fade out when their physical performance declines in late 30's. (actual career performance depends on cars, teams, money, business and marketing)

dominotw 6y ago
same with skiing and many other sports.
- hyperbovine 6y ago
  With chess you do not stand a nontrivial chance of dying each time you take to the field. So not the same, it seems to me.
  - mrosett 6y ago
    The dominant risk when I ski is traveling to and from the resort. So I suppose your point stands if you only play from home. Even so, it seems a bit irrelevant to the discussion.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Maybe for you the travel to skiing is dominant, but I've known many people (UK acquaintances) who've been injured skiing but none who've been injured on route to go skiing. And that's just leisure skiing, in racing I'd imagine injuries are far more common.
      - antasvara 6y ago
        They were responding to the assertion that skiing holds a larger risk of dying than the travel to the ski resort. Statistically, it seems more likely that a person would die in a car accident versus skiing.

edgarvaldes 6y ago

See the great Viktor Korchnoi[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Korchnoi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Korchnoi