What Does it Take to Succeed in Senior Chess | Dojo Talks

[@tjwhite3357]

Senior Chess, look at The Villages Chess Club. Personally Im 57 picking chess back up since teens. To add to it Im blind and working to master blindfold chess before I lose all sight so I can still play for years to come. This has certainly help me reset expectations and goals. Great Video!!

[@ChessDojo]

Wow, that's amazing! Glad to hear about your return to chess, it sounds like you're plugged into a cool community!

[@mattchess356]

Jesse made the Dojo proud

[@ChessDojo]

Thank you!

[@Kubooxooki]

Was really looking forward to this conversation. Jesse's performance made me very happy. I agree that senior tournaments have an appeal if you're following your old heroes. That's definitely the case for me. I hope we get more of these tournaments

[@DaydreamVacations]

Thanks to my training with the Chess Dojo, I took first place in the U1800, 2024 Texas senior state championship. I also received a prize for the biggest upset against an NM.

[@MrSupernova111]

Very nice! Congrats!

[@travistucker4067]

🔥

[@bluefin.64]

I was one of those avidly following Jesse's games during the tournament. I don't recall feeling that invested in anyone's results before. Really happy for him.

[@althompson3085]

I'm 75 and progressing at chess; not easy, but doable.

[@ChessDojo]

That's fantastic!

[@seop1721]

If I remember rightly, GM Larry Kaufman - who helped develop Komodo Dragon - won his GM title by winning the world senior championship. Might be good to see an interview with him.

[@nowhitply]

JESSE IS THE HERO WE DESERVE

[@jasonbraun3149]

As a “senior” (68) who’s been playing since the Fischer boom, I really enjoyed following the Senior Championship. Many of those players, like Christensen and Benjamin, go back to my earliest days or before! Great performance by Jesse, especially winning the last 4. I just played in the US Senior Open and had a great time, hoping to make it a regular thing into my 70’s. We need more senior events!

[@sarterus]

Inspiring episode! Sending it to my adult students. We need more senior events ie 21+ and 40+ divisions. We also need to get over our fear of losing rating points and get out to events. Chess is about keeping the mind sharp not hiding behind an outdated ELO to look smart.

[@MarcvonReppert-hy5ks]

Love it! Congrats Jesse!!!

[@ChessDojo]

Many thanks!

[@SharadCornejo]

I was a lot more interested in following Jesse’s games in this event than the junior players 😅. So happy he had a good event!

[@DocDocDave]

Congrats Jesse!

[@gregg3457]

Congratulations Jesse! Well done! Thanks guys for another interesting video!

[@AntonStachSZN]

Huge congrats to Jesse. I love it when players cover their journey to a goal and then reach it.

[@ChessDojo]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!

[@AntonStachSZN]

@@ChessDojo I hope the next goal is winning the tournament. Very happy for you

[@Summalogicae]

I’ve been advocating for senior chess for a few years now and it’s good to see clubs beginning to run senior sections-no handicap but just 50+ players; additionally, I’ve been advocating for some sort of handicap for players aged 50 or 55+ playing against those who are not 50-55+. Perhaps something like losing fewer rating points for loss or draw.

[@ChessDojo]

Those sound like some interesting ideas!

[@laurentsaltoflife9267]

Congratulations Jesse ! What an inspiring performance !!

[@Grandcapi]

FIDE is already thinking a +75 category. I am 77 and still playing and studying

[@ChessDojo]

That could be interesting!

[@sarterus]

Awesome!

[@wolson9]

Should be something USCF should pick up! I am 77 also and would like to see this. I am returning to chess after being away for 50+ years. It is clearly different now, haven't played since 1970.

[@seop1721]

David’s comment about methods of training, like dojos clashing, is interesting. It would be interesting to see ChessDojo vs X as a team effort, based around rating bands. E.g., ChessDojo vs ChessMood. Or ChessDojo versus other teams on Lichess. Maybe ChessDojo will become the Cobra Kai of chess. ;-)

[@jgg73]

Well done Jesse!!

[@ChessDojo]

Thank you!

[@MrSupernova111]

Very insightful comment regarding physical fitness. I think people can perform at optimum level much later in life if they took better care of themselves.

[@ChessDojo]

It's seriously important!

[@mikem668]

Something sad about the point that chess players stop playing because they can't meet their own standards. Jesse talks about Magnus and of course Fischer and Morphy stopped playing. Lasker, Capablanca and the great Soviets had other interests. If chess is part art, science, and sport, some of those aspects are life-long practices. Most great mathematicians were young. My experience with scientists is that they never stop thinking. Science is infinite and it's about more that beating, in Jesse's words, some chump. Art and especially music seems to be a healthier practice than chess. One reason is that you're always searching and mostly improving. Even if your physical limitations force you to discover other ways of playing. There's no top of the mountain. There's no way to compare yourself to other musicians in any meaningful way. Of course Eric Clapton is better than us. He thought Hendrix was better than he was. And John Lennon felt inferior to both. So what? We are all learners. John Mayer's teacher, Tomo Fujita, has a saying: Don't compare. Music isn't about losing. It's about learning and there's way too many styles to learn and almost everyone can learn something from someone else. Art is filled with late period genius: Michelangelo, Titian, Shakespeare, Beethoven, who composed when he was deaf. I prefer David's point about chess equality. One of my favorite chess experiences was getting thrashed my a sweet 13-year-old girl. I made a mistake and she locked on like the Terminator. My best result was a draw with a 2200 player who had a senior moment in an opening and dropped a piece. I was playing in an open section, which he encouraged. I liked playing better players because it made me aware of the differences. If your ego prevents you from doing something you supposedly love, either you don't love it or it's a disease: perfectionism and fear of failure. Golf is not fair and can be appreciated as a Zen experience. You can play all day and hit one great shot. The purity feels like a flash of enlightenment. Your score and overall ability doesn't matter, but you carry those shots and that feeling forever.

[@NoOne-so7jt]

Impressive and inspirational performance by GM Kraai. I think the US Senior should have two sections: 50+ and 60+ or 65+ like the FIDE World Senior. Having only one section of 50+ disadvantages the older players. In fact, the results are more strongly correlated to age than rating. GM Christiansen's result of tied for 3rd as the oldest competitor at age 68 is very strong.

[@ChessDojo]

GM Christiansen is definitely a very strong player. Interesting ideas about the age brackets!

[@justintanas9280]

Amazing Jesse!

[@seop1721]

A bit off topic, but related to generating interest in modern tournaments - I wonder if there is a way to do a fantasy chess league? You follow a player, including in a senior event, so maybe as a group you get a selection of players, and you draw lots and get a player. Then you follow their recognised FIDE games for 6 months to a year (an excuse to analyse games maybe and follow a player in tournaments). You get points for wins, losses, and draws, but maybe also points for sacrifices (.10 per sacrifice that your player plays) and maybe .10 for games over 50 moves, etc. Perhaps also, points for bishop pair vs non-bishop pair, etc etc. .10 seems reasonable to add some fun to positional elements. A system of standard positional elements could be used. So maybe everyone analyses their respective games and then demo to others where the points were - if you find the elements, you get those points. So it’s up to the analyst to persuade others in the league that the game had X or Y feature. So analysis becomes a game, and following a player keeps you aligned to modern chess tournaments. :-)

[@TheJimmiececil]

Congratulations, Jesse! You should be proud of yourself.

[@ChessDojo]

Thank you!

[@BradenLaughlin]

Great episode, was really happy to see jesse do so well!!!! I disagree with the idea of having so many age classifications in chess though, maybe in the U.S. there are enough players to justify these things but when it comes to Canada, I'm 9 times out of 10 playing someone way older or way younger than me as someone who is in their mid-twenties, and the turnouts while decent aren't massive so I would likely have 3 or 4 people to play against, and this is coming from someone who plays in the highest sections of the tournament, which is where you would expect to see the most consistent turnout for. I do really like the idea of the prizes by age, and to one-up this idea, this can also be included possibly to rating systems For example if age 20-30 are the best in the world, then someone in one age group above them is at a slight disadvantage and all of a sudden a person who is 25 with 2000 elo and someone who is 33 with 2000 elo now arent at 50/50 odds to win, its like 45/55 where there may be an extra point in it on the side of the older person due to this, meaning that the longer a player stays in the chess world and as long as they can compete at similar levels, it ends up getting rewarded since it can be considered a handicap. idk just thoughts 🤪

[@fowgre]

For me, what's most interesting about senior tournaments is finding out how high a level of skill some individuals can still play at as they age. What ELO at 70 years old should be considered extraordinary? At 80? At 90?

[@ChessDojo]

Kraai is looking to find out!

[@NoOne-so7jt]

Korchnoi was rated 2558 at age 81. Smyslov was rated 2494 at age 80.

[@fowgre]

@@NoOne-so7jt There's hope for me! 👍

[@nate.t1739]

This is what it’s all about

[@sarterus]

Hoodie "Chess Dojo, I am not talented, I work harder than you!"

[@Summalogicae]

Oh no! My opponent has big hair, I’m Intimidated!

[@ChessDojo]

😂

[@simonhinkel4086]

Congrats! Do you plan of analyzing all your Games on Video here? :)

[@theinacircleoftheancientpu492]

Congrats Jesse! Also I would assume being a senior is one of the most important requirements.

[@ChessDojo]

Many thanks, and very true! 😂

[@tjwhite3357]

Every chess player fears the same thing!! But us old heads even have a song about it and its even from a band with that fear in its name for this fear!! Ironically. "Elo - Don’t bring me down" is playing in every senior's head at every tournament. So if you hear them humming and saying “Groos”, you now know why. 😊 No gen Z translator required.

[@ChessDojo]

😂

[@elindauer]

Congrats Jessie on the great result! Didn't quite reach the end but I wonder how you guys would feel about senior titles, say 100 points lower than standard titles. 2400 at 55 years old? You're an SGM. How does the idea make you feel about the women's titles? I don't have a clear opinion just an interesting topic imo.

[@georgehornsby2075]

This is coming from a younger guy so take it with a large pinch of salt but I wonder how much of the drop off with age is due to brain atrophy, energy etc and how much is just an older player ossifying while the standard of chess rises around them. Can an active, healthy 50-60 year old maintain 95% of his strength if he continues to put as much time into chess as he did in his youth (as unlikely as that is)? As flawed as CAPS is it would be interesting to compare Jesse in his 20s vs 50s to see if there is a vast gulf in playing strength there. Jesse's performance in the seniors makes it a question worth asking!

[@ChessDojo]

These are interesting questions, I just wish we had more answers. I wonder how much has to do with brain volume decreasing with age, cells not reproducing as faithfully, and other aspects of the natural aging process. Maybe with time we'll find a solution?

[@Steveross2851]

I may watch this entire video later but as a serious chess player I went right to 23:15 of the video hoping for practical advice about senior chess. I'm a bit disappointed though not surprised that this video doesn't get right to what I think is the only real practical point of discussing senior chess, how to maximize chess skills in one's senior years beyond obviously the importance of taking care of one's body and understanding the strategies of your pet systems well. Of course it's not that there weren't any worthwhile observations such as the value of playing intuitive moves fairly quickly and reserving long thinks for when concrete calculation is needed. But I don't think Grandmasters and International Masters really have any idea what it's like to be a diligent but not especially talented chess player since they are all massively talented. Thus a lot of their advice directed at rank and file chess players is not particularly useful or helpful beyond explaining the basics of strategy and tactics at an intermediate level. There's obviously a lot more to openings than just quick development, having enough space, connecting one's rooks, protecting one's king, and things like that. The good news for serious diligent students of chess at any age is that no other game rewards productive diligent training and study nearly as much as classical chess due to the exceptionally high quality of information available to serious chess players now, which has never been better. In no other game I know of does so much high quality information, much of it free exist. That's certainly not true of poker, or scrabble or any other game since in most other games "you either have it or you don't" and without substantial talent the ceiling of one's skill level will remain pretty low. But in chess with a small effort anyone can easily surpass not only 99+% of all people who claim to "know how to play chess" but even 80+% of tournament players, since even most tournament players can't really be called diligent students of chess. That's the good news for chess players. Yet to me any meaningful discussion of senior chess for serious rank and file level chess players (most of whom by definition lack advanced chess skills) must distinguish between senior chess at the advanced level (2000+ USCF) and chess at the intermediate level (1400 - 1999 USCF). One can't really speak of chess players below 2000 USCF (and well below that in FIDE and many other rating systems) having even the beginning of advanced chess skills. That would be like referring to high school level math classes as classes in "higher mathematics." But sadly missing in chess are any books specifically designed to enable rank and file (mediocre) tournament players (below 2000 USCF) to escape what I call "intermediate level hell" and develop any genuinely advanced chess skills at long last. Unfortunately there simply aren't enough players with close to advanced chess skills to create adequate demand for such books. I've never really seen a chess book that takes even a stab at explaining anything beyond intermediate level skills in any comprehensive way. So for example Philidor's pawn down drawn rook and pawn endgame and Lucena's pawn up won rook and pawn endgame cannot really be called advanced endgames, since while common enough to be important they are fairly straightforward. But knowing e.g. when a king, rook, and bishop against king and rook endgame without pawns is a draw and when it's a win for the side with the extra bishop as well as how to win it might be called an advanced endgame, at least when the win isn't simple. I have never had that kind of advanced chess knowledge in the opening, the middle game, or the endgame. As a lowly intermediate level chess player, although I'm now in my 70s I'm pretty certain that if I could play a match against my 40 years younger self at any time control I would win even though my rating is about 100 points lower than it was then. Very simply as someone who was never rated above 1970 USCF (which then was probably below 1800 USCF by today's standards) my chess cannot in any way be remotely considered advanced. I'm still only an intermediate level player albeit a well above average one. Today due to great chess software and great KZbin videos the skills needed to maintain the same rating at all levels of chess is significantly higher than it was 40 years ago. So while if I had managed to become an advanced level player in my younger days I would definitely be in chess decline now, I really consider my at best "advanced intermediate" chess skills much too primitive to be age sensitive in only my 70s. And in comparing my recent games with my games of 40 years ago Stockfish 16 seems to agree with me. But another book sadly missing is how to maximize one's chess skills in one's senior years. According to world class players like Karpov and Korchnoi (when Korchnoi was still alive) they claimed in their 70s that they could still calculate as deeply as ever but could no longer match the endurance of their younger years. I do know numerous players who in later years have switched from e.g. razor sharp 1.e4 openings and Sicilians to 1.d4 with White and replaced the Sicilian in their repertoire with e.g. 1...e5. Very simply positional understanding unlike maintaining consistently reliably sharp tactics for hours on end does not decline with age in even advanced chess players. But there must be a lot more to maximizing one's skill level in one's senior years than just doing that.

[@franciscogalan8017]

Who is KGB?

[@ChessDojo]

Kraai's mean ex-Russian coach

[@juhonieminen4219]

Jesse got $ 13.000 $ with 2nd prize and over 30 rating points. Thats a lot of peanuts.

[@ChessDojo]

Those are some good peanuts! 🎉👏🐘

[@Diogo_Chess]

the nerd chess game is stopped, you can fix it, thanks. Now I went to look at the computer and you made a lot of mistakes