Nice blog!
I agree with basically everything you said, although I believe another reason to cause this could just be life.
Emotional struggles outside of chess, etc.
But very nice!
@ARMANDAS_130
For sure! Personal life is something that can definitely impact chess ability but is hard to analyze since players do not share their personal struggles. Thanks for the kind words!
People are also not built to play at maximum performance all the time for years long.
The brain is to chessplayers like what muscles are to professional athletes. They're supposed to peak at the right time of the season by training with the right intensity and resting on the right moments.
I believe if you try to keep that peak for a long period of time it will cause damage to you in some way, like mental damage to chessplayers and physical and mental damage to athletes.
@Geelse_zot
For sure, trying to stay on top for forever is near impossible even for the best, but it's not impossible. Carlsen was not always at his peak, but he was close enough to not lose the #1 spot for over a decade.
1) Your analysis is flawed, as there is no de-correlation procedure in your reasoning.
You would need to prove that Giris decline can be explained neither by age decay nor by rating deflation (both being proven effects).
I am arguing that it can be explained primarily by age. A striking comparison is given by MVL, who has experienced a decline highly similar to the one of Giri.
Similar to others such as MVL, Mamedyarov, Harikrishna and even Carlsen himself, he is experiencing signs of age. I will admit that it has happened a tad early for Giri, but, statistically speaking, this behaviour is not out of bounds.
I doubt that you have conducted a statistically rigorous de-correlation procedure. So this is anecdotical evidence at best.
2) Now the more important part.
It sickens me to see you comparing Ding with GothamChess. On one hand, you have Rozman, a goofball streamer that, after playing seven tournaments in half a year, is now exactly at the playing strength he left at a few years ago. Statistically, there is nothing even remotely peculiar about it. He had some good and some bad tournaments, that's it.
One the other hand, you have Ding, who has been officially diagnosed with depression, went twice (!!) into mental health clinics, takes heavy medication (which is known to heavily affect your brain functions, e.g. making you sleepy (!)) and has been very open-minded at explaining these aspects in multiple interviews.
As both a Ding fan and also a person that is struggling with (officially diagnosed) depression for years: How -dare- you to downplay such a serious condition?
you wouldn't recommend a person with a broken leg to "change".
3) you are right with one thing: If you are in a poor mental state, you need to get help. The tools that you need to generate inspiration, motivation and action are exactly the tools that are missing when the struggle gets serious.
> Similar to others such as MVL, Mamedyarov, Harikrishna and even Carlsen himself, he is experiencing signs of age. I will admit that it has happened a tad early for Giri, but, statistically speaking, this behaviour is not out of bounds.
I don't believe so, since Giri bounced back during Tata steel, which would imply that his decline was only temporary-which would mean it's not age.
> I doubt that you have conducted a statistically rigorous de-correlation procedure. So this is anecdotical evidence at best.
Of course! Of course it's not statistically rigorous, but that doesn't mean it's not true or useful.
> 2) Now the more important part.
> It sickens me to see you comparing Ding with GothamChess. On one hand, you have Rozman, a goofball streamer that, after playing seven tournaments in half a year, is now exactly at the playing strength he left at a few years ago. Statistically, there is nothing even remotely peculiar about it. He had some good and some bad tournaments, that's it.
> One the other hand, you have Ding, who has been officially diagnosed with depression, went twice (!!) into mental health clinics, takes heavy medication (which is known to heavily affect your brain functions, e.g. making you sleepy (!)) and has been very open-minded at explaining these aspects in multiple interviews.
>
> As both a Ding fan and also a person that is struggling with (officially diagnosed) depression for years: How -dare- you to downplay such a serious condition?
>
> you wouldn't recommend a person with a broken leg to "change".
I am not the only one who compared Ding to Levy, Levy himself did so. They both have psychological struggles causing them to play poorly while having that strength "down there", but of course Ding was in a more serious state. I did not intend to disrespect anyone with such a condition, and I hope you are able to treat it as well as possible.
> 3) you are right with one thing: If you are in a poor mental state, you need to get help. The tools that you need to generate inspiration, motivation and action are exactly the tools that are missing when the struggle gets serious.
I agree
"I don't believe so, since Giri bounced back during Tata steel, which would imply that his decline was only temporary-which would mean it's not age."
Incorrect. You have to decouple the systematic trend from the statistical noise in order to infer rigorous statements.
The elo system itself is based on standard statistical assumptions, namely that there are more than enough high-frequency components in the playing strength distribution, leading to natural variations. In the elo curve, you can also simply separate this by applying a low-pass filter.
"I am not the only one who compared Ding to Levy, Levy himself did so. "
This does not shield you from criticism. My above post applies to Rozman himself, too. As I do not consume his content, I do not care too much about it. But I do here, as I think that LiChess is a high-quality platform, and written statements typically can be held to a higher intellectual standard than clickbaity youtube content.
I just think it is highly inappropriate to compare both. There is literally no evidence that Rozman has more strength "down there", and his tournaments results (if considered as a total) do not suggest otherwise.
I have a guy in my chess team in his twenties.
In February 2024, his elo was 2290.
In June, it was 2360.
In November, 2260.
Now, it is 2295 again.
Did he became a super-strong-player during summer, a super-weak-one in autumn ?
No. It is simple statistics, but for a player that obviously has larger statistical variance than others have.
It is the oldest trick in the book that we attribute every rating gain as proof of our "superior understanding", of having the "strength down there" etc, whereas every rating loss is attributed to some little sickness, some mental block etc. etc;
I do know how mental problems affect the playing style. I know what went through my head during games when I was healthy, and I do know what went through my head in the last years. With Ding, it is similar. With Rozman, not so much.
@Geck0
You are correct, reasoning about Giri and others comparing Levy and Ding is not logical. This is simply my opinion. While I would argue that Levy is stronger than his rating, I understand that you think differently. I understand that mental problems can affect playing chess differently, and hope that all who have that can defeat it.
very nice
@LD_Sayulnethdula
Thanks!