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Which is more aggravating & why?

Posted By: Matt Cohn-Geier
Date: Wednesday, 18 June 2008, at 10:43 p.m.

In Response To: Which is more aggravating & why? (bob koca)

I don't know, precisely. Most chess players peak between around 23 and 28. But most of them are GMs in their teenage years. Korchnoi is still a strong player at 77, but he hasn't been at world class level for two decades. He was also a master by the time he was 20 and a world class player by his mid 20s. When you look at the (post-WW2) Wch contenders, they are generally GMs by the time they reach my age. You can safely forget about being world class if you're 30 and not a GM yet. This is analogous to the 40-year-old 5'4" guy who wants to be a star NBA player. No matter how good he is at basketball, that's just not going to happen.

I think that the thing with chess--what differentiates it from, say, backgammon or poker--is that it is a grueling game, physically. You need incredible stamina to go through a 24-game match. A 50-year-old just can't compete with a 30-year-old on that level. If you are talking about correspondence chess where players have several days between moves, then it is not as difficult for the 50-year-old to play a world class game. He's only dealing with the mental stress, not the physical stress of the game.

So, I don't think it is impossible to become a GM at a relatively advanced age, and I think almost anyone can become a master (yes BG players, even you). But world class? Not a chance.

Here's a list of all the postwar world champions, along with whatever I could find on their first major international success. As you can see no one over 40 has ever won the world championship in a match (except Botvinnik in his return matches). There is also a very steady decline in the age at which people win the world championship from 1948 until now, with the exception of Tal.

Botvinnik: master@16, USSR champion @20, world champion @37 (1948, 1958, 1961)
Smyslov: 2nd in USSR championship @19 (ahead of Botvinnik), 2nd in world championship tournament @27, world champion @36 (1957)
Tal: USSR champion @ 20 (& GM by default), world champion @ 23 (1960)
Petrosian: GM @23, world champion @34 (1963)
Spassky: IM@16, GM@18, world champion @32 (1969)
Fischer: US champion @ 14 (& IM by default), world champion @29 (1972)
Karpov: master @15, GM @18, world champion @24 (1975)
Kasparov: GM@17, world champion @22 (1984)
Kramnik: won Dortmund undefeated @20, world champion @25 (2000)

I guess Anand is the world champion now, but I will believe that when he beats Kramnik in a match. And Anand was an IM at 15 and a GM at 18.

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