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Chess: Magnus Carlsen to meet top teens in pursuit of record unbeaten run:
Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, will face five opponents aged 21 or younger when he bids for a record eighth victory at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee in January. The traditional Dutch tournament at the small windswept North Sea town is by general consensus the best all-play-all annual event on the chess calendar and the invited entry for its 2020 version is bold and imaginative.
Fabiano Caruana, the world No 2, and Wesley So, who crushed Carlsen 13.5-2.5 at Fischer Random earlier this month, are in the field, but many dedicated fans will be watching Alireza Firouzja, who at 16 is receiving rave reviews comparing the Iranian teen to the legendary attacking genius Mikhail Tal. Jeffery Xiong, 19, the No 1 US junior, also has a breakthrough opportunity.
For Carlsen, the fifth round at Wijk, which will be played on tour at Eindhoven, could be the day when he sets a world record for the longest run of classical games without defeat. The Norwegian thought he had reached his target when he surpassed Ding Liren's 100 mark but then there was publicity for the Russian-Dutch GM Sergey Tiviakov's 110 against weaker opposition. So Carlsen still needs to stay unbeaten in four games at the Grand Tour final at London Olympia on 2-8 December and his first five rounds at Wijk.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:16PM (3 children)
Um, can't figure out if this is humor or ignorance, though I'm assuming ironic humor because you're smart...
But for those who don't read the humor in it, all those "High Schoolers" are Grandmasters. The youngest GM minted to date (as mentioned in the article) was Sergey Karjakin at 12 years, 7 months.
Anyway, here's the field for Tata 2020 Masters including the young'ins. Ought to be a good tournament to watch:
Title Name Country Rating World Rank
GM Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2870 1
GM Caruana, Fabiano USA 2822 2
GM Giri, Anish NED 2776 5
GM Nepomniachtchi, Ian RUS 2773 6
GM So, Wesley USA 2760 12
GM Anand, Viswanathan IND 2757 13
GM Yu, Yangyi CHN 2753 15
GM Duda, Jan-Krzysztof POL 2748 20
GM Artemiev, Vladislav RUS 2731 25
GM Firouzja, Alireza IRI 2720 29
GM Xiong, Jeffery USA 2712 33
GM Dubov, Daniil RUS 2676 58
GM Kovalev, Vladislav BLR 2674 63
GM Van Foreest, Jorden NED 2632
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:19PM (2 children)
I figured that might be the case, but, no I didn't actually know they were world-class.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:00AM (1 child)
Well, like I said, I couldn't tell. :) Popular wisdom these days is that if you want your child to be a Grandmaster someday one must now start them on chess by age 4 or 5 and it needs to happen no later than the early 20s. Not quite true but enough strength in it to not make it totally false, either.
I couldn't find the data I was looking for.... so...... Just for fun I went to Wikipedia's page listing all 1889 Grandmasters since the title was awarded by FIDE, dropped out the known death dates (left me with 1694), and calculated ages (the list has birth dates because, if nowhere else, it must be listed on the title application). But it's rough because they might not have all deaths recorded and the data is only as accurate as it is.
The current age breakdown (as above, the earliest GM became one at age 12 years 7 months) is:
12-14: 3
15-20: 65
21-25: 117
26-30: 204
31-35: 243
36-40: 203
41-45: 188
46-50: 177
51-55: 159
56-60: 133
61-65: 77
66-70: 47
71-75: 34
76-80: 19
81-85: 12
86-90: 7
91+: 6
Then I saw where I could see what year they were made Grandmaster, so here's the list by how old when the person became a GM (Rough, since it only has the year that one was made Grandmaster, not tournament date at last norm granting or the 'official' date of Grandmaster award which would be that year's FIDE annual meeting IIRC):
12-14: 43
15-20: 494
21-25: 483
26-30: 330
31-35: 191
36-40: 86
41-45: 34
46-50: 16
51-55: 5
56-60: 6
61-65: 1
66-70: 0
71-75: 0
76-80: 0
81-85: 0
86-90: 1
91+: 4
(Keeping in mind that FIDE did award some people GM titles posthumously, and the winner of the World Junior and World Senior tournaments is made a GM by fiat).
Finally, experience as a GM to today in years (i.e. GM date to now in years, again rough):
0-4: 251
5-9: 253
10-14: 336
15-20: 298
21-25: 211
26-30: 150
31-35: 76
36-40: 33
41-45: 54
46-50: 17
51-55: 6
56-60: 3
61-65: 5
66-70: 1
Yeah, this definitely proves it: I need a life. Especially when you consider I suck at chess, although I do direct chess tournaments fairly well if I do say so myself.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @05:21AM
Coincidentally very similar to the age distribution at which they lost their virginity.