When 24-year-old Magnus Carlsen won the recent Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee the next four players in the table were the same age or younger than him, while the Challengers was won by 15-year-old Chinese prodigy Wei Yi. In a new article Vlad Tkachiev uses that as a starting point for exploring the way the generations change in chess and how technology has affected that process. He’s come up with a fascinating characterisation of the seven generations that make up the current World Top 100.

The following article originally appeared in Russian at ChEsSay.





Massacre by the innocents

by Vlad Tkachiev

“The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!

That ever I was born to set it right!”

Shakespeare, Hamlet

“The existence of almost universally

available digital and internet-related

technology leads – given active

engagement with that new technology

– to a clear generation gap.”

Chris Jones

Exodus – that was the succinct biblical term Jan Timman used to describe the wave of players that flooded the West from the East in the late-80s and early-90s. Gelfand, Anand, Ivanchuk, Shirov – those were only the most famous, with dozens or hundreds of other previously unknown players, mainly from the Soviet bloc, beginning to occupy the top places in opens, round-robins and not only there: it came to the point that in 1992 second place at the World Chess Olympiad in Manila was taken by Uzbekistan, while third went to Armenia – I can still clearly recall the shock the others felt at seeing what had happened before their eyes. It’s no surprise that Magnus Carlsen, born in 1990, was barely out of nappies when he took an interest in geography – at that time it was first-rate entertainment, as in the days of Columbus and Vasco da Gama.

The chess world was shaken by tectonic shifts, but it wasn’t only the Great Migration that was to blame – at the same time we found out we weren’t alone, since another “intelligent entity” was taking a serious interest in chess. The computer.

The company ChessBase appeared in Germany in 1986, and in the following year it had already created the first program for processing chess data. Among its famous clients – Garry Kasparov and World Junior Champion Vishy Anand. A little later – in 1990 – a competitor emerged – ChessAssistant, initially attracting mainly Russian-speaking users. Finally a new technological breakthrough took place two years later, when the same ChessBase published one of the first widely available chess-playing programs with the catchy name “Fritz”. “Fritzy” was how it was affectionately called by the first black and white computer pioneers, as though it was a favourite pet. The silicon animal didn’t yet play very strongly, but it grew at a helter-skelter pace and had absolutely no inferiority complex. Then, in 1994, it went and claimed a win against none other than the World Champion Kasparov. For the time being, it was just in rapid chess, but the news nevertheless made headlines around the world. Human dominance of the most complex of games was coming to an end.

The subsequent episodes in the confrontation between man and machine at the board are of more interest to marketers and PR specialists. It was more significant that the “silicon friend” allowed a mass of young players to make a qualitative leap forward in their preparation. The old guard of players less receptive to technological innovations was swept off the historical stage in only a few years. Remember Linares in those years: 1989, 1st place – Ivanchuk, 1990, 1-2nd place Kasparov and Gelfand, 1991 – again Ivanchuk. The difference in the opening weaponry of the new and the outgoing generations was stunning and the old rules were unable to keep up with the reality:



After the game was adjourned the knight manoeuvre f4 - g6 - f8 - h7 - g5 was found by Michael with the help of the program Chess Genius.

81. ♔e3 ♔e6 82. ♘f4+ ♔d6 83. ♘g6 ♘b4 84. ♔d2 ♘c6 85. ♔e3 ♘b4 86. ♘f8 ♘c2+ 87. ♔f4 ♘xd4 88. a5 ♔e7 89. ♘xh7 ♘e6+ 90. ♔e3 ♘c5 91. ♘g5 ♔f8 92. ♔d4 ♘a6 93. ♘e6+ ♔g8 94. ♔xd5 ♘c7+ 95. ♔xe4 ♘xe6 96. ♔f5 ♘c5 97. ♔xf6 ♘d7+ 98. ♔f5 ♔h7 99. g5 ♘c5 100. ♔f6 ♘d7+ 101. ♔e6

1-0

Many years later – the way Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Wesley So and Ding Liren, led, as usual, by Magnus Carlsen, dealt with the older participants in Wijk aan Zee 2015 gave me a very strong feeling of déjà vu and the urge to grasp the reasons behind what had taken place. Was it a coincidence, or the dawning of a New Era? More likely the latter, and in that case it makes sense to reflect on the passage of generations in our sport.

An attempt at classification

It’s self-evident that we can’t get away from the generally-accepted division into:

Generation X: those born in the period from 1968-1982

Generation Y (millennials): those who saw the light of day from 1983 until the early 90s

Generation Z: those who did the same from the early 90s to the late 2000s

But then again, why can’t we? Recall your own chess childhood and you’ll agree: you can only consider people to be in the same generation if they play in the same age category or at least had that opportunity. From there the conclusion follows: in our case the gap between two adjacent generations should be no greater than five years. Of course, there’s a problem with the falsification of the age of young talents to make them younger than they are, but we won’t look into that here; that’s a separate and fascinating topic. Let’s instead try to put together a table with the seven generations represented in the current Top 100:

Generation №1 (1968 — 1972)

Generation №2 (1973 — 1977)

Generation №3 (1978 — 1981)

Generation №4 (1982 — 1985)

Generation №5 (1986 — 1989)

Generation №6 (1990 — 1994)

Generation №7 (1995 — 1999)

Note that:

The information was put together based on the main FIDE rating list for 1st February 2015.

Only one player is missing from the classification – Nigel Short, born in 1965. I’m sure Nigel will be flattered by his uniqueness

As you’ll see below, among the otherwise male names there are also two women: Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan. Only the exceptional nature of their achievements forced me to forget decency and note the age of those fine women. I wouldn’t, however, dare to put together a similar scale for women’s chess.

Let’s look at the distinguishing features of each of the age cohorts:

Generation №1

Country Name B-Year Rank Rating Anand, Viswanathan 1969 6 2797 Gelfand, Boris 1968 15 2747 Adams, Michael 1971 17 2738 Ivanchuk, Vassily 1969 23 2731 Shirov, Alexei 1972 54 2689 Akopian, Vladimir 1971 89 2660 Van Wely, Loek 1972 95 2657

Akopian and Shirov are pupils of the Botvinnik School, Gelfand – of the Petrosian School. When it comes to Ivanchuk everything is clear from my previous article , while Anand played his first strong round-robin tournaments in the USSR. The enormous influence of the Soviet School of Chess can be felt in everything that concerns this outstanding crop of players – from fundamental opening preparation to competence in handling endgames – after all, they were still in time to catch adjournments. Generation №1 undoubtedly ended up scorched by the glow of Kasparov, since his star was in the ascendency at just that moment, but it managed to hold on into better times when he quit chess. Where does such long-term stability come from? I’d note that the First League of the USSR Championship lasted over a month, so these guys have seen everything in their careers. And they’ll still see a lot more!

They were the first to explore new methods of preparation while still preserving the “timeworn recipes”. Some of them also recently adapted to the latest novelty: cloud computing when analysing the opening. How else can you play a World Championship match?

Generation №2

Country Name B-Year Rank Rating Topalov, Veselin 1975 4 2800 Kramnik, Vladimir 1975 8 2783 Svidler, Peter 1976 16 2739 Morozevich, Alexander 1977 37 2711 Almasi, Zoltan 1976 45 2701 Rublevsky, Sergei 1974 47 2698 Polgar, Judit 1976 66 2675 Kamsky, Gata 1974 70 2671 Onischuk, Alexander 1975 79 2665 Tiviakov, Sergei 1973 86 2661 Sadler, Matthew D 1974 93 2658 Zvjaginsev, Vadim 1976 94 2658 Nielsen, Peter Heine 1973 99 2654 Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter 1976 100 2654

Many of those in this category stunned the world as prodigies: Polgar, Kamsky, Kramnik, Svidler – which is no surprise. The borders had only just opened up and natural talent was no longer cramped by artificial barriers. I find this generation appealing for the way it seeks out innovative approaches to chess theory, although not all of them, alas, managed to achieve the desired results – economic difficulties played their part. Nevertheless, let’s not forget that almost all of them came from Eastern Europe. This is the period that gave us the conqueror of Garry Kasparov – Vladimir Kramnik, and the old-timers still remember what that meant. Much more than the World Championship title alone.

In their training methods they turned out to be very similar to their predecessors, which is logical: how else could you expect three pupils of Mikhail Botvinnik, two of Mark Dvoretsky and their peers to act?

Generation №3

Country Name B-Year Rank Rating Leko, Peter 1979 33 2713 Fressinet, Laurent 1981 39 2706 Malakhov, Vladimir 1980 40 2706 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam 1979 42 2705 Moiseenko, Alexander 1980 51 2695 Sasikiran, Krishnan 1981 58 2682 Motylev, Alexander 1979 78 2665 Movsesian, Sergei 1978 82 2663

These players weren’t spoiled either by financial well-being or an abundance of round-robin tournaments, so have become associated above all with the knockout system, opens and the role of second. Street fighters in a time of stagnation who settled down in analysis rooms. Their greatest achievement – Kasimdzhanov’s victory in Tripoli in 2004, though there are a lot of less significant ones.

The technical opportunities that opened up to them encountered a lack of grounding in fundamental knowledge (where could they get that from?), and failed to offer the most impressive of prospects to these players. Talent isn’t everything.

Note: there’s just one player born in those years to which none of the above applies – Peter Leko. But that “super-prodigy” of his time can be more logically allocated to Generation №2.

Generation №4

Country Name B-Year Rank Rating Grischuk, Alexander 1983 3 2810 Aronian, Levon 1982 9 2777 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 1985 13 2759 Navara, David 1985 19 2735 Jakovenko, Dmitry 1983 22 2733 Eljanov, Pavel 1983 26 2727 Dominguez Perez, Leinier 1983 27 2726 Ponomariov, Ruslan 1983 34 2713 Bacrot, Etienne 1983 36 2711 Naiditsch, Arkadij 1985 38 2706 Vallejo Pons, Francisco 1982 41 2706 Ni, Hua 1983 43 2704 Jobava, Baadur 1983 48 2696 Bruzon Batista, Lazaro 1982 52 2692 Riazantsev, Alexander 1985 55 2688 Korobov, Anton 1985 56 2687 Bu, Xiangzhi 1985 59 2681 Alekseev, Evgeny 1985 62 2677 Inarkiev, Ernesto 1985 65 2675 McShane, Luke J 1984 69 2672 Sargissian, Gabriel 1983 75 2668 Berkes, Ferenc 1985 77 2666 Petrosian, Tigran L. 1984 83 2663 Efimenko, Zahar 1985 98 2655

But this was the Big Bang! It was breath-taking to observe the successive spurts put on by the leaders of this movement: first, in the late 90s, Etienne Bacrot, then Grischuk in 2000, Ponomariov in 2001 and finally Aronian in 2006. They continue, as before, to move chess forwards and exchange places on the rating lists. As before, they haven’t shown everything they’re capable of. The blame for that, it seems to me, is the overwhelming wealth of temptations of the digital era that suddenly opened up to them: poker, online betting, live internet sports. The result – a lack of focus bordering on slovenliness. As before, I believe they can produce a classical World Champion – they’ve picked up all the other titles.

Generation №5

Country Name B-Year Rank Rating Nakamura, Hikaru 1987 10 2776 Vitiugov, Nikita 1987 20 2735 Wojtaszek, Radoslaw 1987 21 2734 Radjabov, Teimour 1987 24 2731 Li, Chao b 1989 25 2728 Wang, Yue 1987 28 2726 Harikrishna, P. 1986 30 2723 Tomashevsky, Evgeny 1987 31 2716 Wang, Hao 1989 35 2713 Lysyj, Igor 1987 46 2700 Kryvoruchko, Yuriy 1986 53 2692 Cheparinov, Ivan 1986 60 2681 Zhigalko, Sergei 1989 64 2675 Melkumyan, Hrant 1989 67 2673 Jones, Gawain C B 1987 71 2670 Grachev, Boris 1986 72 2670 Laznicka, Viktor 1988 73 2670 Areshchenko, Alexander 1986 87 2661 Rodshtein, Maxim 1989 88 2660 Balogh, Csaba 1987 90 2659 Kovalenko, Igor 1988 96 2656

Fierce professionals. Dangerous and tenacious. But something seems to have gone wrong for those born in this period, and the result is that a lot of them followed in the footsteps of generation №3, helping out leading players. Should an explanation be sought in the effect of the financial crisis in 1998, the collapse of start-ups at the turn of the century or the fall of the Twin Towers, as sociologists claim? I don’t know.

It seems they were the first leading chess players to be active on social networks, thus laying the foundations for the “Digital Natives” who would follow them. That’s a separate topic…

Zeitgeist*

*(Ger.) Spirit of the times

Generation №6

Country Name B-Year Rank Rating Carlsen, Magnus 1990 1 2865 Caruana, Fabiano 1992 2 2811 Giri, Anish 1994 5 2797 So, Wesley 1993 7 2788 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 1990 11 2775 Karjakin, Sergey 1990 12 2760 Ding, Liren 1992 14 2755 Andreikin, Dmitry 1990 18 2737 Yu, Yangyi 1994 29 2724 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 1990 32 2714 Matlakov, Maxim 1991 50 2695 Sjugirov, Sanan 1993 61 2678 Le, Quang Liem 1991 63 2676 Hou, Yifan 1994 68 2672 Negi, Parimarjan 1993 74 2669 Kuzubov, Yuriy 1990 76 2667 Howell, David W L 1990 81 2663 Saric, Ivan 1990 84 2661 Shankland, Samuel L 1991 85 2661 Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son 1990 92 2659 Robson, Ray 1994 97 2656

Welcome to the Winners’ Club! Blessed are those who were born in these years for the Kingdom of the Present is theirs! If it’s appropriate to talk about a sense of the spirit of the times in chess, then it’s these guys who now possess it – a combination of practicality with assertiveness, computer and old-fashioned methods of preparation, athleticism away from the board and enviable concentration during games. They’re successful and attractive for sponsors and tournament organisers. They’ve been chosen as both role and top models.

This is also the first truly international generation, with many coming from different corners of the world. The reason for that is obvious – the accessibility of information technology, levelling the playing field the same way Mr. Colt and the railways did in the Wild West.



For the record, in case anyone has forgotten:

Skype became widely available in the mid-2000s, Facebook in 2008, with Twitter and torrents appearing at about the same time. Explaining the significance of Skype for online study and torrents for finding free books and DVDs is no doubt unnecessary, just as there's no need to explain the importance of those two platforms for finding contacts. You can add the appearance of low-cost airlines, smartphones with chess apps and tablets that are convenient to take with you everywhere… The dawn of the Golden Age of universal chess education couldn’t help but lead to the growth of abundant new shoots.

I predict a period of unprecedented popularity for our game. When electronic machines start to play chess, and successfully, it will be such an important event that every schoolboy will want to get to know about them. In world history it will be of comparable significance to the discovery of fire. The young will be bound to study not only computer technology and programming but also chess itself. And when hundreds of times more young people start studying chess and many of them devote their lives to it – then we’ll have a real chance for a new generation of Spasskys and Tals.

Mikhail Botvinnik, 1968

Botvinnik may have been wrong about a few things, but overall he anticipated the future: the current Top 10 features four of this generation, the Top 20 has eight. They hold the World Championship title and the 1st and 2nd places on the rating list. Will there be more? It seems as though the next column has lined up behind them…

Protocyborgs

Generation №7

Country Name B-Year Rank Rating Rapport, Richard 1996 44 2703 Wei, Yi 1999 49 2695 Fedoseev, Vladimir 1995 57 2684 Artemiev, Vladislav 1998 91 2659

I was eleven or twelve years old. I used a computer to prepare for tournaments and play on the internet. Now children start to play chess even sooner and learn the rules on a computer screen. In that sense, I’m old-fashioned. Technological progress leads to the appearance of younger and younger top players all around the world.

Magnus Carlsen

Before writing this article I asked an elite player how he’d explain the way the current early developers have grown so rapidly. His reply was short and to the point:

What do you expect? They’ve all got the world’s best coach, whose play is incomparably stronger, and he’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

I didn’t try to find out the name of the mentor.

There are probably few people nowadays for whom the computer plays as important a role as it does for chess players, particularly young ones. It’s a teacher, guide, advisor and friend. Almost a part of their body or, in any case, disconnection from the internet can be a very hard blow for an awful lot of people. And the main thing is that the computer is the bearer of Truth. In that sense, the chess world today is nothing but the arena for a great anthropological experiment. You don’t agree? Ok, how comfortable would you feel watching an online broadcast without an engine evaluation? That’s what I’m talking about!

But:

The computer answers questions but it’s incapable of asking them.

David Bronstein

The best ideas, never mind conceptions, are still the fruit of human imagination. The 0.00 that flashes up on the screen isn’t too great a help, so you need to get away from it and pay no attention. Is everyone capable of that?

Among the challenges for today’s teenagers is – despite the “copy-paste” syndrome and multitasking (every minute the telephone rings, you get an e-mail or a message on Skype or Facebook) – to preserve a creative spark and the ability to establish contacts not only on social networks.

As advice from the sidelines I’d note that the representatives of the super-successful 6th wave didn’t break off contacts with the custodians of “age-old wisdom”: Carlsen is helped by Nielsen, Caruana by Chuchelov and Giri by Tukmakov. But what am I talking about? It’s all going to work out for the teens in any case – it’ll just be interesting to observe how.

In place of a conclusion

In late 2012 I once again travelled to my beloved Jakarta to play an open tournament. Apart from myself there was no shortage of European grandmasters with a rating of 2620 +/- 50 points; all of them, in one way or another, with hopeful plans of picking up a substantial prize – all thwarted by the time the race was run. The factor we hadn’t taken into account was the participation of a group of still very young Chinese adolescents who thrashed us all – during worried evening meals the only topic of conversation was those hooligans. Many of them have since made a name for themselves: Lu Shanglei at the blitz tournament in Dubai (beating Carlsen, Mamedyarov…), Bai Jinshi won the London Chess Classic Open, while there’s no need to talk about Wei Yi… The future of the second chess superpower arranged a worldwide premiere just for us, with a clash of generations, civilisations and philosophies. And here’s what left the deepest impression on me: the way, whether it was evening, afternoon or morning, they would gather in the lobby of the Grand Sahid Hotel, connect to the free Wi-Fi and spend hours immersed in surfing the internet. They didn’t talk to one another. They didn’t drink anything. They paid no attention to their surroundings. They were off on their notebooks, tablets and smartphones – somewhere very far away.

They say we fear the unknown. For us, seasoned professionals, it was terrifying.





About the author GM Vlad Tkachiev Vlad was born in Russia but grew up in Kazakhstan and now represents France. A Kazakh and French national champion and the winner of the 2007 European Championship, his first love has always been rapid chess, which he hopes will become the main form of the game. In recent years he set up the website WhyChess and now writes a blog, ChEsSay. | photo: Irina Stepaniuk



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