28 Jul '06 18:53>
i started last year to play seriously after a 9 year break ( i'm 18 now) and i have gone from 1100 to 1600 too late for me?
Originally posted by masscatWhen Paul Morphy made his tour of europe, Staunton was the man he wanted to play to prove his dominance. Even though Staunton was past his prime and had been overshadowed by Adolf Anderssen, Staunton's reputation was still such that he was considered one of the big guns in europe.
Jeff Sonas’ Chessmetrics website lists historical rating calculations for everybody who was anybody and is worth a visit. Staunton is listed at about 2700.
Originally posted by masscatAs far as I can tell the formula used by Sonas assumes that the players ranked from #3 to #20 in his historical lists have the same average rating. This means that the players ranked 3rd to 20th in January 1840 would have exactly the same average rating as those ranked 3rd to 20th in January 2006.
Jeff Sonas’ Chessmetrics website lists historical rating calculations for everybody who was anybody and is worth a visit. Staunton is listed at about 2700.
Originally posted by Fat LadyI would agree; I just thought it was an interesting site. As Prof. Elo, himself, said, ratings measure results, not ability. Google Claude Bloodgood and read how he became one of the highest rated players in the US by manipulating the system.
As far as I can tell the formula used by Sonas assumes that the players ranked from #3 to #20 in his historical lists have the same average rating. This means that the players ranked 3rd to 20th in January 1840 would have exactly the same average rating as those ranked 3rd to 20th in January 2006.
I can well believe that Staunton was the best player in t ear as good as those after 1900, and I think the players around today are the strongest ever.
Originally posted by Fat LadyIt's streaching my memory to say how the rating system worked in those days, but I do know when I started, 1200 was the lowest your rating could go. They did have some open tmts at the penitentiary where anybody could play, and he was escorted to a few outside tmts. It would be interesting to try to find some of his games, if any, where he beat strong masters. I've seen a few where he beat relatively weak players.
I always thought Bloodgood got a raw deal there. He warned the people in charge of the grading system in the US about the inherent weakness in the system (*), then got penalised years later when it turned out he was right. It's not as though he had much control over the people who were available for him to play chess against!
(*) I may have this wrong, b ...[text shortened]... then be gobbled up by those players who could play well (of which Bloodgood was the strongest).
Originally posted by SaemiNo problem. We agree on language acquisition vs. chess. It would interesting to compare, for example, a 10 year old and a 30 year old both learning chess for the first time, exposed to an equal number of hours of training and the same instruction. I would guess that in the beginning the adult would progress faster since his/her abstract reasoning skills would be more developed, but that's obviously just speculation on my part. In fact, this is also seen in language acquisition. When both children and adults are exposed to language instruction, the adult tends to learn more quickly initially, but the child will ultimately reach a higher level. Anyway, I guess I'm just hoping that adults can still master chess, since I didn't discover it until I was 33 :-).
Just realised that Scott made exactly the same points as me, and better expressed - sorry Scott.
But I can't agree with his conclusion - I think it must still be somewhat easier to learn as a child.