7 ms·

How long do chess players typically remain at their peak for? According to wikipedia, Magnus is currently 35. Is it impressive to be winning at 35? Would we exp

• flaviolivolsi 8mo ago
  Kasparov remained the n.1 player until his retirement at 42, we can likely expect no less from Magnus
• simbleau 8mo ago
  Is there really a decline with age when it comes to chess? I’m not sure he will really decline until he reaches his retirement age.
  • Trufa 8mo ago
    There's a sharp decline with age. Magnus himself says he's not as sharp as he was younger, even if he can compensate with experience.
    • bee_rider 8mo ago
      He just has to gain experience faster than he loses sharpness.
      • cortesoft 8mo ago
        Just like everyone else
    • LanceH 8mo ago
      There are a lot of confounding variables. Chief among them is someone at the top just wanting to get on with their life, start a family for instance, or basically anything other than study 12 hours a day. It's hard to say it's cognitive decline for most of the people who just aren't working as hard at 40 as they were at 25.
      • fc417fc802 8mo ago
        If Chess960 or some other variant that doesn't involve as much rote work becomes sufficiently popular for long enough perhaps it will yield some valuable data about mental function versus age. At least a more holistic view than the studies we currently have.
  • traes 8mo ago
    For some concrete numbers, there are only four players over 50 years of age in the top 100 at the moment by live ratings[0]. They are ranked #13 (age 56), #89 (age 53), #95 (age 54), and #97 (age 57). In their primes these players were ranked #1, #10, #4, and #3 respectively. [0]: https://2700chess.com/?per-page=100 https://2700chess.com/?per-page=100
    • Taek 8mo ago
      This is some fascinating data, thanks for pulling it together.
    • dehrmann 8mo ago
      Isn't he playing Chess960 because he started finding standard chess boring? And wasn't that why Fischer worked on it in the first place? Experts might get bored of it by the time they're 50.
      • peter422 8mo ago
        The reason the top pros like chess960 is because they don’t need to spend hundreds of hours of opening preparation, they can just sit down and play. Caruana (the guy who lost to Magnus), mused in a podcast that chess960 feels strange as a competitor because he doesn’t really prepare (because there are far too many openings to study) and said it feels like he’s getting paid for much less work.
        • nurettin 8mo ago
          There are 960 possible starting positions and the chosen one is known at the start of the tournament where players are given 15m to prepare. I have observed that GMs aren't surprised when they see the board. They usually go "ah it's this one with the opposite bishops" or something similar.
          • vasco 8mo ago
            When a chess player means "no prep" it probably still means more prep than any normal person would consider reasonable, because what would require you to sit down and take notes, move pieces and memorize, they can just do in their head getting coffee by now. So yeah they recognize almost all the patterns, it's just harder justify spending 1 month on an opening you won't even be able to use, but they still know how to play certain patterns.
  • jacquesm 8mo ago
    For most people there is a cognitive decline with age, and chess is clearly a cognitive effort. Like with everything else: experience really matters, but you will simply be a bit less sharp over time and in a game where a tiny mistake can compound to a loss it really matters.
• p-e-w 8mo ago
  > Is it impressive to be winning at 35? No. Multiple world champions have been older than that.
• lethologica 8mo ago
  Context helps. A lot of really strong players are 12 years old.
  • smt88 8mo ago
    That context doesn't help me at all. Is a "really strong" 12yo in contention to win this particular competition that a 35yo won?
    • traes 8mo ago
      No, even the best prodigies typically aren't winning super tournaments until 17 or 18, and we haven't really had one of those since Gukesh won candidates last cycle. The youngest player in this event was a 20 year old who placed last. (Though to be fair to the youngsters, 3rd and 4th place are both 21 years old.) Generally speaking it's expected that chess players will peak around their late 20s and slowly decline from there, with sharp declines around age 50. It's unusual but not unheard of for players in their 40s to win major tournaments. 42 year old Levon Aronian won several last year, but it was considered a notable example of longevity every time he won. In terms of raw numbers, there are currently 30 players in their 30s, 15 players in their 40s, 4 players in their 50s, and no players older that in the top 100. The youngest is 14-year old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who is considered the greatest chess prospect of all time.
    • lethologica 8mo ago
      Sorry, I thought you’d be able to make some logical inferences and I assumed you knew a little about chess. In chess there’s a concept of strength, and ELO is used as a rough estimate of this. Further there are FIDE rankings like IM and GM that have certain requirements to achieve. In most sports, there’s never such an age gap. Think of basketball or football. You don’t see 12 year olds hitting the equivalent of GM in those respective sports (going pro?) and being able to compete with the 35 year olds, do you? In most sports, they wouldn’t even be allowed to enter but in chess they could.
      • dufhfhrirjt 8mo ago
• porphyra 8mo ago
  Anand reached world #1 ranking at 38, managed to win a world championship and defend the title for a decade in his late 40s, and remains in #13 in his 50s right now.
  • akkartik 8mo ago
    Well he hasn't played a classical game in a year or so.
  • pm2222 8mo ago
    If you don’t play your rating stays the same. Pretty common for inactive 2600+ players.
  • b00ty4breakfast 8mo ago
    "on average" doesn't mean some outliers don't exist
  • adw 8mo ago
    Top players who stay active tend to stay above 2600 for a long time. Short was continually active and while not at his peak was in the top 100 well into his fifties. Mickey Adams is still in the top 100 at 54. Korchnoi was world class into his 70s. Vasyl Ivanchuk, at 56, nearly won Tata Steel Challengers. If a player falls off hard in their fifties it’s generally in part “not wanting to try as hard”.
• bmurphy1976 8mo ago
  Magnus is in uncharted territory here. We won't really know the answer to this question for quite some time.
  • swores 8mo ago
    Forgive me if the answer is obvious (I don't follow chess), but what is uncharted about it? Reading other comments like this one - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47031715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47031715 - it seems like there isn't enough data for there to be typical expectations, but that it isn't uncharted?
• TheRealPomax 8mo ago
  You... should watch him stream. That'll pretty much answer your questions. Age is far less relevant to chess compared to keeping up with the current "meta" (in gamer parlance).
  • freetime2 8mo ago
    Can I ask the significance/reason for the "..." after "you"? Serious question - there may be an age or cultural divide between us and it's not a pattern of speech I'm familiar with. "You should watch him stream" on its own comes across as a friendly suggestion - and I just may do that. The "..." seems to change the tone, and I think possibly add a bit of snark, though I'm not sure if that's how it's intended or why it would be merited.
• xmprt 8mo ago
  Magnus' longevity has more to do with his willingness to continue competing than his actual skill. He's been pretty vocal about his issues with FIDE so I can see a world where he stops participating in FIDE events to focus on non-FIDE events that he enjoys more. He's already withdrawn from the Candidates which qualifies you for the World Championship.
  • gpm 8mo ago
    Magnus not participating in FIDE events seems to have absolutely nothing to do with his longevity, it just means that FIDE is no longer meaningfully hosting THE world championship because they failed to attract the talent.
    • bad_haircut72 8mo ago
      Yeah if FIDE crowns some other champ without Magnus people wont think oh wow Magnus lost the spot, people will think oh wow FIDE lost the spot of being the kingmaker. chess.com is probably the more credible org for global rankings anyway
      • angry_albatross 8mo ago
        You know that he already has stopped participating in the world championship organized by FIDE, right? The current 'world champion' is Gukesh Dommaraju, who took it from Ding Liren the year before, but of course Magnus would probably still be the world champion if he kept competing for it.
        • tux1968 8mo ago
          I think the point the poster was making, is that there is an asterisk beside Gukesh and Liren's world champ status. Nobody really thinks they're the actual world-champ, regardless of what FIDE says. FIDE failed to attract the best player, to even play.
          • 8mo ago
• chilicat 8mo ago
  > the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while. The stress of elite competition clearly has a shelf life, but Magnus is not overly old. Cognitive performance typically hits a plateau at 35 years old and begins a sustained decline after 45 years old. The current youth wave of GMs is likely a function of compressed training efficiency. Modern players reach the 10,000 hours threshold much earlier because they had greater access to better training material and had better practice.
  • somenameforme 8mo ago
    The youth wave of GMs is also going to be driven by a general increase in the popularity and image of chess. There's probably way more parents competently teaching their children chess than there have ever been. This may be playing an even bigger role than the training itself. For instance Gukesh's coach was actively running an experiment on him, and as a result he did not use engines in his training until he was already 2500+.
• nilslindemann 8mo ago
  Like Lasker, Carlsen will still play with 60+.
• somenameforme 8mo ago
  On average players start declining in their mid to late thirties, just about the age of Magnus (and Hikaru). But even with that decline, it's not like they simply can't play anymore. Drag Kasparov out of retirement and he's still going to be an extremely strong player, even in his 60s. And a lot probably comes with environmental rather than physical issues. Staying at the highest level in chess requires never-ending opening preparation and study. This same is about the time that kings of the game have made their dominance clear to the point that there's just nothing more to achieve, start having families, and so on. It's going to be very difficult to maintain motivation. The rise of freestyle chess could viably see players extending their dominance for much longer, because there's currently believed to be no realistic way to do impactful opening prep in that game.
  • mgfist 8mo ago
    Vishy's still a top player at 56
    • aaa_aaa 8mo ago
      He does not play classical because it would immediately reduce his rating. Gelfand plunged. He would too.
      • mgfist 8mo ago
        Yes the stamina needed to play classical tournaments is not as there anymore, but he's still very very strong. He just came in second at Tata Steel Rapid, which although is not classical, is still an indication of strength, albeit without the emphasis on endurance.
  • Etheryte 8mo ago
    I think motivation really is the key term here. Magnus is a five-time world chess champion, in a complete league of his own even when everyone else was literally only prepping to defeat him. He held the world champion title for ten years and eventually just declined to defend it. And that's relatable, if you're at the absolute top for ten years and no one manages to put a dent to it, what else is there? I think most people would look for new challenges and ways to fulfill themselves after that.
• HarryHirsch 8mo ago
  George Sheldrick wrote an important program at the age of 75. He chose not to follow a chess career as a young man, but he could have.
• ThrowawayTestr 8mo ago
  The most devastating fact of life is that physical (and mental) performance drops off at around mid 30s. Hakuho, by far the greatest sumo wrestler in history, retired at 38 when he should have retired years earlier.
  • yrds96 8mo ago
    Yeah, it's hard to maintain physical performance as we are more susceptible to injuries which keeps us away from constant training, but our brain doesn't suffer by injuries, what allow us to go further. I think what makes people to drop at advanced age on "non-physical sports" it's to focus on other aspects of life over the sport because it's exaustive, if not impossible, to focus on both.
  • frankenstain 8mo ago
    > The most devastating fact of life is that physical (and mental) performance drops off at around mid 30s Different faculties peak at different times. While MIT/Harvard research shows that raw processing speed peaks early, it highlights that social intelligence and crystallized knowledge don't peak until our 40s or 50s [I]. Specifically, the Whitehall II study identifies age 45 as the inflection point for initial reasoning decline [II], while research from Stony Brook found that changes in brain network stability—the metabolic cost of cognitive maintenance—typically don't begin until age 44 [III]. [I] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614567339 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761456733... [II] https://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d7622 https://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d7622 [III] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2416433122 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2416433122
• Jach 8mo ago
  I think the question is different for the typical chess player compared to those at the very top. And at the very top we don't have that much data... going back to Fischer, he had a short career and disappeared by 32, but not really for lack of ability. For Karpov, his reign lasted about 10 years from age 24-34, but even after that he was in the top 3 or top 5 for another 15 years until he retired in his 50s. Kasparov reigned for 20 years, retiring at the top at age 41, and is maybe most impressive for defeating his same-generation rival Karpov while also holding the newcomers of Kramnik and Anand at bay. With Kasparov gone those two battled at the top for another 10ish years into their late 30s and mid-40s respectively (and I'd give the edge to the older Anand) before Magnus won the championship in 2013 and has been dominating for 13 years since. So to summarize, I don't think it's that "impressive" to still be winning at 35, he can probably keep winning for quite some time to come. He probably won't surpass his peak ELO though.
  • tpm 8mo ago
    > his same-generation rival Karpov Karpov is 12 years older than Kasparov.
    • Jach 8mo ago
      Good point, it was sloppy of me to call them same-generation, I distracted myself with thinking about Kasparov's long reign at the very top which I view as defining a sort of competitive era ("generation") that was shared for the majority of Karpov's active career at the top levels as well, even though it extends past that and Karpov had his own period prior to the Kasparov rivalry. It's interesting to bring that back to the question of how much age matters though since Karpov kept playing and was also still very strong against the even newer players (Anand and Kramnik being 18 and 24 years younger) for most of the 90s too.
• BrtByte 8mo ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if Carlsen remains competitive for another decade, especially in formats that rely more on intuition and less on memorizing massive opening prep
• bjourne 8mo ago
  He relinquished the world champion title because he thought defending it was boring (and not paying well). So one can say he is already past his peak. Chess is a mental game after all. But it will take many years before his rating drops noticeably though.
• thomasahle 8mo ago
  Most players actually peak in strength around age 35 [1]. But Carlsen has been number one for more time than any player for him, safe Kasparov [2]: - Kasparov 255 months at number 1 - Carlsen 188 - Karpov 102 - Fischer 54 Bonus nuance: Carlsen has the longest unbroken run of 174 consecutive rating lists [1]: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-age-related-decline-in-chess#:~:text=Figure%201.%20Asymmetric%20cubic%20curves https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-age-related-decline-in-che... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_number_ones#:~:text=since%20July%202011.-,Time%20at%20FIDE%20number%20one%20and%20youngest%20age%20at%20FIDE%20number%20one,-Player https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_numbe...
• heliumtera 8mo ago
  Magnus peak rating was on 2014. But he lost motivation afterwards, so that was not necessarily his peak, maybe he just yoloed a little after that. In his own words he's way past his peak. In recent interview he said his bullet no increment (most taxing on reflex/fast calculation) peak was around 7 years ago. I would assume his prime physical form came after his rating peak, because classical chess rewards deep study and consistency, and he admits all motivation was gone once there were basically no challengers and he distanced himself too much of the pack after Caruana also peaked hard. But regardless, safe to assume his peak was 10-7 years ago. Still good enough to surpass current gen easily.