| Mike Games |
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Reply with quote | #1 |
Here is a question from a player that I couldn't answer. Perhaps you can. "I've got a question for you... Do you know of any adults who have gone from 1300 (as an adult) to 2100 in their rating? The reason I ask this is because I personally wonder how much of my rating is learned and how much of it has to do with just being born with it. If I really dedicate myself to the books and to a deeper study beyond just "playing" how far can I (or anyone for that matter) reasonably expect to progress (in their rating)? The only way I can get past the mental block is by producing some evidence that says that block is not there." Mike Games Greater Greenwood Chess Players |
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| James MacDougall |
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Reply with quote | #2 |
I would like to use Chris Mabe, the hardest working chess player in the Carolinas, as an example. In 2000, at the age of 25, he was rated 1374. He has just recently crossed the 2300 mark at the ripe old age of 33. Obviously, genetics play a role in one's capacity to play chess, but so does hard work and preparation. A player of Chris' caliber would need a good mixture of both. The fact that he managed to pick up nearly 1000 rating points in a span of 8 years as an adult gives hope to old folks like me.
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| Jim Hill |
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Reply with quote | #3 |
Genetics? Obviously one must possess a modicum degree of intelligence to acquire the basic skills required to learn the game but the Polgar experiment negates the significance of heredity. Also Merim Belatic et al demonstrated that practice had the most influence on chess skill.When an elite sub sample of 23 children was tested, it turned out that intelligence was not a significant factor in chess skill, and that, if anything it tended to correlate negatively with chess skill.
Keith Eubanks also went from 1300 to 2000+ as an adult.Thanks to Lee Hyder & Mark Brodie at age 26 my initial rating was 1800+ then it took nearly ten years to break the magic 2000.
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| Jim Hill |
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Reply with quote | #4 |
Mike, here's a site you might enjoy:www.gettingto2000.blogspot.com(an adult players quest to reach 2000). |
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| Kevin Kane |
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Reply with quote | #5 |
You want to improve your rating? Even as an adult. The best advise that I have ever seen work, is simple. TACTICS!!! Study tactics for an hour a day every day for a year and I promise you will be 1800. |
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| alex guetchkov |
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Reply with quote | #6 |
Play as often as you can and study your games with a player that is stronger than you, preferrably at least an A player.
Computers....Yeah they are instrumental in learning tactics and openings, and also to give you a chance to play on line and gain experience.
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| David Causey |
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Reply with quote | #7 |
I've waited some time to weigh in on this issue, but I would like to add some other factors that play a role. I made my rating gain from "C" class to "A" class from 1980 to 1984, playing only a few tournaments a year. I had studied chess regularly since the early 1970's, but was away in college and the military during much of that decade, only playing in a few tournaments. I was 26 years old in 1980, so my rating gain was while I was a younger adult. I held my rating over 1900 up until I took 10 years off in the 1990's. Upon returning to chess in 2001, my rating has still held up, but the era of computers and online chess (as well as sudden death time controls) has given the younger players much greater experience than I ever had in my youth. I also noticed a reduction in my ability to concentrate after reaching fifty years old, though my nervousness also resided as well. I believe my chess insight has increased, but the training and abundant experience of my opponents have offset the opportunity to make any major rating gains. I'm afraid that it is the exception for an older adult to make substantial rating gains after reaching middle age or more. I'm still trying, though! |
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| Chris Falter |
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Reply with quote | #8 |
"Talented is Overrated." As the book by the same title documents, if you want to gain real expertise in an endeavor, you just have to spend roughly 10,000 hours in deliberate practice. Deliberate practice means that you hone skills through repetition, that you obtain and apply feedback/error correction. Expertise arrives when you have a wide "vocabulary" of patterns that you can just instinctually use.
These generalizations apply in fascinating ways in the variety of human endeavors. In sports, Tiger putts 100 15-footers a day, major leaguers hit 100 batting practice pitches a day, etc. Musicians work on their scales and practice masterworks relentlessly. Chess players can develop mastery via piece movement drills/mazes, daily tactics puzzles, deep study of master games, playing slow games (to hone the pattern recognition/thinking process), and analyzing those games afterwards with the assistance of a coach or strong player. (Coach Fritz can help, too.) My major point is that just playing at tournaments, or at the club, or playing blitz on ICC, isn't going to help you improve very much in the absence of deliberate practice. Skimming a book once and then moving on to the next book isn't going to help very much.
This thread has mentioned several players who have demonstrated the principle that you can get to expert, or maybe even master, if you work hard enough. Players like Chris Mabe, Jimmy Hill, and Keith Eubanks are a real inspiration to me! They provide the empirical proof of the efficacy of practice, practice, practice.
Of course, it would probably take about 10,000 hours of deliberate chess practice to reach the IM level. But you might be able to reach expert with 3 or 4 thousand hours of effort. Probably the great difficulty for the older player is finding the time to work hard on chess while doing everything else you are called on to do. Certainly that is my problem. I feel that I'm doing well if I spend an hour a day on chess. I probably have 1500 hours under my belt already, so at the rate of 300 hours/year I might be able to reach expert in 5 years. We shall see.
David Causey mentioned the problem of decreasing computation power with age. While that can be mitigated with real effort on the fitness and nutrition front, it will definitely show up. Based on how players like Karpov and Korchnoi perform, I'm guessing that the typical player probably loses 50 Elo points a decade starting at age 40. Hopefully my improvement rate will be faster than my gentle but persistent rate of decline in computational power, at least for a while. My goal is to reach expert; we shall see if I can work hard enough quickly enough to get there.
The other thing David mentioned is that the resources for deliberate practice are much greater today than they were 40 years ago. That means that the youngsters who can spend 15-20 hours/week on the game are zooming past me all the time, and I'll never be able to keep pace. And unlike me, they are picking up computational power as they go. As long as I can enjoy the game, and improve a little, though, I can be well satisfied. And that is the wisdom that age can help me acquire!
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| Jim Hill |
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Reply with quote | #9 |
Kyle Oody, a local Columbia player, also progressed from 1300-2000+ as an adult. He's present at all local tourneys but has not returned to active play yet. I'd like to recommend the Kings Indian Attack as the opening of choice for adults seeking expert status. |
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| Gil Holmes |
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Reply with quote | #10 |
I know it is not to the same degree as some others mentioned or to the level you are asking, but I went from approx. 1300 at age 20(been playing for 8 years at that point) and 1400 at age 23 to 1800s at age 32 and had my best rating ever just 2 months ago so substantial gains are definitely possible. If I ever thought about studying consistently maybe I could approach levels closer to Eubanks and Mabe even. |
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| Erik Murrah |
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Reply with quote | #11 |
Hey group,
Well I've been playing chess for not quite 2 years now and after spending, literally, all of 2008 rated in the 1200's I'm up to 1643 less than a year later. The weird thing is I have not done an obscene amount of work or study to get to this level, so... I hope that means with dilligent effort and study I can perform the same feat that Mabe did by reaching master as an adult player. I absolutely believe it can be done.
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