I believe that most players reach their peak strength at age 30, and
then remain relatively stable for the next 20-30 years with their
ratings rarely going up or down more than 50 points.

Thus if you see an across-the-board drop of all players in the 30--50
age group of 100 to 150 points, you know that something is wrong.

On the other hand there is strong reason to believe that today's kids
are getting stronger because of the Internet.

For example, when I was a kid I had almost no chances to improve. I
went to the Lynchburg Chess Club once a week but the strongest player
there was below 1600. I became champion of my city at age 14 and from
then on all my opponents were weaker than I. My only chances to play
were about three times a year when traveled long distances to open
tournaments. I basically taught myself chess by ordering chess books
from Bushke and by playing postal chess.

Nowadays, any kid with a computer can play chess online with
grandmasters 24 hours a day. Opponents are always available. I am
certain that if I had had such opportunities when I was a kid I would
have become a good player.

Nowadays we have a 14 year old kid from Norway with a rating over 2700
who regularly beats the best players in the world. He has obviously
spent a lot of time on the Internet.

Sam Sloan

On Mar 16, 3:50 pm, "samsloan" wrote:

I believe that most players reach their peak strength at age 30, and
then remain relatively stable for the next 20-30 years with their
ratings rarely going up or down more than 50 points.

Thus if you see an across-the-board drop of all players in the 30--50
age group of 100 to 150 points, you know that something is wrong.

The USCF should consider adopting the same system
used by our national government, which is to say, one of
constant inflation and devaluation of its currency, or in
this case, ratings.

Here are a just a few of the advantages:

1) Most players would think they are still improving,
because their ratings keep climbing.

2) Players who believe they are improving tend to
play more often, to see how high they can go.

3) This in turn brings in more revenue, in the form of
membership renewals and tournament rating fees.

4) After several years of rampant ratings inflation,
Bobby Fischer would start playing again to protect
his record from being broken by all the "weakies".

5) The USCF could offer "bonus points" to rated
players who enroll new members, or who play a
set number of games per year, etc.

6) All other chess-playing Web sites would become
obsolete, since only the USCF would offer bonuses
and constant inflation to bolster its members' ratings
ever higher and higher.


Now, there could be a couple of very minor drawbacks,
though these are fairly insignificant in view of all the
above advantages:

1) Currency devaluation may eventually lead to total
collapse of our monetary system, as we know it.

2) The Chinese and Japanese, among others, may well
take over our former position in the global economy,
leaving us struggling just to feed and clothe ourselves
whilst they become the new world leaders. (Even so,
we would undoubtedly become a leader among all the
other banana republics like us).

3) Ratings inflation can lead to an effect known as
devaluation, whereby bigger numbers are quite
worthless.

As you can see, the advantages far outweigh the
relatively few, and small, disadvantages. This is why
I favor immediate adoption of the ratings-inflation plan.
If patented, the USCF would not only enjoy the
"first mover advantage", but also exclusive rights to
all this entails.

-- help bot

On 16 Mar, 20:50, "samsloan" wrote:
I believe that most players reach their peak strength at age 30, and
then remain relatively stable for the next 20-30 years with their
ratings rarely going up or down more than 50 points.

Yes, it is about simple biology and the process of aging, however the
rule has its exceptions.

[...]
Nowadays, any kid with a computer can play chess online with
grandmasters 24 hours a day. Opponents are always available. I am
certain that if I had had such opportunities when I was a kid I would
have become a good player.

Sam, today kiddies have not only internet in hand but also
chessprograms and chess coaches who train them heavily for reasonable
prices and salaries.

And they start playing much earlier then itt was several decades
before.


Nowadays we have a 14 year old kid from Norway with a rating over 2700
who regularly beats the best players in the world. He has obviously
spent a lot of time on the Internet.

Rating on-line is not the most objective criteria. It is mainly about
blitzes and bullets and does not say much about real OTB strength also
in OTB blitzes.

On 17 Mar 2007 08:25:15 -0700, "Jerzy" wrote:


Rating on-line is not the most objective criteria. It is mainly about
blitzes and bullets and does not say much about real OTB strength also
in OTB blitzes.

Jerzy, are you saying there's not much correlation between OTB Blitz
and online Blitz ? If so, why is this? I would think strength at one
would correlate pretty closely with strength at the other, given that
it takes a while to get used to mouse techniques.

On 17 Mar, 16:51, Mike Murray wrote:

Rating on-line is not the most objective criteria. It is mainly about
blitzes and bullets and does not say much about real OTB strength also
in OTB blitzes.

Jerzy, are you saying there's not much correlation between OTB Blitz
and online Blitz ? If so, why is this? I would think strength at one
would correlate pretty closely with strength at the other, given that
it takes a while to get used to mouse techniques.

Mike, I have already written about correlation between on-line and OTB
ratings. Of course I cannot give you exact numbers. There should be
done statistical work among population of chessplayers who play chess
both on-line and OTB.

From my observations the better a player is in OTB chess the better
the player is in on-line chess. However the rule has its exceptions as
well :-)

On Mar 17, 11:25 am, "Jerzy" wrote:
On 16 Mar, 20:50, "samsloan" wrote:

I believe that most players reach their peak strength at age 30, and
then remain relatively stable for the next 20-30 years with their
ratings rarely going up or down more than 50 points.

Yes, it is about simple biology and the process of aging, however the
rule has its exceptions.

[...]

Nowadays, any kid with a computer can play chess online with
grandmasters 24 hours a day. Opponents are always available. I am
certain that if I had had such opportunities when I was a kid I would
have become a good player.

Sam, today kiddies have not only internet in hand but also
chessprograms and chess coaches who train them heavily for reasonable
prices and salaries.

And they start playing much earlier then itt was several decades
before.



Nowadays we have a 14 year old kid from Norway with a rating over 2700
who regularly beats the best players in the world. He has obviously
spent a lot of time on the Internet.

Rating on-line is not the most objective criteria. It is mainly about
blitzes and bullets and does not say much about real OTB strength also
in OTB blitzes.

Jerzy, you must be the only person who is not aware that the 14-year-
old kid who beats the best players in the world is Magnus Carlsen, who
just finished beating Topalov, the number one rated player in the
world.

Carlsen did not beat Topalov in an on-line blitz game. He beat him in
an over-the-board tournament game at standard time controls.

Sam Sloan

On 17 Mar 2007 09:08:45 -0700, "Jerzy" wrote:

On 17 Mar, 16:51, Mike Murray wrote:

Rating on-line is not the most objective criteria. It is mainly about
blitzes and bullets and does not say much about real OTB strength also
in OTB blitzes.

Jerzy, are you saying there's not much correlation between OTB Blitz
and online Blitz ? If so, why is this? I would think strength at one
would correlate pretty closely with strength at the other, given that
it takes a while to get used to mouse techniques.

Mike, I have already written about correlation between on-line and OTB
ratings. Of course I cannot give you exact numbers. There should be
done statistical work among population of chessplayers who play chess
both on-line and OTB.

From my observations the better a player is in OTB chess the better
the player is in on-line chess. However the rule has its exceptions as
well :-)

FWIW, I think the online Playchess Blitz ratings over time probably
correlate pretty closely to OTB Blitz ratings, but the online ratings
are less stable. Why is this? Because, we all have our hot and cold
streaks, days when we play well and days when concentration flags for
one reason or another. If you're playing rated OTB Blitz, the number
of games you can play while in a streak is constrained by the length
of whatever event in which you're playing. In online Blitz, you can
keep playing and playing. When you're hot, the rating goes way up.
When you're cold, it goes way down.

I see a few players whose Playchess ratings seem pretty stable over
time, but many who experience up and down swings of several hundred
points. I think this is relatively rare OTB.

I'd be interested in other players' perspectives on this.

On 17 Mar, 17:19, "samsloan" wrote:

Rating on-line is not the most objective criteria. It is mainly about
blitzes and bullets and does not say much about real OTB strength also
in OTB blitzes.

Jerzy, you must be the only person who is not aware that the 14-year-
old kid who beats the best players in the world is Magnus Carlsen, who
just finished beating Topalov, the number one rated player in the
world.

Sam, soon the number one in Fide rating list will be Vishy Anand.


Carlsen did not beat Topalov in an on-line blitz game. He beat him in
an over-the-board tournament game at standard time controls.

Of course but we are talking here why youngsters become better and
better at chess nowadays.

On 17 Mar, 20:15, Mike Murray wrote:

From my observations the better a player is in OTB chess the better
the player is in on-line chess. However the rule has its exceptions as
well :-)

FWIW, I think the online Playchess Blitz ratings over time probably
correlate pretty closely to OTB Blitz ratings, but the online ratings
are less stable. Why is this? Because, we all have our hot and cold
streaks, days when we play well and days when concentration flags for
one reason or another. If you're playing rated OTB Blitz, the number
of games you can play while in a streak is constrained by the length
of whatever event in which you're playing. In online Blitz, you can
keep playing and playing. When you're hot, the rating goes way up.
When you're cold, it goes way down.

On-line ratings are less stable because of the speed of the games. You
can play a lot of more on-line than OTB games.


I see a few players whose Playchess ratings seem pretty stable over
time, but many who experience up and down swings of several hundred
points. I think this is relatively rare OTB.

I'd be interested in other players' perspectives on this.


There are many streaks of losses (or wins) during on-line play. When
you lose you should take a break. Playing on-line can be addictive.
Don`t forget about your daily routines. :-)

Rating on-line is not the most objective criteria. It is mainly about
blitzes and bullets and does not say much about real OTB strength also
in OTB blitzes.
Jerzy, are you saying there's not much correlation between OTB Blitz
and online Blitz ? If so, why is this? I would think strength at one
would correlate pretty closely with strength at the other, given that
it takes a while to get used to mouse techniques.

Mike, I have already written about correlation between on-line and OTB
ratings. Of course I cannot give you exact numbers. There should be
done statistical work among population of chessplayers who play chess
both on-line and OTB.
From my observations the better a player is in OTB chess the better
the player is in on-line chess. However the rule has its exceptions as
well :-)

FWIW, I think the online Playchess Blitz ratings over time probably
correlate pretty closely to OTB Blitz ratings, but the online ratings
are less stable. Why is this? Because, we all have our hot and cold
streaks, days when we play well and days when concentration flags for
one reason or another. If you're playing rated OTB Blitz, the number
of games you can play while in a streak is constrained by the length
of whatever event in which you're playing. In online Blitz, you can
keep playing and playing. When you're hot, the rating goes way up.
When you're cold, it goes way down.

I see a few players whose Playchess ratings seem pretty stable over
time, but many who experience up and down swings of several hundred
points. I think this is relatively rare OTB.

I'd be interested in other players' perspectives on this.

Many times I have seen people talk about how they
sometimes (or even often) allow others to play under
their handle at rated chess online, and I have also
witnessed several cases of this first hand. I have also
seen players who wanted to "teach someone a lesson"
who fired up a chess playing program, to deal a blow
to some fellow's ego -- someone who had ticked them
off. Obviously, it is much harder to do this sort of
substitution OTB, so the online ratings are far less
meaningful than an OTB rating.

This also would explain (in part) why the online
ratings are more volatile, even apart from any added
playing activity as described far above.

But added to this is another aspect of online play:
often it can be hard to find an opponent unless you
are willing to play fast time controls, such as blitz.
Because of this, even a player who much prefers
slower chess can be forced into playing blitz or
even bullet chess, where he fails miserably --
relative to his OTB skill level, that is.

Lastly, there is the small matter of mouse,
typing, or touch-pad speed differences among the
machines themselves to factor in. I have known
players who claim that typing the (blitz or bullet)
moves is significantly faster than using a mouse,
or who even use a third party to do this for them
while they call out the moves verbally! Obviously,
this makes any closely-contested games depend
all too heavily on secondary issues, rather than
what we normally consider to be real chess skill.
It also seems to give the younger players a big
edge over their older, slower-reflexed rivals.

-- help bot