Comment by somenameforme
9 days 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.
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.
He declined to defend it because he disagreed with the way FIDE was organizing and managing the tournament. I believe this is around the time they threw him out of a tournament for wearing jeans, when he was not the only competitor present in jeans.
I think it's nearly universally accepted that his streak ended on a technicality rather than a legitimate decline/defeat.
Absolutely not. He refused to defend his classic title in April 2023, citing a lack of motivation for this format.
The "Jeans" controversy happened during the Rapid championship in December 2024, nearly two years after.
It's universally accepted that his streak Classic Championship ended because of his lack of motivation, not on technicalities.
3 replies →
From what I recall, he automatically lost that one game but was not thrown out of the tournament. Eventually he just stopped playing the world championship altogether, which is when he lost his title.
13 replies →
This is plain wrong for anybody that has been actually following chess.
He said like a year before declining that he would only defend against Alireza because he was the younger generation. Nobody believed him, Alireza didn't win the Candidates and he said "no thanks" and then everybody was surprised pikachu.
The Jean thing was way later and in an unrelated event.
It's the ability to concentrate that starts to go.
Kasparov have talk about this. Older players can play at a world-class level for the first few hours, but their ability to maintain intense concentration declines as the game progresses. Most blunders by older GMs happen in the 5th or 6th hour of play. Older players also can't recover from earlier intense game next morning as well.
According to Kasparov older players get "calculation blackouts" and inability to visualize the board.
Can you link to the interview? Sounds interesting.
> 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.
For those out of the know like me, the tldr seems to be that it shuffles the positions in the first rank - symmetrically with your opponent, but not the usual rook/knight/bishop/royal both sides. So you can't study openings well because you don't even know the starting position.
https://www.freestyle-chess.com/fc-players-club-rules/
It goes to show my expertise in chess that I watched a whole encounter and it looked exactly the same as regular chess with castling and all.
I don't know if I would call the positions symmetrical, though, they seem mirrored(I just checked and regular chess is mirrored as well).
I've only had the one coffee, but surely mirroring is symmetry in the plane of the mirror? Anyway, yes, that's what I meant - you have the same order each, so neither disadvantaged, it's just not the usual order.
Vishy's still a top player at 56
He does not play classical because it would immediately reduce his rating. Gelfand plunged. He would too.
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.
Yeah, I think the motivation angle is hugely underrated. At that level everyone is already insanely strong, so the difference often comes down to who's still willing to grind 6-8 hours a day on prep for marginal gains
For example, Anand did very well in a recent rapid and blitz event amongst youngsters. But Anand was drubbed by Kasparov in a recent Freestyle event.