3 ms·
You will have to qualify this statement heavily. We do not have any examples of a grandmaster who learned rules past age 20. One of the 19th century greats pr
by sireat 2y ago
You will have to qualify this statement heavily.
We do not have any examples of a grandmaster who learned rules past age 20.
One of the 19th century greats presumably learned at 17, it was Blackburne - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Henry_Blackburne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Henry_Blackburne - he was GM strength.
There are a few late bloomer GMs today but what is common with them is that they were already decent just below expert players before 20.
You need 3 things to become a masters and up level player.
1. Grit - conscious mastery everyone agrees on that
2. Some natural talent - certainly to become super GM
3. Start early enough - 6,7 is norm, 10 probably okay, 15 is already almost late.
There is something special going on in the brains of young teenagers learning certain skills - violin, chess, some others. As Fischer said - he "just became good" in one year from around 13 to 14. Of course he was already pretty good at 13 but the magic happens around that time.
Basically, you train hard, maybe you take a little bit of time off and then you gain this amazing "unconscious mastery". This happens around ages 11-16 or so, depending how early you start.
Every good chess player has this "unconscious mastery" - that is they can play pretty well (2200+) even if drunk, dead tired, 1-min blitz, playing simul, etc etc - in other words without "thinking".
For some reason adult starters are unable to develop this unconscious mastery.
Apparently there are certain limits to neuroplasticity in adults. Of course I'd love to be proven wrong.
Disclaimer: I am an aging Fide Master who needed 1 point in 2 games(ie 2 draws) to become IM some years ago. I went out swinging but failed.
I also know many people who took up chess late in life and did not break 1800.
Also I know many people who are full time trainers and live chess full time, but they themselves can not go above 2200.
If pure grit was sufficient at later stages in life, we'd see a lot more progress, but we do not.
- somenameforme 2y agoI think you are leaving out #4. You need to have basically unbreakable confidence. Dealing with that horrible plateau that we all go through often breaks adult players. This [1] is Magnus' rating chart. It looks like an unstoppable line to the top until you zoom in and actually look. In April 2004 Magnus was 2552. 15 months and 162 classical games later he was 2528. When a 'normal' adult plays 162 classical games, which is often only done over a period of many years, and only loses rating points, they assume they've hit their peak and their spirit breaks, or they try to 'fix' their training routine and just end up completely breaking it. This is one reason it's so much easier for children to improve - they [usually] don't really think about such things in the same way and just keep grinding away. Chess improvement is brutal. You don't put in 'x' effort and get some proportional reward back. Chess improvement is very stair-step, you wake up one day and you're suddenly much stronger than you were the day before. But until you hit that next stair-step, you see little to nothing. In my own case I only learned how the pieces move as an adult, at least in so much as 18 counts as an adult, and feel I've gained at least a moderate level of unconscious mastery - around 2600 bullet and 2500 blitz, with the overwhelming majority of that improvement coming well after 30, and I'm still improving! [1] - https://ratings.fide.com/profile/1503014/chart https://ratings.fide.com/profile/1503014/chart