When are chess players at their best?
Three studies have looked at it, in different ways.
| Study | Who | What they found |
|---|---|---|
| Roring and Charness, 2007 | 5,011 active elite players | the peak comes later than was once thought, whatever your starting strength |
| Vaci, Gula, and Bilalić, 2015 | tournament players | the peak comes around 38; those who play many tournaments decline less afterward |
| Strittmatter, Sunde, and Zegners, 2020 | over 24,000 games by world champions and their opponents, 1890–2014 | a sharp rise until the early twenties, then a plateau with a peak around 35, then a decline |
The last study, which was about the very best, also found that the peak has come earlier and earlier over the years.
Older players think as well
Neil Charness had older and younger players solve problems at the board. Memory got worse with age, but the older players solved the problems as well as younger players of the same strength.
Starting late
Among the Argentine tournament players Fernand Gobet and Guillermo Campitelli studied, about one in four of those who started playing seriously at age 12 or earlier reached international level, meaning grandmaster or international master. Of those who started later, it was one in 55.
But 54.5 percent of those who started after 12 reached national level, a 2000 rating, against 75.6 percent of those who started earlier. So starting after 12 didn't close the road to a high level.
Getting started
Begin with the lessons, play a computer opponent at your level, and read How do you learn chess? After that it's about training, see How do you get better at chess?
Sources
- R. W. Roring and N. Charness: A multilevel model analysis of expertise in chess across the life span, Psychology and Aging 22 (2007), the abstract
- N. Vaci, B. Gula, and M. Bilalić: Is age really cruel to experts? Compensatory effects of activity, Psychology and Aging 30 (2015), the abstract
- A. Strittmatter, U. Sunde, and D. Zegners: Life cycle patterns of cognitive performance over the long run, PNAS 117 (2020)
- N. Charness: Aging and skilled problem solving, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 110 (1981), the abstract
- F. Gobet and G. Campitelli: The role of domain-specific practice, handedness, and starting age in chess, Developmental Psychology 43 (2007)
The facts on this page come from the sources above and, where possible, were checked across several sources. Where the sources disagree, we say less or say what each one says. A number that is an estimate says whose it is, and a counted number comes with its date.
Updated November 14, 2026