An interesting observation. Continuously active competitive chessplayers keep on getting stronger until at some point in their careers, they hit a plateau, and then sometime in middle age begin sliding down; with intermittent valleys and peaks interspersed all throughout. Within a population of interacting players, this is reflected in their ratings. For most chessplayers before the computer age, the chess plateau seemed to occur at around the ages of 26 to 40. There are notable exceptions. Morphy, Lasker, Pillsbury, Reshevsky, Fine, Keres, Tal, Karpov, Kasparov, and Kramnik seemed to have been playing near their plateau right out of their teens or in their early 20s; but in general this trend can be seen for such luminaries as Anderssen, Steinitz, Rubinstein, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Smyslov, Petrosian, Spassky, Korchnoi, Fischer, and Anand. At the other end, Anderssen, Steinitz, Lasker, Botvinnik, and Karpov were still close to their high plateau even at 50.

ALL players now have a deeper repertoire, so it is unclear if the advent of chess software benefits one group more than the other.

Good point. Instead of going through dozens of printed chess magazines, openings books, and tournament books, the masters of the 1990s (including Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Shirov, Kamsky and so on) just have to press a few buttons on the keyboard. Computers make research easier for every one.

Had good computer chess software existed in 1980s, then there could have been a glut of of teen GMs right in 1990, beginning with the above players. They probably would have reached their plateau earlier. Or maybe not, as there are other hypotheses given below.

<The appearance of several teen GMs might be due to ratings 'devaluation.' When Bobby Fischer was a teenager, there were approximately 200 GMs in the world. Now, I guess, there are several thousand. This makes the GM title a bit watered down.>

Indeed, there seems to be a popular feeling that the term Grandmaster had a higher value before the 1990s. Has any mathematician made a thesis on <ratings devaluation>?

Thus in the above discussion, the appearance of numerous teen GMs in the 2000s may be due to

1. Computer chess softwares.
2. Ratings devaluation.
3. The existence of numerous GMs today makes it easier for non GMs to make the norms.

Other hypotheses:

4. I think there was a time when FIDE required only 2 norms; or in brief made it easier to become a GM, resulting in a sudden increase of GMs, which in turn would lead to #3 above.

5. The dissolution of the Soviet Union allowed numerous local players there, who were already playing chess at GM levels but could not make the norms because the tournaments they played in were mostly unrated or were all limited to Soviet Union citizens, to play in international tournaments in Western Europe which were rated and which had the required participants from multiple countries to create GM norms.

I guess its irrelevant, given that, after following a few strong tournaments each year, you realize who the real killers are.

Quite right. For any given population of interacting active chessplayers, every one gets to quickly know who the real killers are.

<HeMateMe: Because livestock are fed with feed that contains steroids, some of this is thought to be going into the reproduction cycle, we are 'growing' bigger, larger kids. Could they mean a larger, more efficiant brain?>

Unfortunately not. Our genes program the number of neurons we have at birth, and neurons do not divide to form more neurons after they have differentiated. They can die though; but fortunately there is usually enough to keep our brains functional for a lifetime.

The upright stance of humans also result in narrower pelvises. Larger pelvises would result in women who could not walk upright. For more than a hundred thousand years, any baby born with too large a head, resulting in a cephalo-pelvic disproportion, died. Often along with its mother. "Died at childbirth" was quite common before modern Medicine, and this was one of the reasons. I would guess that this was one of the evolutionary constraints regarding growing a larger brain.

I have read somewhere that Spassky said that the years in which he was World Champion were the worst years of his life.

"After I won the title, I was confronted with the real world. People do not behave naturally anymore - hypocrisy is everywhere."

"In my country, at that time, being a champion of chess was like being a King. At that time I was a King … and when you are King you feel a lot of responsibility, but there is nobody there to help you."

<"After I won the title, I was confronted with the real world. People do not behave naturally anymore - hypocrisy is everywhere.">

<"In my country, at that time, being a champion of chess was like being a King. At that time I was a King … and when you are King you feel a lot of responsibility, but there is nobody there to help you.">

<He also apparently said that he wanted never to be champion again.>

It's funny...in the video interview with Susan Polgar at the Olympics last year, he showed he could be ironic with a totally straight face, when he said something like: "...you know, I did not know it, but Morozevich was the author of the Merano variation...". Of course, he was being ironic. The Meran variation was pioneered by Rubinstein in Meran, 1924, and it takes its name from that tournament.

Karpov once wrote the following about Spassky:

“I consider myself to be an idler, too, but the dimensions of Spassky’s laziness were astounding” (Karpov on Karpov: ‘Memoirs of a Chess World Champion’, page 98)

No wonder he did not like the pressure of being champion.

Of all the world champions, the hardest working ones (in chronological order) must be: