23-12-2011, 05:12 PM
I think the other players you've named are more qualified to answer your question than I am, David, so I'll let them handle it.
The one thing I will say - and its a point that others, including me, have made before - is that for quite a long time now (at least a decade) our top young players have been reaching levels between 2150 and 2250 and then failing to improve further, and that we should try to make sure this doesn't continue to happen, although Clement and Calum's recent performances are certainly hopeful signs with regard to this particular issue.
One point which shouldn't be overlooked, of course, and which has some bearing on Andy M's comparison between generations, is that it's much less easy to make money from chess now than it was a few decades ago. You need to be a stronger player to get appearance fees (chess in Western Europe never really recovered from the 1990s influx of GMs from the Eastern Bloc who were prepared to play for less), while prize funds are generally smaller. Add in the lure of pursuits like poker, which are considerably more lucrative and apparently very rewarding for people with the kind of thinking skills developed by chess, and investing the large amounts of time necessary to improve to titled strength becomes less tempting.
It's also worth noting, on that point, that the stronger you get, the harder improvement becomes. This increasingly steep curve of development unfortunately corresponds, in most cases, to people's lives becoming busier, with school exams and then university providing a steadily increasing workload. All of this combines to militate against our top young players becoming as good as they can be.
All of this doesn't mean that we should be seeking to make being a 2300 as financially rewarding as it was in the 1970s: that would be a ridiculous line to take. It is, however, worth bearing in mind.
The one thing I will say - and its a point that others, including me, have made before - is that for quite a long time now (at least a decade) our top young players have been reaching levels between 2150 and 2250 and then failing to improve further, and that we should try to make sure this doesn't continue to happen, although Clement and Calum's recent performances are certainly hopeful signs with regard to this particular issue.
One point which shouldn't be overlooked, of course, and which has some bearing on Andy M's comparison between generations, is that it's much less easy to make money from chess now than it was a few decades ago. You need to be a stronger player to get appearance fees (chess in Western Europe never really recovered from the 1990s influx of GMs from the Eastern Bloc who were prepared to play for less), while prize funds are generally smaller. Add in the lure of pursuits like poker, which are considerably more lucrative and apparently very rewarding for people with the kind of thinking skills developed by chess, and investing the large amounts of time necessary to improve to titled strength becomes less tempting.
It's also worth noting, on that point, that the stronger you get, the harder improvement becomes. This increasingly steep curve of development unfortunately corresponds, in most cases, to people's lives becoming busier, with school exams and then university providing a steadily increasing workload. All of this combines to militate against our top young players becoming as good as they can be.
All of this doesn't mean that we should be seeking to make being a 2300 as financially rewarding as it was in the 1970s: that would be a ridiculous line to take. It is, however, worth bearing in mind.