If he was 2400 at his peak, I'd make him a substantial or even prohibitive underdog (probably something in the 50-1 or more range) to exceed that no matter what he did now.

Basically, Dan's high was so high that he is no longer likely to pass it.

Is that it?

That's correct. The chess rating system is essentially distributed along a Bell Curve. The further one advances above the middle of the spectrum the more effort it takes to advance further. To advance from 1400 to 1500 would require relatively little effort compared to going from 2400 to 2500.

I had a friend who was rated in the mid 2300s. He was the highest rated player in our state. He would compete in a local tournament winning 4 of 5 games with the fifth game ending in a draw. He would actually lose more rating points on that one drawn game than he gained from his 4 victories because of the difference between his rating and those of his weaker opponents.

As an example of the difficulty of advancing at the highest levels, in 1972 Bobby Fischer had a FIDE rating higher than the defending world champion Boris Spassky. Fischer won the match and received the world championship title, but his FIDE rating actually went down because he did not win the match by as large a margin as his pre-match rating indicated he should.

According to the retired GM who works down the hall from me this is correct.

Older grandmasters suffer from three problems: Number one is that they can't keep their concentration up for 6 hours anymore. Number two is that memory is starting to fade with age and chess is all about pattern recognition after all. Number three is that their opening-analysis is usually outdated and unfortunately that was where their biggest advantage came from.

For instance, Polugaevsky spend over a year analyzing his "variation" before he used it the first time in practice. Nowadays a 12-year old kid can press a button and an engine will provide a clear cut refutation. You can compare the influence of Rybka/Houdini on Chess to the influence that Snowie/Jellyfish had on Backgammon.

About the ranking: The world-ranking is based on rating which is based on performance. If you stop playing your rating stays put. Unfortunately there is rating-inflation of about 100 points in 10 years. This means if you stop playing with a rating of 2700, you will drop out of the top-100 in roughly 10 years. You cannot lose any titles though, so you will remain a grandmaster even if you wearing diapers again.

P.S.: It's pretty unlikely that Walter Brown can still make a living from chess these days. He can't beat the engine-generation and for the same reason his "secrets" have no market value anymore.

2400 like 30 years ago is pretty much GM-strength nowadays, because the requirements didn't change (you still need 2500), so he was actually pretty decent. Elo-inflation works in his favor and practice with Kasparov would certainly provide valuable insight and a ton of surprises. Still I think 70 is very close to the cuttoff, so I doubt he could make it. Even the best opening knowledge only gets you to a certain point and from then on you need a ton of stamina and precision to get to the finish.

I doubt Dan Harrington was 2400 FIDE, in this apparently self-penned bio he says he topped out at 2355 and I'm going to assume that's USCF which has always been somewhere around 100pts higher than FIDE and other National ELO ratings.

I always think it's amusing when people refer to players like that as 'masters' as though it means anything. There are at most 3 titles worth having in chess, GM, IM and to a lesser extent FM but things like Candidate Master or National Master are the equivalent of giving out gold stars to schoolkids. Those titles should come with a free fridge magnet.

This is a bit harsh. If you compare being a GM to making it to the NBA, then Candidate Master is something like making your highschool basketball team and National Master is like playing college basketball.

It's not a super high achievement but it takes a certain amount of work and dedication to the game.

It's more that civilians will be impressed by someone being a chess 'master' and might group a CM in with a GM yet when actual chess players talk about 'masters' they usually mean GMs or IMs at the least.

And each federation seems to have slightly different rating systems and different qualifications for their titles, I think it's a bit of a racket tbh.

I don't have anything against people getting titles to represent achievement, Candidate Master are all fine stuff as far as I'm concerned.

In terms of GM vs. NBA player though, I've done this math before. The ELO rating that is equivalent to being an NBA-level guy (top 500 in the world or so) is roughly 2550. I remember this because it annoys me that it's not an even 2500 or 2600. So I think that's about 50 ELO above GM-level.

If I ever come out of retirement, sounds like me-poker is too strong a lure, though, more so than chess nowadays.

For the average player,playing chess may prevent or slow the progression of Alzheimers

George Koltanowski always attributed not getting Alzheimers to playing chess, specifically blindfolded chess.

I always was like CSB but maybe he was right.

I didn't read the article but I remember a documentary about a town in California with a lot of centenarians (sp?). They interviewed them all and they all basically said they felt young and healthy because they were active both physically and mentally. Since the town was small they would do their own lawncare/gardening and walk down to the store and carry groceries back, etc. Up and down hills and stuff. And they talked about doing crossword puzzles and reading every day. Seems reasonable that if you exercise your mind and body they might remain healthier longer. These 100 year olds looked like they were mid-eighties imo. I was surprised they were 100.

Walter Browne RIP

I saw him literally 4 days ago and he looked almost exactly the same as I remember from 5 years ago, which was similar to 5 years before that, etc.

Wow. He posted 4/6 points at the National Open (where I saw him) and rating went from 2473 to 2479, so maybe not quite GM level but right about there just a handful of days before he passed away.

Wow, he wasn't that old for someone who was a legend of American chess. A few years younger than Fischer.

I got a diploma for the FM title, along with a pin that reads "woman fide master"