Honestly, I’ve attempted to learn chess multiple times during my life. I never got anywhere and quit quickly. With the start of the pandemic, support of my wife and help from a friend, I am now obsessed. I wonder, how many other seniors are in a similar situation? Are you participating in tournaments? Are you rated? How’s it going? Oh, for the record, I’m 68. And, despite quite intensive study, actually playing games still terrifies me. How common is that?
Depends how you define “old” – but even though I learned the moves when I was a kid, I didn’t start playing seriously until I was 30 (that was in 1985). Before that, I had no idea that there were such things as tournaments that I could play in – I thought chess tournaments were for people like Bobby Fischer.
Anyway, my initial rating was around 1200. Roughly 10 years later, I got above 1600 a few times for brief periods, but fell away from that level in the late 1990s, and have never gotten back there (although I got close – 1581 – five or six years ago). These days, I mostly hang around my floor of 1400. I’m currently 66 years old. I played (and directed) fairly regularly until the pandemic started, but haven’t done either since (online chess holds no interest for me). I plan to start playing and directing again when and if things get back to something like normal.
I can’t say I was ever terrified of playing OTB. My dad tried to dissuade me from playing in tournaments, claiming that “those people are really good” and that I didn’t stand a chance. However, I did it anyway, and quickly found out that there were plenty of others as bad as me or worse. I won a game in my first tournament, and have had winless tournaments only a few times. I’ve lost quite a few more games than I’ve won, but that has never depressed me or scared me to any great extent. I just play for fun, and I’ve had a lot of fun even in games that I didn’t win. Even when some little kid who can hardly reach the board beats me (and that has happened more than a few times), it doesn’t really bother me. I figure I made a little kid happy if nothing else, and that’s as satisfying as winning.
The only way to get un-terrified is to jump in and actually play. You should wait until the pandemic is over so you won’t have to play online and get additionally terrified by all the equipment and cameras.
OTB (over-the-board) tournaments are often divided into sections, like Open, Under-1800, Under-1600, Under 1400, Under-1200, etc. Play in one of the lower sections if your ego can’t stand losing a lot of games. Who knows, if you beat a couple of Under-1200 players, maybe the tournament director will let you move up a section or two for the rest of the tournament.
Bill Smythe
I did not get serious about the game until my late teens early 20’s-my buddy’s dad always had a chess set set up in his living room -Started playing him and got hooked.
Are you recently retired? Taking up tournament chess sounds like a great project for when you retire. I recently retired, and a new project like that would be good, but not chess, because already I learned how to play, when I was a kid.
Many years ago, I met a woman who was about 50 and had recently started playing chess. She must have done something right because she soon became a very strong player and played in the U.S. Women’s Championship. So it can happen. Good luck!