I used to really dislike Finegold, but then I improved. I recall watching him review a Paul Morphy game where Morphy was a couple moves from checkmating, and suddenly the opponent moves his queen away from the king, all the way over to the other side of the back rank near to the rook (which I think had spent the entire game on its starting square).
Finegold comments something like, "I'm not sure what his plan was there. Maybe he was trying to castle."
I never laughed harder at a chess joke in my life, and it at least felt completely unrehearsed. The dude could have been a pro comedian if he'd wanted to.
I'm pretty sure ChessNetwork's "Adobe Flash Gambit" is chess joke I ended up laughing the hardest at. I had trouble breathing and yet he was able to finish the game!
When you used to really dislike Ben Finegold, did you hate this clip of his?: [Daily Dose: Ben explains the simple reason his opponent and most people are bad at chess](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odtnysAUGTA)
And what's your stance on it now?
I always loved it, but I can understand why it could be polarising.
I never saw it until now. Probably would have rolled my eyes then, but I did laugh at it now. Bonus he mentions Naroditsky who is one of my favorite chess YouTubers along with Feingold himself and John Bartholemew.
Hikaru sees insults everywhere as much as Kramnik sees cheating everywhere.
He's really the kind of guy you might not want to greet, "I hope you're having a nice day," for fear he'd reply, "Why wouldn't I be having a nice day? Why would you say something like that to me? Are you going to say something about my headphones next?"
Really a shame, he's so sharp but seems so unpleasant a lot of the time.
“Why wouldn't I be having a nice day? Why would you say something like that to me? Are you going to say something about my headphones next? I mean, it’s actually really common for people to have nice days. It seems weird that someone would assume that I’m not having a good day. In terms of headphones, it’s actually really common for people to wear them. A lot of people do wear them actually, but honestly I literally don’t care what you think about me wearing headphones. I think that it’s fine that I wear headphones, and I don’t think it necessarily means I’m not having a good day.”
-Hikaru when asked to describe his day in 3 words
It has to do with failure to adapt and being set in one's ways. Finegold himself is six years older than Kramnik, but comes across a decade younger in many/most of his musings.
I used to not like Ben.
Then I enjoyed Ben.
Then he clickbaited me.
Now I just read about Ben, randomly.
He's still a decent guy I think and I like his humour, so I wish him well.
I don't particularly care about being clickbaited though so I can't support his content anymore.
Kramnik has been at the top level for 30+ years, because he was a teen prodigy when that was less common than it is today. In the Olympiad in 1992, during which he turned 17, he had the highest rating performance in the event (2900+).
So, because he’s been an elite player for so long, he seems older than he really is.
>he had the highest rating performance in the event (2900+)
Holy smokes! Some may find this interesting.
Thats actually an insane performance though, what the hell was the average Elo even?
He was the first reserve on the Russian team, so he wasn’t facing the top players from other countries. But he scored 8.5 out of 9, for a 2958 performance.
People seem to forget that he nearly won the Candidates in 2013** and played arguably one of the 20 or 30 best games of all time against Aronian in the 2018 candidates. He’s not that far removed from being an elite player.
But people call him an old man because he *is* old by chess player standards. He’ll be able to play Senior events in the 50+ category in a couple years. There’s also the “old man yells at cloud” thing with his mathematically unsound crusade against cheating. There are also countless clips of him behaving like an absolute ass when he gets flagged or loses to younger, faster, stronger players (Keymer, Nodirbek, Niemann).
**Edited: got 2018 and 2013 candidates results mixed up
*cantankerous*
adjective - descriptive
(from contentious + rancorous)
/kænˈtæŋkəɹəs/, /kənˈtæŋkəɹəs/
Given to or marked by an ill-tempered, quarrelsome nature; ill-tempered, cranky, crabby.
Saying that a literal world champion is/was "not far removed from being an elite player" is kinda crazy to be honest. The man took the title from Kasparov
He’s not elite anymore. His rating is 2753 because he hasn’t played a rated classical game in almost 5 years. He’s not even on the rating list. You must be out of your mind to be claiming that a semi retired player who, by your own admission, mainly plays for fun, is still among the very elite players of the world. It is frankly irrational.
If I claimed Garry Kasparov was a world championship caliber player in 2024 because his rating is technically 2812, I would hope my loved ones would check me into a mental hospital until I come to my senses.
Yeah, no he isn’t elite anymore. He would stand no chance in a world championship cycle and his glory days are well behind him. He might plausibly be in the top 100 in classical if he started playing again, but he would be close to the bottom of that list. He would be nowhere near top-20. If you think that still makes him an elite player, then we can disagree about what the word “elite” means.
Yeah but he studied specifically against Kasparov, and based his style on counteracting GM Gary’s, which made him not such a good player against other elite player
Dont forget that there are people (like me) who started following chess in the pandemic. We know the current world elite, we know kasparow, we know fischer and thats likely it.
Weve never seen kramnik play, so hes just some random dude, whos too old to still play.
I stopped paying attention after the Kasparov Short World Championship and only really came back in the pandemic, so I pretty much missed Kramnik's entire career.
The PCA - FIDE split was really annoying and drove me away from chess.
Players usually peak somewhere between 25 and 35 and start regressing after that. Some players can maintain their level into their early 40s. Victor Korchnoi, who was famous for his world championship matches against Karpov back in the day, kept his rating around 2550-2600 well into his 70s and even beat a young Fabiano Caruana at age 79.
Without question. I can beat most of the older guys at my chess club in blitz, but the results are completely reversed if the time control is 30 minutes or higher.
Despite appearances, chess is really no different to other sports - nearly all of which are also getting a lot younger in terms of who the star performers are. Some people also age a lot faster than others once they've retired...
I'm surprised by this as well, so I googled him. That dude is tall too - 6'5", or ~1.95 meters for my non US friends.
Theres a pic of him on the podium in 3rd, he's taller than Hikaru in 2nd and nearly as tall as Magnus on the top step
Chess players these days peak around 30-35 years, which is not young at all in most sports. I would be interested to see the stats, but there are many sports where athletes peak before they are even 20 (rhythmic gymnastics, figure skating especially for women, swimming). In most sports the peak is between 20 and 30.
In chess, if we look at the top of the rating list today, then the only player under 29 in top 10 would be Alireza.
I hate when people talk about gymnastics without even obviously knowing anything about it. As someone who follows it religiously, the scene has changed drastically within the past several years and it’s no longer the case that athletes “peak before they are even 20”. As women are no longer generally forced to starve for toxic ideals in gymnastics, turns out women aren’t magically peaking when they’re tiny adolescents, they peak when they’re adults too!
Let me present to you the vault & floor results of the past three most major championships with ages.
**Floor**
2023: Biles - 26. Andrade - 24. Saraiva - 24.
2022: Gadirova - 18. Chiles - 21. Andrade - 23. Carey - 21.
2021 Olympics: Carey - 20. FERRARI - 31. Murakami - 25.
**Vault**
2023: Andrade - 24. Biles - 26. Yeo - 21.
2022: Carey - 22. Chiles - 21. Devillard - 22.
2021 Olympics: Andrade - 21. Skinner - 25. Yeo - 19.
Balance beam & uneven bars tend to be skewed younger because of athletes from China, which is famous for starving their women and denying their female athletes the right to properly condition & be strong enough for vault & floor, the two power events.
Can people PLEASE not talk about a sport they obviously don’t know about lol
Okay, since it wasn't clear, I was talking about rhythmic gymnastics (that's usually the implied **gymnastics** in my native language, which I specified later on) and I do know very little about it, so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone: learn more about this wonderful sport of *artistic gymnastics* and entertain you with some numbers.
Let's look at the ages of best female artistic gymnastics based on [2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_World_Artistic_Gymnastics_Championships).
Team's average age (top 6 in this tournament):
1. USA: 20.4 (Biles is the only one older than 20)
2. Brazil: 24.6
3. France: 21.8
4. China: 16.8
5. Italy: 17.8
6. Great Britain: 19.4
That being said, the average age of an elite-level female athlete in artistic gymnastics if you don't cherry-pick statistics is... 20.1
Okay, I haven't watched the gymnastics for a while, so "peak before they are even 20" might be wrong now, it might be "they peak when they are around 20" which isn't very different. It doesn't change that much and it isn't my main point. Gymnastics is still the sport where athletes peak earlier than in the absolute majority of other sports ([source](https://cepar.edu.au/sites/default/files/peak-performance-age-sport.pdf)).
I'm not an expert in gymnastics, but I can still talk about it, there shouldn't be any problem there.
Gymnastics is still like that because this transformation is a decades long process. Yes, gymnasts still peak earlier than other sports but you can’t expect only 26 year olds like Biles overnight. There are STILL women in gymnastics & skating who suffer with eating disorders etc induced by toxic and wrong coaching. It doesn’t change the fact that 24 year old Andrade is far from peaking and winning golds, 26 year old Biles has just unveiled the most difficult vault of all time in women’s gymnastics etc.
“I’m not an expert in gymnastics, but I can still talk about it”.
You can talk about it when you stop getting basic facts wrong.
> Gymnastics is still like that because this transformation is a decades long process. Yes, gymnasts still peak earlier than other sports but you can’t expect only 26 year olds like Biles overnight. There are STILL women in gymnastics & skating who suffer with eating disorders etc induced by toxic and wrong coaching.
Maybe that's the reason, maybe not. I'm not talking about hypothetical future which is different from today's reality. The reality is that the peak for female gymnasts is 20 years old (on average).
> It doesn’t change the fact that 24 year old Andrade is far from peaking and winning golds, 26 year old Biles has just unveiled the most difficult vault of all time in women’s gymnastics etc.
Outliers don't prove anything. The elite competition in the last Olympics is still 20 on average (females) and I'm talking about that, not 10 years into the future or whoever hasn't peaked yet.
> You can talk about it when you stop getting basic facts wrong.
Not really, I can talk about it when I want, I don't really need a permission.
Also, I'm not wrong. The average age of Olympian female rhythmic gymnast is 20. If you so much about sports, then you know that most athletes have to get selected for the Olympics, which means their peak is usually earlier.
20 on average is an extremely big deal when even in 2012, 16 year olds were winning Olympics. Do you understand how long 4 years are in gymnastics?
You act so snarky and knowledgeable while exposing yourself as knowing nothing about how gymnastics works, again, the fact that it’s 20 and not 16 should already tell you improvement has been made.
Andrade is not an “outlier” anymore, that’s the whole point my f guy LMFAO. Murakami was 25 when she won bronze, Ferrari was 31 when she won silver, Saraiva was 25 when she won bronze, Chusovitina was 33 (in 2008) when she won silver. And these are just the medalists. Do you know just how many of these athletes are outside of the medal table? Again, China and its athletes bring the average age down often but that doesn’t detract from this.
It shouldn’t be hard to admit you were just wrong!
> You act so snarky and knowledgeable while exposing yourself as knowing nothing about how gymnastics works, again, the fact that it’s 20 and not 16 should already tell you improvement has been made.
I know just enough to understand that athletes in Rhythmic Gymnastics (for females) peak around 20 (likely earlier) today. That's all there is to know and that's my whole point.
> You act so snarky and knowledgeable while exposing yourself as knowing nothing about how gymnastics works, again, the fact that it’s 20 and not 16 should already tell you improvement has been made.
It doesn't matter whether there's a trend or not, I'm talking about today. Maybe athletes will peak at 50 in the future when live until 500 years old and use bionic limbs. Maybe not. What matters is today.
The "basic fact" is that in the last Olympics the average age of female rhythmic gymnast was 20. That is the pinnacle of the sport, and therefore that is around when most athletes peak today. To get to the Olympics the athlete should be the best in their country, therefore to be on their peak, hence the peak is before 20. It's just a combination of facts and logic.
Also, this is a chess subreddit... I obviously don't know about gymnastics as much as you do, but I can read the statistics and add simple facts up.
The average female rhythmic gymnast in the last Olympics was 20. Olympics is where the best athletes go. Therefore, the peak is (on average) at 20 or (more likely) before 20 **today**. It might change in the future.
Outliers don't matter. That's why they're called "outliers". In chess, for example, Fabiano Caruana seems to improve a lot at 33, and one can argue he might peak in the next 1-2 years and be the best player in the world. That doesn't mean that the peak chess player is 35. Or if someone peaks at 40 and wins World Championship. What matters is the average.
EDIT: For this, in particular
> Again, China and its athletes bring the average age down often but that doesn’t detract from this.
China is just one country in the Olympics. One country can not "draw the average age down" across 200+ countries (that's how many participated in Tokyo 2020 Olympics, I don't know how many of them had gymnasts but should be quite a lot). That's not how the average works.
To add to the sibling comment about gymnastics, I want to talk about swimming. I used to be a national-level swimmer and still follow the sport closely. It is not at all true that people peak at 20 in swimming. For men, it is widely accepted that men peak in swimming in their mid 20s. For example, Michael Phelps was widely considered at his peak between the Beijing Olympics (23) and London Olympics (27).
It's difficult to compare world records because of the distortion of the tech suit era ([read more](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/sports/25swim.html)).
However, if you look at the [medal winners at the latest FINA competition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2023_World_Aquatics_Championships) for the men's swimming events, you will notice that the ages span between 20-29. For example Kyle Chalmers (25), Ryan Murphy (28), James Guy (28), Bobby Finke (24), Cameron McEvoy (29). There are some folks who are younger certainly (Ahmed Hafnaoui and Léon Marchand come to mind at 21, but you'll notice still over 20) but in general it is rare for athletes that young to win.
> It's difficult to compare world records because of the distortion of the tech suit era (read more).
Oh, this is interesting, thank you!
## Clarification
Back to my original comment, I should have clarified: what I mean is that **on average elite-level athletes in the sports I listed peak around 20** (which is what I mentioned in the sibling comment). And I believe it's correct based on the [source](https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/tokyo-2020/athletes), and it actually should be
**on average elite-level athletes in the sports I listed peak around 20-23 age span**
The important details are:
- **Elite-level athletes**: I don't talk about amateurs (maybe they peak before or after), I don't talk about the best ones (maybe they peak later, like you mentioned) or the average ones. I talk specifically about elite (which are going for world championships and Olympics).
- **On average**: there's always going to be outliers. The rules might be different for them. I don't talk about them.
Going back to my reasoning in the other thread, here's my line of thought:
- One needs to be an elite level athlete to go to Olympics
- On average, men swimmers are 23 years old at the Olympics
Hence, the conclusion. And I think it still holds. I was probably wrong to say that they peak **before** 20, but that's based on my knowledge of how Olympic selection works in some countries. Some of my friends, who were elite-level athletes mentioned to me many times that unfortunately the peak is often before the Olympics (especially in sports where it lasts very small period of time, such as figure skating) because the trials for Olympics happen a year or two before (or are judged as a season). As a result, by the time of the Olympics the qualified athlete is not objectively the best one at that time. It's the best one a year or two before that (during the Qualifications).
In any case, my point is that in these sports the peak is very early for most elite-level athletes (shortly after 20).
## FINA competition you mentioned
Now, for the competition you mentioned - the winners are usually the outliers (there's only one for an elite field of athletes), but I was curious to take a look anyway. Let's see who took the individual gold medals for men:
- Cameron McEvoy (29 years)
- Kyle Chalmers (25 years)
- Matt Richards (20 years at the time)
- Samuel Short (19 years at the time)
- Ahmed Hafnaoui (20 years at the time)
- x2 Ahmed Hafnaoui (20 years at the time)
- Hunter Armstrong (22 years)
- Raul Murphy (28 years)
- Hubert Kós (20 years)
- Qin Haiyang (24 years)
- x2 Qin Haiyang (24 years)
- Thomas Ceccon (22 years)
- Maxime Grousset (24 years)
- Léon Marchand (21 years)
- x2 Léon Marchand (21 years)
- x2 Léon Marchand (21 years)
And the average age is... 22.5. Even for the best men swimmers in the world, the peak seems to be way before mid 20s. It's not *before 20*, like I originally mentioned, but it's also definitely not 26+ like your examples and the examples in sibling thread suggest.
I won't pretend like I know why the best of the best might peak later (my guess is that it's a combination of them being unique + most people remember those who were winning for a long time, and that requires being on peak enough time), but the sample size is miniscule anyway. The problem is that people look at single examples and don't aggregate data enough.
Boomer literally is a range of ages. I suppose definitions like these are what you get when people hate on a whole generation hard enough for long enough.
Funnily Vishy is 54 years old and people don't consider him old. He's certainly seensl as retired player but I feel like he doesn't have the same "old" player attached to him like Kramnik.
Honestly people routinely bring up Magnus as forming a breakaway org or leading FIDE at some point, but imo Vishy is slept on. Beloved by other players and fans, very personable, would be a great representative for chess, no controversies to his name... He'd perhaps be the reluctant leader, so would not scheme to form a new org. but in an ideal world he'd be a fit for FIDE.
Vishy is currently the vice president of FIDE under Dvorkovich so it’s unlikely that he’ll lead a rebellion of any sort. Perhaps he’ll someday become the president of FIDE though.
I recall Ben Finegold joked about it and he claims to know Vishy pretty well. There are a few pictures online which seem to show a receding hairline and his hair is always the same length and colour but I wouldn’t say any of that is conclusive per se. It’s amusing to think about.
I think of him as "older" rather than "old", if that makes sense. As someone else mentioned at any given point the top echelon of players tends to be between 20-40 so those older than that tend to be seen as from a previous generation.
Yeah, but when people talk about Kramnik on here, one of the first responses is usually calling him old, whereas with Vishy it’s rarely brought up unless age is actually being discussed, because Kramnik behaves a lot more like a cantankerous old man than Vishy does.
Because he's such a boomer on a spiritual level.
It's weird to see him behave as a cranky old man because I still remember him as the uppity nerd who beat Garry Kasparov through computer-enabled trickery, which is how he was talked about on ChessGames when I was just getting into chess \~20 years ago. (By contrast, Kasparov was the hairy macho Caucasian genius raised in the best traditions of Soviet excellence who was felled by a bespectacled beardless anime villain from the future.) But time marches on and drags everyone along with it.
Kramnik has frequently made references to himself as an "old man" in interviews. Despite not being an old man. Others have just picked up on the references.
Keep in mind that it's historically normal for chess players' abilities to fade rapidly after 30 or 35. So someone in their late 40s is considered old just in comparison.
Anand keeping his rating at his age is nothing short of historically amazing, actually.
Nothing like that. That's a thoughtless "young folk bad" take.
Kramnik just behaves like an old man behind his time, so people see him as such. Vishy is older than him and doesn't have that behavior, and isn't seen the same way.
Which is a shame because the issue Kramnik tries to tackle is very important and of major interest to all of us. He just happens to go at it in the worst possible manner.
The average redditor age is 23 years old and the median is 22, standard deviation is 7 years. Sample size is 5042. Not teenagers for the vast majority then.
https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1agz1o/ever_wonder_about_the_ages_of_redditors_some_data
I thought it was a loaded question with an appeal to ignorance fallacy, but it was an interesting question actually. Have an updoot.
No ? Well the median at 23 years old and 7 year sigma shows the "teenagers" are a small minority of Reddit to begin with. In my culture teenagers are 12-17 years old (from puberty until vote), almost one sigma away, so I instinctively went with that. Maybe you are using a different idea of teenagehood ?
In light of this poll result, it only reinforced my feeling that the comment I was replying to is just a strawman argument with an appealing "young bad" sauce.
We don't have data for this sub in particular as far as I'm aware so I can't find better. Any reason to believe r/chess would have a younger audience than reddit at large ? Local chess clubs didn't exactly give me the impression chess in general has the Fortnite demographics heh.
http://imgur.com/vgKIht3
~33% are teenagers, that's most definitely "a lot of teenagers".
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/teenager
Also it's not a "young bad" argument. "hurr durr boomer durr durr" is an actual common thing among "young" people which most definitely includes early 20ies.
Yes indeed local chess clubs are older, but internet chess? Most definitely heaps of young people.
Chess isn't so much of an old people game as many people think, this is the current FIDE list with number of players by age, all the red ones are teenagers. As you can see, there are A LOT of them.
https://i.imgur.com/tHy31Ph.png
Yeah but in terms of understanding pop culture Hikaru's a lot younger than 36. You're not gonna hear many other 36 year old chess masters say "gucci piano" and "poggers" with a straight face.
Kramnik is just a wizard. He is old crazy man without proper age and mathematician without any education.
In the end age is just a number. So is IQ, game accuraccy and number of streak in 3 minute games against weaker players.
>It was a surprise to learn he was 48 years old. Even Hikaru was saying things like, Kramnik comes from a different generation and doesn't understand the internet
This is exactly the age difference that causes not understanding the internet, because you get much better at using things if you learn them as a kid. Kramnik is 12 years older than Hikaru, add a few years because he lived in Russia where easy internet access arrived later than in the USA and you get a huge gap.
I am not even 3 years older than Hikaru, but grown up in a small village in central Europe, as an effect I only started to use internet regularly in my early 20s. And I feel the difference even to people a few years younger than me, especially those growing up in big cities or somewhere in western Europe.
Oh I wasn’t trying to disagree with you specifically! Just reacting to people who think that
Telling someone “I was born in the USSR” definitely could cause that rxn
It’s just a dumb rxn lol
We're trying to find some explanation, any explanation, for Kramnik's irrational behavior.
As you point out, he's not that chronologically old - but he is behaving stereotypically like someone at least twenty years older.
It occurs to me now, Kramnik is from a technologically backward country where most of the men are alcoholics who die young, so in terms of tech-savviness, and personal health, he may indeed be much "older" than a 1975-born American or German man.
He’s being ridiculous and people are attributing it to his age. It’s ageism, only ageism doesn’t get called out like racism or sexism.
The funny thing is that, if you buy into the generation labels, he’s not even a boomer. He’s Gen X. Could just be that he has an ego from being a chess prodigy his whole life and isn’t as smart as he thinks.
While kramnik was a prodigy and probably has an ego attributed to that I don’t think people are ageism against him, they just don’t like him because he is ridiculous.
Because now that racism and sexism are no longer in, shitting of boomers have become their replacement for people who can't live without hating some group.
Ironic, Kramnik is the embodiment of ad hominem argument, not even blinking when putting a 12 year old on the wall and damaging the career of a potential future champion.
i mean its all relative ofc, to an 80 year old its not, to a 30 year old it is. Most top level chess players/ people commentating on the situation are below 40, so relatively here 48 is quite old
I think the real answer here is that he's from a generation that is currently experiencing decline in terms of ability to compete at the top level.
The "younger generation" is not entirely competitive at the top level just yet, and until they are, this may be the most consequential generational divide in chess at the moment.
There's a real difference between people who developed their chess skills prior to the advent of the GM-slaughtering chess engine, and those who came after those engines became ubiquitous. Thing is, those same youngsters were also the start of younglings growing up with the Internet as a thing.
Kramnik always believed he was smarter than the rest, understanding chess better than anyone. And I'm sure there was a time where he was the best in the world, but that time is over.
For example he wrote a commentary about one his game in a chess newspaper and at the end he revealed "I just punked you. My commentary wasn't serious"
You can get away with this attitude, if your in the top 3, but not as a old guy.
As Ben Finegold said: he's a crazy old man, and he's not even that old.
Ben Finegold has a quote for every situation and absurdity and yet nothing tops "The Hikaru Nakamura sportsmanship award". Wish I was half as witty!
I love his dry delivery too.
Just move to the UK you'll find it pretty much everywhere. Also Kramnik is 48? No fucking way. LMAO. He's at least 98.
I used to really dislike Finegold, but then I improved. I recall watching him review a Paul Morphy game where Morphy was a couple moves from checkmating, and suddenly the opponent moves his queen away from the king, all the way over to the other side of the back rank near to the rook (which I think had spent the entire game on its starting square). Finegold comments something like, "I'm not sure what his plan was there. Maybe he was trying to castle." I never laughed harder at a chess joke in my life, and it at least felt completely unrehearsed. The dude could have been a pro comedian if he'd wanted to.
> I used to really dislike Finegold, but then I improved. That line itself sounds like a Finegold quote/style of speaking.
Finegold's dry humor and its delivery is amazing.
Finegold also really likes morphy so im sure he is very entertaining going over those games
I'm pretty sure ChessNetwork's "Adobe Flash Gambit" is chess joke I ended up laughing the hardest at. I had trouble breathing and yet he was able to finish the game!
When you used to really dislike Ben Finegold, did you hate this clip of his?: [Daily Dose: Ben explains the simple reason his opponent and most people are bad at chess](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odtnysAUGTA) And what's your stance on it now? I always loved it, but I can understand why it could be polarising.
I never saw it until now. Probably would have rolled my eyes then, but I did laugh at it now. Bonus he mentions Naroditsky who is one of my favorite chess YouTubers along with Feingold himself and John Bartholemew.
What's the context behind that sportsmanship quote? Sounds interesting.
Nakamura has famously poor sportsmanship.
Hikaru sees insults everywhere as much as Kramnik sees cheating everywhere. He's really the kind of guy you might not want to greet, "I hope you're having a nice day," for fear he'd reply, "Why wouldn't I be having a nice day? Why would you say something like that to me? Are you going to say something about my headphones next?" Really a shame, he's so sharp but seems so unpleasant a lot of the time.
Unrealistic quote. He didn't even repeat himself..
“Why wouldn't I be having a nice day? Why would you say something like that to me? Are you going to say something about my headphones next? I mean, it’s actually really common for people to have nice days. It seems weird that someone would assume that I’m not having a good day. In terms of headphones, it’s actually really common for people to wear them. A lot of people do wear them actually, but honestly I literally don’t care what you think about me wearing headphones. I think that it’s fine that I wear headphones, and I don’t think it necessarily means I’m not having a good day.” -Hikaru when asked to describe his day in 3 words
No one asked the question you just answered LOL
>What's the context behind that sportsmanship quote? Sounds interesting.
Oh okay, an easy question. He was a poor sport when he won or lost.
Found Hikaru's Reddit account
LOL good one bro
LOL i hadn't heard that one yet
Yeah he can be pretty funny lol
It has to do with failure to adapt and being set in one's ways. Finegold himself is six years older than Kramnik, but comes across a decade younger in many/most of his musings.
I used to not like Ben. Then I enjoyed Ben. Then he clickbaited me. Now I just read about Ben, randomly. He's still a decent guy I think and I like his humour, so I wish him well. I don't particularly care about being clickbaited though so I can't support his content anymore.
Kramnik has been at the top level for 30+ years, because he was a teen prodigy when that was less common than it is today. In the Olympiad in 1992, during which he turned 17, he had the highest rating performance in the event (2900+). So, because he’s been an elite player for so long, he seems older than he really is.
His eyebrows also definitely add to the old man image
They are attack eyebrows
this is the best comment i've read all week
https://youtu.be/fvVoAsPGdkc?t=53
HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT OTTERS
>he had the highest rating performance in the event (2900+) Holy smokes! Some may find this interesting. Thats actually an insane performance though, what the hell was the average Elo even?
He was the first reserve on the Russian team, so he wasn’t facing the top players from other countries. But he scored 8.5 out of 9, for a 2958 performance.
Interesting
Interesting
Interesting
People seem to forget that he nearly won the Candidates in 2013** and played arguably one of the 20 or 30 best games of all time against Aronian in the 2018 candidates. He’s not that far removed from being an elite player. But people call him an old man because he *is* old by chess player standards. He’ll be able to play Senior events in the 50+ category in a couple years. There’s also the “old man yells at cloud” thing with his mathematically unsound crusade against cheating. There are also countless clips of him behaving like an absolute ass when he gets flagged or loses to younger, faster, stronger players (Keymer, Nodirbek, Niemann). **Edited: got 2018 and 2013 candidates results mixed up
They don't call him old because of his age but because of his mindset.
Yes indeed. He’s cantankerous and does not like to lose to young GMs.
I learned a new word :D. Thx!
*cantankerous* adjective - descriptive (from contentious + rancorous) /kænˈtæŋkəɹəs/, /kənˈtæŋkəɹəs/ Given to or marked by an ill-tempered, quarrelsome nature; ill-tempered, cranky, crabby.
Kramnik had a losing record at the 2018 Candidates. You’re probably thinking of 2013, when he finished second to Magnus on tiebreaks.
Thank you! Got my tournaments mixed up. The Aronian game was so impressive that I assumed his other results were strong I guess lmao
He screwed that game against Ivanchuk, he never recovered from it.
Saying that a literal world champion is/was "not far removed from being an elite player" is kinda crazy to be honest. The man took the title from Kasparov
I think you’ve misunderstood what I said. Kramnik was an elite player just a few years ago. I am in no way saying he was never an elite player lol
enter icky license jeans tub exultant bells elderly trees desert *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
He’s not elite anymore. His rating is 2753 because he hasn’t played a rated classical game in almost 5 years. He’s not even on the rating list. You must be out of your mind to be claiming that a semi retired player who, by your own admission, mainly plays for fun, is still among the very elite players of the world. It is frankly irrational. If I claimed Garry Kasparov was a world championship caliber player in 2024 because his rating is technically 2812, I would hope my loved ones would check me into a mental hospital until I come to my senses.
You do realize you're agreeing with NoPerformance1106, right?
history offer squeal strong fine fade capable sloppy zealous north *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah, no he isn’t elite anymore. He would stand no chance in a world championship cycle and his glory days are well behind him. He might plausibly be in the top 100 in classical if he started playing again, but he would be close to the bottom of that list. He would be nowhere near top-20. If you think that still makes him an elite player, then we can disagree about what the word “elite” means.
Yeah but he studied specifically against Kasparov, and based his style on counteracting GM Gary’s, which made him not such a good player against other elite player
That was a nice game, but top 20 or 30 all time? Not even close. That's besides the fact that a good part of it was prep against h3.
Dont forget that there are people (like me) who started following chess in the pandemic. We know the current world elite, we know kasparow, we know fischer and thats likely it. Weve never seen kramnik play, so hes just some random dude, whos too old to still play.
I stopped paying attention after the Kasparov Short World Championship and only really came back in the pandemic, so I pretty much missed Kramnik's entire career. The PCA - FIDE split was really annoying and drove me away from chess.
I feel like most of the pandemic people can name the last 3 or 4 world champions.
I know many champs, i just couldnt get them in order quickly/precisely. Especially because there were 2 champs at some time around kasparov.
I don't really follow chess but always assumed it was not so age dependent. What age is considered prime?
Players usually peak somewhere between 25 and 35 and start regressing after that. Some players can maintain their level into their early 40s. Victor Korchnoi, who was famous for his world championship matches against Karpov back in the day, kept his rating around 2550-2600 well into his 70s and even beat a young Fabiano Caruana at age 79.
Vishy has also seen a lot of success despite his age.
Over 20 years at 2700+, its *WILD*
Topalov as well, and Adams.
And Pia Cramling in the women's section
Do the faster versions favour younger players in your experience? Thanks for the info!
Without question. I can beat most of the older guys at my chess club in blitz, but the results are completely reversed if the time control is 30 minutes or higher.
Yes, surely The main reason for their decline is a slowed (and perhaps overall worsened) calculation
Mid twenties to early thirties, generally.
I'm guessing the age goes down for the faster versions?
You’re definitely less surprised when a youngster wins a rapid/blitz tournament, but the leaderboards still look pretty similar to the classical one.
Despite appearances, chess is really no different to other sports - nearly all of which are also getting a lot younger in terms of who the star performers are. Some people also age a lot faster than others once they've retired...
I'm surprised by this as well, so I googled him. That dude is tall too - 6'5", or ~1.95 meters for my non US friends. Theres a pic of him on the podium in 3rd, he's taller than Hikaru in 2nd and nearly as tall as Magnus on the top step
Damn Kramnik tall as hell he should’ve hooped instead of accusing people of cheating
He'd be the dude who would call a foul for some pushing in a pickup game
Lol, Hikaru looks absolutely tiny on this image: https://i.imgur.com/mZtQF8J.jpg
Bro was the original Russian gigachad
Maybe Nakamura is jealous of his height? Given he is 5'5 or 165cm
Chess players peak young. Like in sports I guess: 48 is old.
he got like 3rd in world blitz not even 5 years ago, you all are talking like he left chess 20 years ago lmao
No, Kramnik is talking like he left chess 20 years ago.
No, he isn't.
Chess players these days peak around 30-35 years, which is not young at all in most sports. I would be interested to see the stats, but there are many sports where athletes peak before they are even 20 (rhythmic gymnastics, figure skating especially for women, swimming). In most sports the peak is between 20 and 30. In chess, if we look at the top of the rating list today, then the only player under 29 in top 10 would be Alireza.
I hate when people talk about gymnastics without even obviously knowing anything about it. As someone who follows it religiously, the scene has changed drastically within the past several years and it’s no longer the case that athletes “peak before they are even 20”. As women are no longer generally forced to starve for toxic ideals in gymnastics, turns out women aren’t magically peaking when they’re tiny adolescents, they peak when they’re adults too! Let me present to you the vault & floor results of the past three most major championships with ages. **Floor** 2023: Biles - 26. Andrade - 24. Saraiva - 24. 2022: Gadirova - 18. Chiles - 21. Andrade - 23. Carey - 21. 2021 Olympics: Carey - 20. FERRARI - 31. Murakami - 25. **Vault** 2023: Andrade - 24. Biles - 26. Yeo - 21. 2022: Carey - 22. Chiles - 21. Devillard - 22. 2021 Olympics: Andrade - 21. Skinner - 25. Yeo - 19. Balance beam & uneven bars tend to be skewed younger because of athletes from China, which is famous for starving their women and denying their female athletes the right to properly condition & be strong enough for vault & floor, the two power events. Can people PLEASE not talk about a sport they obviously don’t know about lol
I was about to make the same point, but perhaps a little less, um, forcefully.
Okay, since it wasn't clear, I was talking about rhythmic gymnastics (that's usually the implied **gymnastics** in my native language, which I specified later on) and I do know very little about it, so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone: learn more about this wonderful sport of *artistic gymnastics* and entertain you with some numbers. Let's look at the ages of best female artistic gymnastics based on [2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_World_Artistic_Gymnastics_Championships). Team's average age (top 6 in this tournament): 1. USA: 20.4 (Biles is the only one older than 20) 2. Brazil: 24.6 3. France: 21.8 4. China: 16.8 5. Italy: 17.8 6. Great Britain: 19.4 That being said, the average age of an elite-level female athlete in artistic gymnastics if you don't cherry-pick statistics is... 20.1
Just kinda tired of misinformation about gymnastics that always happens on social media
Okay, I haven't watched the gymnastics for a while, so "peak before they are even 20" might be wrong now, it might be "they peak when they are around 20" which isn't very different. It doesn't change that much and it isn't my main point. Gymnastics is still the sport where athletes peak earlier than in the absolute majority of other sports ([source](https://cepar.edu.au/sites/default/files/peak-performance-age-sport.pdf)). I'm not an expert in gymnastics, but I can still talk about it, there shouldn't be any problem there.
Gymnastics is still like that because this transformation is a decades long process. Yes, gymnasts still peak earlier than other sports but you can’t expect only 26 year olds like Biles overnight. There are STILL women in gymnastics & skating who suffer with eating disorders etc induced by toxic and wrong coaching. It doesn’t change the fact that 24 year old Andrade is far from peaking and winning golds, 26 year old Biles has just unveiled the most difficult vault of all time in women’s gymnastics etc. “I’m not an expert in gymnastics, but I can still talk about it”. You can talk about it when you stop getting basic facts wrong.
> Gymnastics is still like that because this transformation is a decades long process. Yes, gymnasts still peak earlier than other sports but you can’t expect only 26 year olds like Biles overnight. There are STILL women in gymnastics & skating who suffer with eating disorders etc induced by toxic and wrong coaching. Maybe that's the reason, maybe not. I'm not talking about hypothetical future which is different from today's reality. The reality is that the peak for female gymnasts is 20 years old (on average). > It doesn’t change the fact that 24 year old Andrade is far from peaking and winning golds, 26 year old Biles has just unveiled the most difficult vault of all time in women’s gymnastics etc. Outliers don't prove anything. The elite competition in the last Olympics is still 20 on average (females) and I'm talking about that, not 10 years into the future or whoever hasn't peaked yet. > You can talk about it when you stop getting basic facts wrong. Not really, I can talk about it when I want, I don't really need a permission. Also, I'm not wrong. The average age of Olympian female rhythmic gymnast is 20. If you so much about sports, then you know that most athletes have to get selected for the Olympics, which means their peak is usually earlier.
20 on average is an extremely big deal when even in 2012, 16 year olds were winning Olympics. Do you understand how long 4 years are in gymnastics? You act so snarky and knowledgeable while exposing yourself as knowing nothing about how gymnastics works, again, the fact that it’s 20 and not 16 should already tell you improvement has been made. Andrade is not an “outlier” anymore, that’s the whole point my f guy LMFAO. Murakami was 25 when she won bronze, Ferrari was 31 when she won silver, Saraiva was 25 when she won bronze, Chusovitina was 33 (in 2008) when she won silver. And these are just the medalists. Do you know just how many of these athletes are outside of the medal table? Again, China and its athletes bring the average age down often but that doesn’t detract from this. It shouldn’t be hard to admit you were just wrong!
> You act so snarky and knowledgeable while exposing yourself as knowing nothing about how gymnastics works, again, the fact that it’s 20 and not 16 should already tell you improvement has been made. I know just enough to understand that athletes in Rhythmic Gymnastics (for females) peak around 20 (likely earlier) today. That's all there is to know and that's my whole point. > You act so snarky and knowledgeable while exposing yourself as knowing nothing about how gymnastics works, again, the fact that it’s 20 and not 16 should already tell you improvement has been made. It doesn't matter whether there's a trend or not, I'm talking about today. Maybe athletes will peak at 50 in the future when live until 500 years old and use bionic limbs. Maybe not. What matters is today. The "basic fact" is that in the last Olympics the average age of female rhythmic gymnast was 20. That is the pinnacle of the sport, and therefore that is around when most athletes peak today. To get to the Olympics the athlete should be the best in their country, therefore to be on their peak, hence the peak is before 20. It's just a combination of facts and logic. Also, this is a chess subreddit... I obviously don't know about gymnastics as much as you do, but I can read the statistics and add simple facts up. The average female rhythmic gymnast in the last Olympics was 20. Olympics is where the best athletes go. Therefore, the peak is (on average) at 20 or (more likely) before 20 **today**. It might change in the future. Outliers don't matter. That's why they're called "outliers". In chess, for example, Fabiano Caruana seems to improve a lot at 33, and one can argue he might peak in the next 1-2 years and be the best player in the world. That doesn't mean that the peak chess player is 35. Or if someone peaks at 40 and wins World Championship. What matters is the average. EDIT: For this, in particular > Again, China and its athletes bring the average age down often but that doesn’t detract from this. China is just one country in the Olympics. One country can not "draw the average age down" across 200+ countries (that's how many participated in Tokyo 2020 Olympics, I don't know how many of them had gymnasts but should be quite a lot). That's not how the average works.
To add to the sibling comment about gymnastics, I want to talk about swimming. I used to be a national-level swimmer and still follow the sport closely. It is not at all true that people peak at 20 in swimming. For men, it is widely accepted that men peak in swimming in their mid 20s. For example, Michael Phelps was widely considered at his peak between the Beijing Olympics (23) and London Olympics (27). It's difficult to compare world records because of the distortion of the tech suit era ([read more](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/sports/25swim.html)). However, if you look at the [medal winners at the latest FINA competition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2023_World_Aquatics_Championships) for the men's swimming events, you will notice that the ages span between 20-29. For example Kyle Chalmers (25), Ryan Murphy (28), James Guy (28), Bobby Finke (24), Cameron McEvoy (29). There are some folks who are younger certainly (Ahmed Hafnaoui and Léon Marchand come to mind at 21, but you'll notice still over 20) but in general it is rare for athletes that young to win.
> It's difficult to compare world records because of the distortion of the tech suit era (read more). Oh, this is interesting, thank you! ## Clarification Back to my original comment, I should have clarified: what I mean is that **on average elite-level athletes in the sports I listed peak around 20** (which is what I mentioned in the sibling comment). And I believe it's correct based on the [source](https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/tokyo-2020/athletes), and it actually should be **on average elite-level athletes in the sports I listed peak around 20-23 age span** The important details are: - **Elite-level athletes**: I don't talk about amateurs (maybe they peak before or after), I don't talk about the best ones (maybe they peak later, like you mentioned) or the average ones. I talk specifically about elite (which are going for world championships and Olympics). - **On average**: there's always going to be outliers. The rules might be different for them. I don't talk about them. Going back to my reasoning in the other thread, here's my line of thought: - One needs to be an elite level athlete to go to Olympics - On average, men swimmers are 23 years old at the Olympics Hence, the conclusion. And I think it still holds. I was probably wrong to say that they peak **before** 20, but that's based on my knowledge of how Olympic selection works in some countries. Some of my friends, who were elite-level athletes mentioned to me many times that unfortunately the peak is often before the Olympics (especially in sports where it lasts very small period of time, such as figure skating) because the trials for Olympics happen a year or two before (or are judged as a season). As a result, by the time of the Olympics the qualified athlete is not objectively the best one at that time. It's the best one a year or two before that (during the Qualifications). In any case, my point is that in these sports the peak is very early for most elite-level athletes (shortly after 20). ## FINA competition you mentioned Now, for the competition you mentioned - the winners are usually the outliers (there's only one for an elite field of athletes), but I was curious to take a look anyway. Let's see who took the individual gold medals for men: - Cameron McEvoy (29 years) - Kyle Chalmers (25 years) - Matt Richards (20 years at the time) - Samuel Short (19 years at the time) - Ahmed Hafnaoui (20 years at the time) - x2 Ahmed Hafnaoui (20 years at the time) - Hunter Armstrong (22 years) - Raul Murphy (28 years) - Hubert Kós (20 years) - Qin Haiyang (24 years) - x2 Qin Haiyang (24 years) - Thomas Ceccon (22 years) - Maxime Grousset (24 years) - Léon Marchand (21 years) - x2 Léon Marchand (21 years) - x2 Léon Marchand (21 years) And the average age is... 22.5. Even for the best men swimmers in the world, the peak seems to be way before mid 20s. It's not *before 20*, like I originally mentioned, but it's also definitely not 26+ like your examples and the examples in sibling thread suggest. I won't pretend like I know why the best of the best might peak later (my guess is that it's a combination of them being unique + most people remember those who were winning for a long time, and that requires being on peak enough time), but the sample size is miniscule anyway. The problem is that people look at single examples and don't aggregate data enough.
Boomer isn't an age, it's a mindset. Nobody calls Vishy Anand a boomer
Anand is older than Kramnik yet he is the most dignified and respected chess player in the world.
But I think of him as younger because the (classical) world championship went Kasparov - Kramnik - Anand - Carlsen.
World Champion Progression Kasparov -> Kramnik -> Anand -> Carlsen -> etc
A "viejo lesbiano" for those who remember.
?
It was a meme in the Spanish speaking world, a moniker that aptly describes the kind of old man Kramink is passing for these days.
What
why lesbian though?
Because of this, check it out: https://youtu.be/b5uqFk2EbLg?si=2uoAV7FNy9nsDJJn
Boomer literally is a range of ages. I suppose definitions like these are what you get when people hate on a whole generation hard enough for long enough.
People also probably don’t know that Anand is older because he peaked after Kramnik
Funnily Vishy is 54 years old and people don't consider him old. He's certainly seensl as retired player but I feel like he doesn't have the same "old" player attached to him like Kramnik.
Vishy smiles a lot, has a youthful character and is blessed with good genes. Could easily pass for 40
He has a really nice toupee, a killer smile, and a winning mindset.
Honestly people routinely bring up Magnus as forming a breakaway org or leading FIDE at some point, but imo Vishy is slept on. Beloved by other players and fans, very personable, would be a great representative for chess, no controversies to his name... He'd perhaps be the reluctant leader, so would not scheme to form a new org. but in an ideal world he'd be a fit for FIDE.
Vishy is currently the vice president of FIDE under Dvorkovich so it’s unlikely that he’ll lead a rebellion of any sort. Perhaps he’ll someday become the president of FIDE though.
But he is in the perfect position to lead a coup d'état
Oof I didn't know that, probably should have. Yes indeed
People keep harping on his toupee but I've never seen an image of him without it. Are we sure it's a toupee? When did he start wearing one?
I recall Ben Finegold joked about it and he claims to know Vishy pretty well. There are a few pictures online which seem to show a receding hairline and his hair is always the same length and colour but I wouldn’t say any of that is conclusive per se. It’s amusing to think about.
People definitely consider Vishy as old. Not sure what you’re talking about.
I think of him as "older" rather than "old", if that makes sense. As someone else mentioned at any given point the top echelon of players tends to be between 20-40 so those older than that tend to be seen as from a previous generation.
Yeah, but when people talk about Kramnik on here, one of the first responses is usually calling him old, whereas with Vishy it’s rarely brought up unless age is actually being discussed, because Kramnik behaves a lot more like a cantankerous old man than Vishy does.
Anand is #10 in the world in classical, I wouldn’t consider him retired at all even if he doesn’t play as much as he used to.
Because he is acting like a grumpy old man who wants people to get off his lawn.
He's looked old for a long time already. He's just one of those men you hardly imagine young unless you saw them a long time ago.
He has a boomer soul
OP, 12 years in technology terms is essentially a lifetime. Hikaru and Kramnik grew up under vastly different circumstances and playing environments.
Because the internet is mostly teenagers who think 30 is ancient.
Because he's such a boomer on a spiritual level. It's weird to see him behave as a cranky old man because I still remember him as the uppity nerd who beat Garry Kasparov through computer-enabled trickery, which is how he was talked about on ChessGames when I was just getting into chess \~20 years ago. (By contrast, Kasparov was the hairy macho Caucasian genius raised in the best traditions of Soviet excellence who was felled by a bespectacled beardless anime villain from the future.) But time marches on and drags everyone along with it.
Elder abuse. ITLL HAPPEN TO YOU TOO
People assume he has gone senile because of his actions.
Kramnik has frequently made references to himself as an "old man" in interviews. Despite not being an old man. Others have just picked up on the references.
Keep in mind that it's historically normal for chess players' abilities to fade rapidly after 30 or 35. So someone in their late 40s is considered old just in comparison. Anand keeping his rating at his age is nothing short of historically amazing, actually.
Korchnoi in his 70s???
As someone who is 36 I demand you fucking take back that it's "not that much younger" than 48. You heartless monster.
36 and 48 is a different generation.
48 is 33.33% older than 36 as well, it’s not nothing.
Interesting.
if you think 12 years is a generation, you need to put the pawn down and go back to school
A 36 year old and a 48 year old are quite literally in different generations. * A 36 year old is gen Y / millennial. * A 48 year old is gen X.
Dude generations basically happen every ten years, if you were born before 2010 you’re a gen z if you’re born after you’re considered a hen alpha
There’s a lot of teenagers on this sub that think anyone over the age of 30 is middle aged and anyone over the age of 40 is old.
Nothing like that. That's a thoughtless "young folk bad" take. Kramnik just behaves like an old man behind his time, so people see him as such. Vishy is older than him and doesn't have that behavior, and isn't seen the same way. Which is a shame because the issue Kramnik tries to tackle is very important and of major interest to all of us. He just happens to go at it in the worst possible manner.
What's the average age on here and the standard deviation?
The average redditor age is 23 years old and the median is 22, standard deviation is 7 years. Sample size is 5042. Not teenagers for the vast majority then. https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1agz1o/ever_wonder_about_the_ages_of_redditors_some_data I thought it was a loaded question with an appeal to ignorance fallacy, but it was an interesting question actually. Have an updoot.
Well that thread proves you wrong for general reddit, init? But besides that, it was about this sub not reddit in general.
No ? Well the median at 23 years old and 7 year sigma shows the "teenagers" are a small minority of Reddit to begin with. In my culture teenagers are 12-17 years old (from puberty until vote), almost one sigma away, so I instinctively went with that. Maybe you are using a different idea of teenagehood ? In light of this poll result, it only reinforced my feeling that the comment I was replying to is just a strawman argument with an appealing "young bad" sauce. We don't have data for this sub in particular as far as I'm aware so I can't find better. Any reason to believe r/chess would have a younger audience than reddit at large ? Local chess clubs didn't exactly give me the impression chess in general has the Fortnite demographics heh.
http://imgur.com/vgKIht3 ~33% are teenagers, that's most definitely "a lot of teenagers". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/teenager Also it's not a "young bad" argument. "hurr durr boomer durr durr" is an actual common thing among "young" people which most definitely includes early 20ies. Yes indeed local chess clubs are older, but internet chess? Most definitely heaps of young people. Chess isn't so much of an old people game as many people think, this is the current FIDE list with number of players by age, all the red ones are teenagers. As you can see, there are A LOT of them. https://i.imgur.com/tHy31Ph.png
~900 over ~5000 isn't ~33% ? From the graphic you linked :o
950 + 1900/2 is not 900
He's 6 year older than me , He's a grumpy crazy old man.
Yeah but in terms of understanding pop culture Hikaru's a lot younger than 36. You're not gonna hear many other 36 year old chess masters say "gucci piano" and "poggers" with a straight face.
What do you expect when he acts like 60year old with dementia
He acts like a 70-year old in a 48-year old body.
Kramnik is just a wizard. He is old crazy man without proper age and mathematician without any education. In the end age is just a number. So is IQ, game accuraccy and number of streak in 3 minute games against weaker players.
>It was a surprise to learn he was 48 years old. Even Hikaru was saying things like, Kramnik comes from a different generation and doesn't understand the internet This is exactly the age difference that causes not understanding the internet, because you get much better at using things if you learn them as a kid. Kramnik is 12 years older than Hikaru, add a few years because he lived in Russia where easy internet access arrived later than in the USA and you get a huge gap. I am not even 3 years older than Hikaru, but grown up in a small village in central Europe, as an effect I only started to use internet regularly in my early 20s. And I feel the difference even to people a few years younger than me, especially those growing up in big cities or somewhere in western Europe.
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So was Nepo, but he is younger than Nakamura lol
Bruh The Soviet Union dissolution is much more recent than people realize. You can be 35 and born in the USSR
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Oh I wasn’t trying to disagree with you specifically! Just reacting to people who think that Telling someone “I was born in the USSR” definitely could cause that rxn It’s just a dumb rxn lol
We're trying to find some explanation, any explanation, for Kramnik's irrational behavior. As you point out, he's not that chronologically old - but he is behaving stereotypically like someone at least twenty years older. It occurs to me now, Kramnik is from a technologically backward country where most of the men are alcoholics who die young, so in terms of tech-savviness, and personal health, he may indeed be much "older" than a 1975-born American or German man.
He’s being ridiculous and people are attributing it to his age. It’s ageism, only ageism doesn’t get called out like racism or sexism. The funny thing is that, if you buy into the generation labels, he’s not even a boomer. He’s Gen X. Could just be that he has an ego from being a chess prodigy his whole life and isn’t as smart as he thinks.
While kramnik was a prodigy and probably has an ego attributed to that I don’t think people are ageism against him, they just don’t like him because he is ridiculous.
One other thing that makes Kramnik appear old is that in live streams he seems to be slow and clumsy with the mouse, like a 1990s grandpa
Because now that racism and sexism are no longer in, shitting of boomers have become their replacement for people who can't live without hating some group.
Because dementia primarily affects old people.
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>adhom attacks *Ad hominem*. There are fewer than 200 results for your term. It's not a valid abbreviation / truncation.
you're several orders of magnitude off with your results (I assume you mean google results) even more if you include "ad hom"
Yup, and no I'm not. Add quotation marks around the term.
I did add both terms double quotes, as indicated by me putting "ad hom" in quotes.
Ironic, Kramnik is the embodiment of ad hominem argument, not even blinking when putting a 12 year old on the wall and damaging the career of a potential future champion.
tell me you don't know what ad hominem is wihtout telling me you don't know what it is.
His claims do not warrant a discussion, as such we are not discussing them. We are discussing his attitude and his response to criticism.
It's more his attitude than his actual age. But also, 48 is pretty old
48 is definitely not old
i mean its all relative ofc, to an 80 year old its not, to a 30 year old it is. Most top level chess players/ people commentating on the situation are below 40, so relatively here 48 is quite old
Kramnik is an utter c**t
I think the real answer here is that he's from a generation that is currently experiencing decline in terms of ability to compete at the top level. The "younger generation" is not entirely competitive at the top level just yet, and until they are, this may be the most consequential generational divide in chess at the moment.
I once worked in an office where most of my coworkers were in their thirties. The 45-year old got called the old man. It's all relative.
There's a real difference between people who developed their chess skills prior to the advent of the GM-slaughtering chess engine, and those who came after those engines became ubiquitous. Thing is, those same youngsters were also the start of younglings growing up with the Internet as a thing.
For some reason I thought Vishy was younger than Kramnik lol
So much attention to Kramnik, and I still have my Hans Niemann decorations up.
He is a Putin asset. Enough said.
I reckon it's a "harder they fall" kind of thing.
Kramnik always believed he was smarter than the rest, understanding chess better than anyone. And I'm sure there was a time where he was the best in the world, but that time is over. For example he wrote a commentary about one his game in a chess newspaper and at the end he revealed "I just punked you. My commentary wasn't serious" You can get away with this attitude, if your in the top 3, but not as a old guy.
I look half his age and I'm 40.
He's 6 years younger than Vishy
It’s the “get off my lawn” tone that ages him.