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Hello again, everybody. I'm Awakening my channel again, and I thought a great way to do it is to go to Reddit and ask people to send me some questions. Ask an expert, and one of the most upvoted questions was
Exploring how good adults can get at chess, backed by scientific evidence and practical advice for adult learners.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Adult beginners can reach respectable chess levels but reaching master titles is less likely if starting late.
- Chess mastery depends on pattern recognition developed over thousands of hours.
- Starting chess seriously before age 12 significantly improves chances of becoming a top player.
- Quality and method of training matter more than just total hours practiced.
- Talent and effective training methods can accelerate chess improvement.
What the video covers
- The video addresses how good an adult starting chess at 30 can realistically become, based on scientific studies.
- Chess expertise is largely about perception and instant pattern recognition rather than deep calculation.
- Adrian de Groot's 1946 research showed masters see opportunities instantly, unlike amateurs who take longer.
- Learning thousands of chess patterns is time-consuming, making it harder to reach top levels if starting late.
- Starting serious chess before age 12 greatly increases chances of becoming an International Master or Grandmaster.
- Starting after 12 still allows a good chance (55%) to reach around 2000 Elo with serious training.
- There is huge variation in hours needed to reach candidate master level, indicating training quality matters.
- Talent plays a role, as exemplified by Magnus Carlsen who progressed faster than peers.
- Current trends show mastery may be achieved faster due to better training methods and possibly rising general intelligence.
- The video encourages smart, deliberate practice and highlights the need for more scientific research on training methods.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Question from Reddit
- 01:25What Defines Chess Expertise? Adrian de Groot's Research
- 02:45Pattern Recognition and Its Importance in Chess
- 04:07Scientific Evidence on Age and Chess Mastery
- 05:28Variation in Training Hours and Practice Quality
- 06:43Role of Talent and Example of Magnus Carlsen
- 07:52Positional Patterns and Practical Chess Puzzles
- 09:11Future Directions: Training Methods and Cognitive Science
- 11:17Summary and Encouragement for Adult Chess Learners
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
this: If I took chess at the age of 30, how good can I realistically get? Adult improvers, welcome to the show. I know you got into chess after The Queen's Gambit, after COVID, and you started loving this game, but you started at a later
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stage, and you're afraid that you might not attain a higher level of expertise. How likely is it scientifically to reach, let's say, a Master level when you start the game that late? In this video, I will show you
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what we know scientifically, the best evidence for that answer, and I will give you some bad news and some good news, and I will end on a good note. I will also show you some positions. When I'm talking about scientific evidence,
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you can have a chance to solve those positions if you are getting bored. Okay, so let's begin with defining chess expertise, right? What makes a chess expert? After years of study and evidence and data, look at this PhD. This is by
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Adrian de Groot. This is from 1946, right? What we know right now: what separates chess experts is mostly their perception. They perceive the chessboard differently than us amateurs. Or, well, I'm a candidate master myself, but even between candidate
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master and grandmasters, there are differences. For example, de Groot said in his thesis that what takes a master or super GM to see in 5 seconds, candidate masters need to spend 15 minutes. That was the most surprising finding: that masters don't necessarily
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search deeper than lower-rated players, but they see great opportunities instantly. And that's also the thing with other domains, by the way, right? In other domains of expertise, what separates an expert is this instant understanding of the gist and the key elements of the
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situation. Same in chess. Why is this the case? Because over the years, they accumulated so many chunks and patterns. For example, here, tell me what should White play? Well, I'm sure you have seen this one before. Congratulations, it's an
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Anastasia's mate on the board, folks. Yeah, Anastasia's mate, and the king gets mated. If you never seen Anastasia's mate before in your life, it's difficult for you to find this move, right? It's very difficult for you to find this resource, but once
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you know this pattern, it becomes easier. It becomes easier to execute. It's just an effortless process. And that's also the reason why chess masters, right, are great in bullet, blitz, and even simultaneous exhibitions, because they can instantly understand the most
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relevant point in a position. Okay, so what is the relevance of this for our discussion? It's learning these chunks is time-consuming. You need thousands and thousands and thousands of such patterns to become an expert in chess, right?
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That's why it's not easy. Not everyone can become a chess expert. So that's part of the bad news to see. In fact, if you look at the scientific evidence, there's a critical age of 12, apparently, right? So if you start playing chess seriously
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before the age of 12, then you have a 24% chance of reaching an IM or GM level compared to only 2% chance if you start after the age of 12. You see, but I'm talking about
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International Master and Grandmaster titles, so keep that in mind. Because the good news is that if your goal is to reach 2,000 Elo or then, it's fine even if you start after the age of 12. If you're serious about
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your chess, then there might be a 55% chance that you might reach that level compared to 76% chance for those players who start before the age of 12. You see? So this is the best scientific evidence so far that we know. This was
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done by Argentinian players' study, right? But we don't know exactly what type of training they had. This was a questionnaire study, right? So we don't know exactly what they were doing for their solitary exercise and training in
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chess, and that's also part of the good news because maybe if you train smartly, right, if you got the right technique and methods, then you can speed up this process. Okay, so talking about patterns and chunks, it's not only a checkmate
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pattern that you need to know, right? You need to know many tactical patterns or even positional patterns. For example, look at this position. It's White to play, and I'm talking about other studies, right? You can try to find the best move
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for White. So this Argentinian study I just mentioned, right? So they looked at how many hours it takes to reach a candidate master level, 2,200 level rating. There was a huge variation. So it's not only the amount of total hours
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you spent on chess, right? For example, some players spend 20, 22 times more hours on chess study to reach a candidate master level compared to the fastest player. That's an incredible level of variation, guys,
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because if you really look at the deliberate practice approach, they say it doesn't matter. Talent doesn't matter. It's only serious study, serious amount of practice, usually 10 years of deliberate practice that explains the expertise, but it's not so easy to
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conclude this for chess. Now, there are two cats here because we don't know exactly what they were doing in those, let's say, 22,000 hours or more that you know the higher slowest player actually took, right? We don't know exactly what he did.
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The only thing he reported us in his questionnaire was that he was doing some chess on a solitary basis, and there we need data scientifically. We need to be much more precise and compare different training techniques, right? Because every coach will tell you
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something right now, but we have no real scientific evidence that compares different training methods in chess, and that might be the next step. That might be something that I would love to do in the future as a PhD in cognitive science.
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Keep that in mind, and that's also partly good news, right? Talent is also important. Look at Magnus Carlsen, right? He didn't need to spend that much time compared to his peers to reach a grandmaster level, and right, he was already very special. As
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a kid, he, for example, memorized all the flags of all the countries in the world, all the area sizes, all the municipality names in Norway, everything, right? So I think talent is also playing a role. It might, for example,
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start from something small. For example, maybe Magnus can learn those chess chunks and patterns a little bit faster than his peers, and over time, because you need thousands and thousands of chess patterns to know, right? Over time, it
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might give a huge difference, right? Like a butterfly effect. Yeah, you can understand such small differences can make a huge difference in the end. Keep that in mind. Also, folks, I hope you're a talented chess player. That always helps,
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but of course, talent is also not the whole story. This position, of course, the right move is f4 because your knight wants to improve, right? So this was a positional puzzle, and chess masters, they instantly understand that
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their knight stands terribly here, and they want to improve the piece. So congratulations if f4 came naturally to you. Right? So again, you need to work on your positional patterns. For example, this position, I made a course about this
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on Chessable: The Art of Awakening Pieces. White to play. White to play, folks. So again, as I said, we need more effective study methods to actually increase the rate of speeding up this process, right? So also the good news is this recently
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the process seems to be speeding up. Current masters don't seem to be needing 10 years of solitary practice to become masters. This process is getting faster, and there might be several reasons for this, right? One
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reason might be an overall rise of general intelligence in the human population. The other reason might, of course, obviously be the right effective training techniques. For example, Chessable or some other websites allow you to instantly and easily practice chess, or more tournament opportunities is
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the final reason, perhaps. Yeah, so that's also good news, folks. We are liv—
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and awakens the Knight to E5 right again Master see this instantly effortlessly and as you also become better in ch as you accumulate those chunks and patterns as you learn those patterns you also will become much more efficient in
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finding those again look at this positions black to move I'm talking about chest patterns and chunks we also need to talk about typical ideas from your openings right because that's also you should be smart when you study your
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openings yeah you need to know the general patterns and teams that are likely to occur in your openings this is also great for chunking Theory because you limit the potential options you Pro you increase your chances that you saw
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that pattern before in your life right and you look at model games for example you look at classical games in your openings so while you're pondering about the best for black I will also tell you one more thing Rubenstein for example he
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started chess when he was 14 and he became one of the top players in the world you see so there's variation in human population of course robenstein says he always had a talent for chess he was memorizing he was great in for
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example remembering all of his games but that's interesting because that memory doesn't translate to other domains right Chess Masters have great memory for chess positions but that doesn't mean that they're great in Remembering random stuff in other domains of life and
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that's also what you see in most other areas domains of expertise that's a domain specific expertise area okay okay and also chessable by the way chessable if you go to chessable forums I will share a link for you on this YouTube
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video right there there's a threat on the inspiring adult improvers you can find inspiration there folks if you go through the list because they listed so many players all around the world that inspire people late starters right they
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reach a certain level they became monsters for example and you can see all the information updated information there in that post this position black to play neither of players bam Rook C3 it's called the Soviet sack and you play
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this move without even much calculation because that's a pattern that you saw before the idea is of course is to weaken the white King right the typical exchange sacrifice because the position is totally about the king's safety because the kings are standing on
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opposite flanks right so the standing is very important here and you have to speed up your attack go for pce activity go for the king so this Rook C3 basically is another pattern attacking pattern that can also arise in your
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openings and again if you ask Magnus Carlson this position if you give this to Magnus Carson he gives Rook C3 in like millisecond yeah five milliseconds he he sees Rook C3 and he sees as a great option for black right of course
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he needs time to double check his calculations but this is instantly visible to a Master this idea and you also need to be attaining such Levels by careful study and accumulating of such patterns okay now finally what I do with
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my coaching sessions that's also important for training I'm giving epistemic feedback to my students because that's also important coach's role is to identify the mistakes let the student discover those mistakes we discuss together and I explain to the student for example when
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there's a big mistake that is happening and they could be for example strategic mistakes as in this case it's white to move white away folks and tell me what's the best plan for white what are you seeing in this position because I will
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show you chess crime which happened in the game okay and the role of a coach is to let the student be aware of those mistakes of those issues and take actions to solve those issues by careful training right technique right positions
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and uh that's also very important because in this case why play H3 which is a total chess crime because he's only accelerating Black's attack on the king side instead of going for a direct push on the queen side right so for example
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this is by far the most logical move for right here because there's an attack on the queen side why because this position is totally about Kings on opposite flanks and this understanding is the key of course what is the gist of this
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position Masters can see the gist instantly by looking at the king's locations right so and of course speed and timing is so important in such positions and if you go H3 you lose time and you actually accelerate the
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opponent's push on the king side and you get made or you get destroyed after three moves basically something like this is very likely to happen and White's already lost you see so H3 moves like H3 chess crimes should be explained
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and that's why I made a course on this on chessable it's called chess Crime and Punishment so by careful analysis of your own games for example you can gain information about yourself and this is great this is great feedback that you
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can fix you can take directed actions to solve specific problems and here a coach is useful because I can verbally explain to you why this move is terrible why why this move is terrible and beautiful mistake because if you look at the
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engine you don't have the same information engine of course will tell this mve is wrong but it doesn't explain to you why deeply and all the points why it was wrong okay so this is one way that you can fix your problems at rers
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and finally right patterns and chunks are not enough you also need to work on your fundamental thought processes in this position for example white goes H5 black has so much extra material black has an extra queen look at this black
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should be winning this position right but the opponent just played H5 and now you tell me what should black do folks and this is totally about the fundamental and automatized to processes that whenever your opponent makes a move
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you must see the threat you must ask yourself am I facing a threat right now right if I don't make a move what would be their next move and now you're talking about recurring patterns of course you want you you just basically
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you will allow HT G6 mate if you don't do anything so there's a huge threat in the position right now and if you take the pawn you get mated anyways right so despite the material advantage black mouse be careful and the way to do it
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most logical move is G5 because if you go G5 this Rook is sleeping on H file and there's no mate and black will soon go Queen C2 and the game is over this shows that because that's a typical way
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that am lose games I see it myself as a coach right that this fundamental process might be missing in your game right and that's great information it's almost like a driver license right like in most countries you can't just make
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you know 10% errors and still get your driving license you know the room for mistake is so low because it will be so risky to make such fundamental mistakes that they don't give you a driver license if you make let's say 10%
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mistakes also in the game imagine that in your real game that you make such not seeing threat kind of mistakes let's say in 10% of your games right 10% of the positions well well then you're exposing yourself to disasters like this right
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I've seen it myself that this really hurts this way of losing games really hurt so if you notice such patterns you must also be very diligently working on these fundamentals you will raise your floor right so you will stop giving up
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games like that so easily and imagine what a difference that will make to your game right so these kind of processes FS are what makes chess great and interesting and on top of everything never forget one thing when you want to
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improve it's about motivation it's about Joy it's about the growth mindset that predicts because that's a long-term grind right you need time to get those patterns in there's no rush you need time to gain expertise in chess but
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never forget love the game because the game is so pure so honest so beautiful and it's all about this growth mindset we should accept mistakes we should be happy about our mistakes right because mistakes our own mistakes are showing us
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Pathways to improve and fix those problems we we should seek guidance and feedback from experts right to fix our mistakes we should be having peace with our mistakes because it's all about the longterm and grit also is very important
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should you should have this grit of the long-term goal and long longterm stubbornness to get better in this game that we all love okay folks so these are my final points of whether it's possible for starters late starters to attain a
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certain level if you look at the real science there are different arguments right but as I told you 2000 ELO is not so unlikely if you give your best and good news is that maybe I will do further research in the future about the
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right training methods and if we also ident identify certain training methods as the best as much better than the other ones scientifically right you can also focus on those things of course we have some some G of course you have some
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intuition as chess experts or chess coaches what works best what doesn't work so properly of course you should also rely on these General judgments but I just gave you a general gist of what CH expertise looks like what you should
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be focused on most and what are the fundamental processes that you need to go through in this process thank you so much I'm wishing you all the best for your chess jour and stay with chess thanks
Topics:chess improvementadult chess beginnerschess expertisepattern recognitionchess trainingchess master levelchess psychologychess practiceMagnus Carlsenchess science
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