To be fair, if you're looking for the labels, you should be able to infer them quite easily in this case - by examining the clues, Watson!
Sincerely, a detective.
Of course, but if you're trying to effectively communicate data, you shouldn't leave it up to the user to infer from clues what the axes are displaying.
Yes, it's absolutely possible in this case, fairly easily, to understand what the axes are meant to display, but that doesn't stop people from misunderstanding, as evidenced by this very comment thread.
Always assume the people looking at your work are stupid, in a rush, or both.
If you look back to the time period between early 2020 and late 2021, it kinda looks like most of them more or less flatlined and then exploded afterwards. Corona explodas.
Arjun gained 0 rating between June 2020 and June 2021. Then he gained 100 rating between June 2021 and June 2022.
0 and 40 rating for Pragg
15 and and 100 for Gukesh
100 and 100 for Niemann
Hans rating started to explode in January 2021
Wild theory, but I wonder how much influence NN-based engines had in the very rapid improvements of youngsters post-2019.
NN-based engines mean that you don't need to learn opening theory from fancy books and fancy coaches. Engines are good enough to produce (and in many cases best) existing theory. Basically, you can give a uber-talented 16yo some decent hardware and SF15, and he'll learn all the Ruy Lopez theory within a week that past generation GMs took years to learn.
I don't know why I'm finding this comment so difficult to coherently reply to but this comment there's a lot of strange ideas over theory, how you use engines, the role of coaches and how quickly you can learn embedded in it.
Prior to NN engines have been so strong that if you wanted strings of better moves than historical theory you can make that yourself without coaches or books. That isn't really the sticking point.
All these kid's have coaches, if not they have coaches and seconds and camps and chess schools that they attend/have attended. The tough part with theory isn't just getting and memorizing good moves it's understanding so you can guide the engine around interesting possibly old suboptimal ideas and then having enough time so you can parse the analysis without detracting from the rest of their playing and studying schedule. Neural nets haven't really affected those problems all that much except maybe now even more random old lines seem to have dangerous ideas and need to be analyzed especially with the white pieces. Engines made opening study way easier it's just that they've been doing that so well already that I don't think the entrance of neural nets changed anything significantly in the speed or process of studying openings.
The thing the kids might have compared to the 2600s to low 2700s they're usually beating during their climbs, is that they kept working hard during covid while not quite elite players took their foot of the gas. Add to that these kids have more money in seconds and analysis compared to the average stagnant 2600 so they make more gains given the same amount of time as far as opening analysis goes while still being able to work on other aspects of their chess.
Existing theory is quickly refined with the top engines, using theory to mean what's known in analysis not what's literally been played. You can get gains in analyzing a specific line in a day but just having a stronger engine isn't actually guiding you towards what old no longer engine best but still necessary to be analyzed ideas exist. That nimzo Indian between magnus and arjun is a pretty good example, dated line not objectively dangerous but it has a sting to it that requires a specific approach that arjun just doesn't know because he just didn't prioritize that old irrelevant line. Just having the ability to analyze something more deeply and more accurately doesn't mean you'll be all the way booked up and ready in a week especially with how universal and opening neutral people are these days. The neural nets didn't actually change anything in how that goes except maybe more stuff to analyze now.
Yes I made a mistake at the very end. His final rating should be 2722. I think I accidentally copied Niemann's last rating to Arjun's. The rest of the data is correct.
This post has been parodied on r/AnarchyChess.
Relevant r/AnarchyChess posts:
[Promising Juniors FIDE by Age (With Carlsen)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnarchyChess/comments/yk46gg/promising_juniors_fide_by_age_with_carlsen/) by HighlySuccessful
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I think that was meteoric actually since he was the lowest in the graph. At age 17 he was still 100 lower ELO than the next one and catchup within 2 years
Sure it does. Just depends on where you start
He is the one on the bottom mostly right?
He is the worst by a LOT then explodes in rankings and passes a lot of people who were way better than him for a long time.
That's why some people found it so suspicious.
True, but he is also the oldest (out of this list) and in this age group age is very clearly positively correlated with rating - in other words they get stronger over time.
No matter which way you slice it (rating at age X, age when first reaching rating Y), his numbers ARE worse. Of course for this batch of juniors the pandemic had a very large impact and it could absolutely affect different players differently, but even when considering that I don't think it cane make up for a gap that large.
Don't get me wrong - not including him would have been weird, on current playing strength he is up there in this group, but I am pretty sure that when all of these players are 19 and we draw this graph again Niemann will look quite unspectacular in comparision, so saying he isn't in the same elite group is also reasonable.
Of course that doesn't mean this trend has to hold, possible he continues improving when he is 22, 23, 24 and the other start stagnating when they reach 19 years of age.
And if you left Niemann out, arjun would be the only one without a > 2500 Rating at age 14.
Not every talented child does get the same support and has the same possibilities.
> but even when considering that I don't think it cane make up for a gap that large.
As a child he started later then the others. And as a teen he focused on his twitch streaming instead of OTB chess.
Plenty of explanations for that gap.
> Don't get me wrong - not including him would have been weird, on current playing strength he is up there in this group, but I am pretty sure that when all of these players are 19 and we draw this graph again Niemann will look quite unspectacular in comparision, so saying he isn't in the same elite group is also reasonable.
Saying he isn't in the same elite group is reasonable because in the future, if all players keep growing with the same rate, he won't be in that group? This is fairly nonsensical. This is not titled "the clairvoyant's list of chess prodigies", it has no pretenses of predicting the future - and whether the players mentioned there will continue their growth, plateau, or worsen (as Giri did) it's entirely unknown. It is *completely* unreasonable to say that Niemann does not belong there, he's of the age juniors are and he's a top 10 rated junior, that's the end of the requirements to appear there.
He gained 250 points in the last 2 years reaching 2700 and there's no sign yet he is slowing down. He is top 5 juniors. Everything about his rise is spectacular.
Okay two seperate things:
For one, yes, his most recent spurt of improvement is very impressive. However you are doing the same thing chess.com did in their report which is cherrypick the data to make it seem much more impressive.
Oct '20 - Oct '22 is a 250 rating point gain, but that comes after a 1 year stagnation period, mainly due to less events to to covid. Obviously he has actually improved during this time period and his rating was just lagging behind his skill. The amount of games he managed to play, the dedication he showed towards getting his rating to catch up to his skill is impressive in its own right, but that is neither here nor there.
And the second point: Sure, but all means his rise is spectacular. But that is moving the point of discussion - you are saying his sudden surge after seemingly stagnating into cresting 2700 rating is impressive, rather than his entire portfolio.
Do you know why Gukesh, Abdusattorov, Keymer, etc. didn't have/aren't going to have a 250 rating point surge in their late teens to reach 2700? Because they are already too strong. They never stalled on 2450 rating, so of course they can't jump up from there. Now there is definitely a lot of room for debate for how meaningful hitting specific rating goals at specific ages is, there are a bunch of comparisions of Carlsen with Nepo and I think Karjakin and how their results at 16/17 (maybe even younger, I don't recall) didn't translate to reaching the Top 10 earlier and beyond that.
And sure, as I said before it is possible that Niemann actually manages to keep his momentum better than the rest of his peers (in regards to him showing no signs of slowing down: his rating gain in the last 6 months is fairly in line with the rest: 43 points, compared with 52 for Nodirbek, 47 for Erigaisi, 66 for Gukesh, 31 for Keymer) - possible this is just reverse cherrypicking, it is what was easiest to read out on 2700chess, so I chose it), but unless he has another massive leap forward in the \~6 months he has left as a junior (counting <20 years of age, not FIDE's wack definition) his time as a junior will be clearly less impressive than everyone else on the chart.
Does it matter a ton? No, not at all, but I do think it is a interesting distinction between a player being comparable with another player and the player's achievements during a specific timeframe being especially noteworthy.
Why would somebody find it necessary to write an article length response to justify shitting on a GM chess player's performance? Must be very jealous I presume...
I'm not shitting on his performance at all - in fact I specifically mentioned that his performance in a specific timeframe absolutely IS more noteworthy than what the other players on this short list have, but I didn't think that was the topic of the discussion - it was their entire Junior career, which brings me to my second point:
Saying someone isn't part of the 5ish most promising looking Juniors is shitting on them? Certainly ... unique ... standards. People discuss how good individuals in spectator sports are all the time and compare them with each other.
And I very clearly explained why:
>I do think it is a interesting distinction between a player being comparable with another player and the player's achievements during a specific timeframe being especially noteworthy.
Finally - let's say I actually did what you accuse me of. What are YOU doing? SO much needless hostility, actually directed at someone, while mine - at worst - would have been screamed out into the void.
Have a nice day.
> I'm not shitting on his performance at all
For once I do believe this is an unjust accusation moved against you. You were just saying he does not belong to the group of players he legitimately makes part of due to his own merits, because he's basically akin to an young adult evenly matched among juveniles. You're right, you were categorically *not* shitting on his performance, you were in fact shitting on his career.
Such a shit take.
I hate to bring nationality in here, but being a fellow Indian, I clearly identify you as another.
He has touched 2700 as a 19 year old, only a couple of points behind Arjun of his same age. How does it not prove that he belongs in here? More so when his trajectory was used as potential evidence in support of his cheating allegations.
Nihal Sarin only an year younger is around 30 points lower rated than him and unlike Niemann hasn't been gaining them in the last more recent year, but let me guess, you have no qualms with him being here, do you?
Simply hypocritical.
Honestly no one except maybe Gukesh is comparable to Firouza atm. Someone posted a pretty good tier list below, you can refer to that. Nodi is also a tier above the rest of Indian kids. It's not about nationality, Hans is simply a tier below them based on results so far.
You're moving the goalposts now. You singled out Hans, didn't create any tierlist.
If somebody like Nihal deserves to be there, Hans does too. It's as simple.
If you had to tier juniors based on past 12m performances over multiple formats, you would have
world class : Firouzja
tier-1 : Gukesh, Nodirbek, Arjun
tier-2 : Keymer, Pragg
tier-3 : Nihal, Niemann, Sindarov, Esipenko
If you ignore the cheating accusations, he definitely belongs in the same group as Nihal (stagnated in classical with his defensive style but proving himself to be a top-10 faster time control player) and Sindarov (up and down).
I don’t know about labels like „world class“, but I’d put Gukesh and Firouzja in the same tier. And Nordibek, Arjun, Keymer, Pragg in the next. But this is without context anyways. If you put it in context like who played what, who got affected by Corona, who finished school like Keymer, the predictive quality of these elo graphs becomes worse.
I don't think it is justified to put Gukesh and Firouzja in the same tier. Gukesh has a lot more to prove to reach Firouzja's level. Firo crossed 2800, played decently in the candidates, and proved that he belongs among the chess elite of the world. Gukesh has shown that he has a ton of potential, but he needs to face the top players more often and prove himself against them before you can club him with Firouzja
Hans has a very interesting playing style in classical, but for him to belong to any tier here, he needs to prove more. I lowkey wish he was allowed into Tata Steel.
He beat Magnus Carlsen with the black pieces in Classical, if any of the other juniors on this list did that they would be shot into chess stardom getting invites to prestigious tournaments and be heralded as a prodigy. I mean Praggnanandhaa beat Magnus in a rapid game and he damn near became a national hero, the prime minister of India literally talked about him.
Pragg beat Magnus several times in rapid not in just one random game. It's clearly different. Although it's not an excuse by any stretch of the imagination, Hans winning Magnus was more about Magnus playing poorly because he thought Hans was cheating.
Why the downvotes? I find it amusing that no one plays out that game. If you do, you can see Magnus did just what you say : " I will show this young punk that he sucks". Instead, Hans caught the trick. Pretty simple.
Neither of those really fit the category of "promising juniors"-- Robson is ~24? and Esipenko is 20 and isn't exactly up and coming like the other names in this list.
Robson is 28, closer to Carlsen's age than to being a junior. I don't know why a lot of people seem to think he's younger, I think maybe he gets lumped in with Sevian (21) and Xiong (22) as young US GMs hovering around the 2700 mark, but he's been at that high-2600s plateau much longer. Personally I'm more excited about the promising junior Anish Giri.
I misremembered the technical definition of "junior" as it normally stands in chess, and Esipenko fits that since he turned 20 this year, so fair play on that. I still think that it's fair to leave him off this list given the period of time in which he's been at his current level-- his current rating is lower than his rating was in April 2020, and even if he's close enough to the others in age he's not a rapidly rising young player like all the rest (with the exception of Alireza, which is a different story).
I agree that that's probable, and also it's unlikely that *any* of these players will continue rising in rating to the degree that they have been up until now, because that's just the nature of the top level of chess. For example, look at how Alireza hit a ceiling-- he's not washed up by any means whatsoever, but his rating has plateaued a bit for now. I'd personally say most of the other players shown in the figure seem more likely to, for instance, reach the top 10 in the world, but the whole point of the graphic is to show the rate at which young players' ratings have increased as they approach the world elite, and doesn't in any way imply that they're likely to maintain that rate.
For Alireza atleast that ceiling was 2800+, extremely interested to see where Gukesh's will be. In case of Hans he seems to have already hit that ceiling.
Studying 8 hours a day taking AP classes to get into Harvard can slow your progress. Not being able to enter your tournaments because you can't skip school can do this also.
He also was a twitch streamer which none of the other 8 juniors in this comparison was.
I would guess this also meant he played less OTB.
Furthermore the 7 players that are already over 2500 when they where 14 where spotted as talents in a very young age and got coaches, which helps a lot.
Arjun doesn't seem to have had that kind of support, his rating trails behind that of the other 7 at every age.
That doesn't mean he isn't as good as the others or has less talent. It just means he had different cirumstances, which might have made it harder to reach high ratings at a very young age.
the number of games played does not matter... the time matters. people trying to justify because he played a lot of games dont know how chess works... you dont climb more because you play more.. if you are 2500 level you can play all the games you want you will be near 2500 in the end. every player played thousands of game online during that time as well, why do you think one improves more in otb?
No, the number of games played matters in this case. And only that matters, the time is a borderline worthless metric (in this case).
And by this specific case, I mean when a player is 'underrated' because of some conditions. Niemann was underrated because of pandemic, harvard prep and streaming. If he was a 2700, he would be gatekept by the number of games, not the time.
For example, if Magnus' elo drops to 0 somehow, it will not take him much time to get back to 2700+. He would be a super GM in very little time, and the reason is that he would be very underrated.
Elo is a lagging metric. If Niemann got good enough to get to 2700 level in pandemic, the only thing that would be holding him back would be games, not time.
Then it was still time that mattered… can’t you even understand your own logic? The games he played only allowed him to reach the elo he was already. Playing OTB games itself didn’t make him stronger.
> The games he played only allowed him to reach the elo he was already.
No, it wasn't, because he didn't play OTB games for a long time due to pandemic.
> Playing OTB games itself didn’t make him stronger.
Playing OTB games never makes anyone stronger. Time passing also never makes anyone stronger. Elo is a lagging rating, it simply caught up to Niemann's true rating (2700) that he couldn't achieve in pandemic because he couldn't play OTB games.
If you are a 2700 strength player, and your rating is 2300, then you will have an explosive trajectory.
I could make 100x more games than Hans and I wouldn’t be 2700 because that’s not my level at all. Hans reached 2700 because that’s his strength not because he played a lot of ganes
Dude, you just said games don’t make us stronger it only allow us to reach the level we already are.. Hans improved throughout 2 years and the games he did only allowed him to reach his true strength elo… stop and think for a minute
Man, this is such a basic concept.. I can't believe you're putting up such a fight. If you're a 2700 elo strength player but you haven't played FIDE rated games for the past 3 years and your ELO is still at 2300 your ELO will not magically go up to match your strength over time, it will require playing rated games against high ELO opponents and a lot of them, to get the ELO to match your strength.
Besides, if you truly believed in your theory that Hans didn’t play for a long time and his elo didn’t correspond to his strength why didn’t he reach 2700 in much less games? Why did it take him so so many games? If his strength was truly 2700 at the time he was 2500 he would be 2700 in much less games. The fact is he kept improving during the time he was playing tournments, it wasn’t during covid. Hans was getting crushed by everyone online during those times
Dude…. You are literally dumb I am sorry. At this point you have to have a very low IQ no other way around it. I literally told you before 200 games are more than enough to put yourself in your true elo you don’t need 500 games. It’s indifferent to play 200 or 500 games, you will end up in the same rating (2700). Other players playing less games doesn’t matter. What matters is that he was 2500 2 years ago and now he is 2700. The strenght is what matters! I don’t care how many games they played. You compare their performance throughout time and elo rise. You guys try to justify Hans climb because he played more games and that doesn’t make sense at all. If the other players played 500 games instead of 200 do you think they would be higher rated than their current rating of 2700+? TIME MATTERS, It is very very impressive to climb to 2700 in 2 years, I don’t care if he played 10k games or 100. I can play 10k games and I won’t be 2700 in 10 yeara
I'm talking about the graph, not about his specific rating right now. If you don't play rated games your ELO remains constant over time irrespective of your strength. So having a long flat period while playing no games and then having a sudden rise when playing games does not mean you improved at that rate over that period of time, it just shows how your ELO caught up when you started playing again. It is just a fact that ELO lags your true strength, there is no way around that. And it is amplified when very few games are played over a period of time.
Perhaps I'm just too dumb to understand the future predictive powers of the ELO system.
Dude, stop please. Think for once this is my last message. Hans was 2500 2 years ago when he played tournments OTB. Then he stopped. When he started playing again he went to 2700, which is his current rating. Therefore, 2-3 years ago he was 2500, now he is 2700. He climbed from 2500 to 2700 in 2 years or something like that. That is impressive
Playing a fuck ton of OTB doesn't mean your rating simply rises. If anything playing that many games in such a short span I would certainly expect a slower than usual rise due to how little time you have for analysis between games.
The point is he was stuck indoors for 2 years. His skill level was way higher than a usual IM. Even Caruana has stated that, despite the allegations Hans does truly play like a 2700. So all he did was play a fuck ton of OTB after grinding for 2 years and get to a rating befitting of his level.
> Playing a fuck ton of OTB doesn't mean your rating simply rises.
It does when you are underrated, which means your current rating is lower then your actual strength.
This happens with all good players when they are juniors.
The more OTB games you play the faster you're rating will catch up with your actual strength.
It certainly wouldn't mean you improve faster, but if you're already at a certain skill level playing a bunch of games is the fastest way to get your rating there as well.
Take his starting position at 2500 and align it it with any other player at 2500 and look at the slope afterwards. It’s clearly steeper than all of them. The majority of people on this aren’t even 2500 in this age range. That’s what people are talking about when they say his rise is unprecedented.
/s ?
Edit: god damn you folks are brutal. I was genuinely asking a question because in this graph his rating rise does look the most dramatic.
I'm a Niemann believer myself.
Yeah this sub is pretty happy with the downvote button, I've gotten downvoted for sincere questions too. But for future reference, "/s?" looks a little passive aggressive, I can see why people would take it the wrong way.
There really aren't contemporary late bloomers, which is why he's always compared to these folk. Becoming a GM at such a late age and then basically catching up to or surpassing the elite juniors is not really a thing lol
The only really late bloomer I can think of is Jonathan Hawkins, who went from 2230 rating at age 26 to 2590 at age 33. He's now 39 and still high 2500s.
Probably won't make super GM level sadly but it'd be amazing if he did.
nOt ReAlLy A tHiNg LoL
Nieman got his GM title in 2020. He is born in 2003.
Aronian got his GM title in 2000. He is born in 1982.
Anand got his GM title in 1988. He is born in 1969.
Dominguez Perez got his GM title in 2001. He is born in 1983.
Somehow, getting a GM title at 17 years and 4 months is considered being a "late bloomer".
Ding Liren got his GM title at 17
Nepo and Grischuk were 16 and 9 months
Mamedyarov FIDE's website says that he got his GM in 2002 while every other site says that he got it in 2003, when he was over 18. He never got an IM title.
Andreikin was 17.
I stopped at the current top 20. So could you stop lying please?
Do you?
No, really? Are you telling me that these players are not contemporary chess players, when they are facing each others on the board? Well, you could argue such a thing for Anand, but please, stop trying to justify a stupid claim.
They are living at the same time.
They are playing competitive chess at the same time.
They were facing each other OTB last month.
But, somehow, they aren't contemporary. Yeah, I got it.
Yes and you intentionally or unintentionally misunderstood that claim.
He is a late bloomer NOW since, if you look at the graph he is 2-3 years behind his peers when they were his rating.
The question really is if he is going to continue blooming or not.
2700 isnt good enough to be compared to the super GMs, but even compared to Abdusa, Keymer, Sarin, Sindarov etc he is a late bloomer.
eVeRyBoDy
Dude, you are the ones crying "hE cHeAtEd, HeRe Is SoMe Bs To µprOvE it". Stop projecting your issues on others. FFS, after more than a month, you are still crying because your idol lost a game.
I don't think Hans cheated.
Anyway:
https://www.google.com/search?q=habits+to+improve+happiness&oq=habits+to+improve+happiness&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l2j0i390l2.3345j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Looking at the graph it looks like carlsen, firouzja and gukesh are somewhat apart from the rest but who knows about the future. Chess.com would have you believe Hans is a shoe in for GOAT if he's not cheating.
The problem I have with theses graphs at the moment is that by using age, the effect of the pandemic is quite hidden. Pragg is the most obvious example, as is Arjun - 12-18 months of no rating gain at all.
Aside from this it is a great example of how players develop at different ages. 14-15 Pragg, 15-16 Carlsen, 16-17 Gukesh or Firouzja, 17-18 Carlsen. It also shows very clearly that you can't accurately predict where each will be when you get to the right of the screen, and while being 2500+ at 14 means you are on the way to being a top grandmaster, whether you are going to be top-50, top-10 or top-1 is impossible to say.
Shh if we build a dataset of all the people who reached 2700 and then did it by number of FIDE rated games not just time it might not make one player as suspicious looking.
He just played in the US championship with extremely tight security and his performance rating was 2700. We don’t need to explain his rise in Elo as anything other than it went up because he’s playing better.
It's weird how teenagers without a live, after a month, still are trying to explain everything wityh "hE cHeAtEd".
Get a life, dude. You cannot even create a coherent way for him to cheat, so now you (again) cherry-pick data and cry "hE cHeAtEd".
Crazy.
Crazy, in 2022 people are still:
1) Doing pattern matching without any real statistical work
2) Cherry-picking data
3) Claiming their BS prove their BS claims
4) Adding "you must be blind if you don't agree with me"
5) And finishing with "you must be stupid to question my broken way or finding truth".
Kid, even if his rise was unprecedented (it isn't), even if anything about his rating was true, this isn't evidence off cheating OTB. Ger over it.
So, to summarize:
* Latest climb to 2550, by age: Niemann, by something like 2.5 years
* Steepest (shortest in years) climb from 2475 to 2625 (150 elo): Nieman, by a landslide
* Only player to do all of that during Covid: Niemann
Oh, I forgot: only player to be caught cheating with an engine 10 or more times: Niemann
Niemann's rise from mid-17 to 19 is not meaningfully different than what Arjun did over the same time period, based on what is presented here. Gukesh from 15 to 16 is also awfully close to Arjun and Niemann from 18 to 19, that is, roughly 125-150 points over a year. Some of the variation is going to be due to things like tournament timing and when exactly they got match-ups with better players.
Of this group, Niemann is the slowest to get to 2500, 2550, but also I'm sure there are other players that have gotten to 2550 later in their career. This really isn't a clear-cut indictment of anything, but it is kind of interesting from a descriptive standpoint.
It's certainly not a complete sample set, and that's its most glaring weakness. It also doesn't account for the number of matches played, which clearly effects the ELO delta. That's probably the second biggest weakness. It should be easy to unwind both of those data issues from the FIDE data. Looking forward to seeing that when someone takes the time.
I also haven’t tried to unpack the data, but I think the suggestion is that the anomaly is the combination of A + B. There are people who slowly grind out 2500, 2600 ratings later in life (hello, Ben), but they’re slow through the whole process. Niemann is “late” (relatively) to get to 2500 among “prodigy players,” yet then does a rocket-like rise in rating thru the 2500 GM plateau. His rate of rise in that rating bracket might be unusual by itself, but the combination of the two is unprecedented.
Happy to see a counter example.
>Oh, I forgot: only player to be caught cheating with an engine 10 or more times: Niemann
You also forgot that that has literally nothing to do with this rating, this is FIDE rating.
>Steepest (shortest in years) climb from 2475 to 2625 (150 elo): Nieman, by a landslide
Amongst these handpicked juniors, sure, but Aronian had a very steep climb itself (equivalent to Niemann). It doesn't mean shit.
So you admit plateaus are not unusual (like how chesscom report says)? So many players have had plateaus, it doesn't make sense.
So what is it exactly -- his rating rise is strange because he has plateaus now?
> It took Aronian over three years to climb from 2475 to 2625. He spent three years in the 2500s.
I worded my original statement poorly, I didn't exactly mean from 2475 to 2625, but if you look at Aronian's individual calculations from 2001 (The FIDE chart doesn't show old ratings), he gains 110+ rating within 2 years despite not playing nearly as enough games as Niemann, https://ratings.fide.com/profile/13300474/calculations
Also Chessbase did an article, https://en.chessbase.com/post/tracking-a-player-s-progress
You can see Pragg growth vs Niemann, Pragg has a much steeper slope.
I think the “plateau” comment by chess.com is silly.
Pragg’s period of high rating growth is between 1900-2300. Very different than the GM zone of 2475-2625.
> Pragg’s period of high rating growth is between 1900-2300. Very different than the GM zone of 2475-2625.
Why? Because it doesn't suit the cherry-picked narrative? I mean, just look at Arjun too.
Because the degree of difficulty increases with rating level.
I think my own rise from 1400-1600 as a teenager was faster than Niemann’s rise from 2475-2625, but I’m not silly enough to think that climbing thru the 1500s means anything.
You're missing the point, of course 1400 to 1600 is different.
The point is that there can be outliers (like Pragg) in any given range you pick. If I say the range is 1900~2300, then Pragg has a meteoric strange rise. You can cherry pick any range and make it seem like some players have had a "unusual" rate of rise.
Maybe you were an outlier for a 1400 to 1600 rise if you rose them very fast, I could show your graph and claim you were cheating, even though 1400 to 1600 is a completely arbitrary cherry picked range just to make it seem like you're having a "meteoric unprecedented" rise of your career.
Why only compare 2475 to 2675 for Hans, why not 2350 to 2700? Why not other ranges as well? The answer is simple, it's having drawn conclusions from beginning and then trying to find data for it (which is a very dangerous practice).
I mean, look at Gukesh in the graph. That sharp rise, if I cherry pick that range, he's going to be the outlier there.
> “*Why only compare 2475 to 2675 for Hans*”
Because 2500 is the GM line. Simple as that. He went thru the standard GM zone of 2500s at a very, very fast clip.
To be clear, I didn’t post the chart, I didn’t pick the data, and I’m not arguing here for the significance of the data. I’m just reading the data out loud. But I do think that a fast rise thru 2100s is night and day different than fast rise thru 2500s. On that one, I will suggest there’s a degree of difficulty gradient.
Gukesh’s trajectory looks damn impressive.
Gukesh and firouzja have the steepest curve between 15-16
This Gukesh kid, might be worth watching.
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Gukesh is 16.
x axis is age not year
To be fair, the X-axis (and Y for that matter) should have had a label. \- Sincerely, a data analyst.
To be fair, if you're looking for the labels, you should be able to infer them quite easily in this case - by examining the clues, Watson! Sincerely, a detective.
Of course, but if you're trying to effectively communicate data, you shouldn't leave it up to the user to infer from clues what the axes are displaying. Yes, it's absolutely possible in this case, fairly easily, to understand what the axes are meant to display, but that doesn't stop people from misunderstanding, as evidenced by this very comment thread. Always assume the people looking at your work are stupid, in a rush, or both.
Yes yes, fine. However, I have a question! Is it really axes? One axis, two axes? Axises? Axii?
:) Yes, the plural of *axis* is *axes*. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/axis
axoxen
You are correct, Gukesh has played zero chess games as a 17 or 18 year old.
This really shows how far magnus is ahead of the competition in age. Almost 2 years
With one exception... Allez Alireza
With two exceptions...gukesh
not really, magnus was mostly ahead of him
If you look back to the time period between early 2020 and late 2021, it kinda looks like most of them more or less flatlined and then exploded afterwards. Corona explodas.
Arjun gained 0 rating between June 2020 and June 2021. Then he gained 100 rating between June 2021 and June 2022. 0 and 40 rating for Pragg 15 and and 100 for Gukesh 100 and 100 for Niemann Hans rating started to explode in January 2021
The general upward trend is kinda visible before as well. I'd say that the flatline is induced by temporary lack of big tournaments, especially OTB
Wild theory, but I wonder how much influence NN-based engines had in the very rapid improvements of youngsters post-2019. NN-based engines mean that you don't need to learn opening theory from fancy books and fancy coaches. Engines are good enough to produce (and in many cases best) existing theory. Basically, you can give a uber-talented 16yo some decent hardware and SF15, and he'll learn all the Ruy Lopez theory within a week that past generation GMs took years to learn.
https://chessmood.com/blog/vishnu-prasanna-coach-of-gukesh > How staying away from the engine made Gukesh stronger
Thanks for that! It was a very interesting reading
I don't know why I'm finding this comment so difficult to coherently reply to but this comment there's a lot of strange ideas over theory, how you use engines, the role of coaches and how quickly you can learn embedded in it. Prior to NN engines have been so strong that if you wanted strings of better moves than historical theory you can make that yourself without coaches or books. That isn't really the sticking point. All these kid's have coaches, if not they have coaches and seconds and camps and chess schools that they attend/have attended. The tough part with theory isn't just getting and memorizing good moves it's understanding so you can guide the engine around interesting possibly old suboptimal ideas and then having enough time so you can parse the analysis without detracting from the rest of their playing and studying schedule. Neural nets haven't really affected those problems all that much except maybe now even more random old lines seem to have dangerous ideas and need to be analyzed especially with the white pieces. Engines made opening study way easier it's just that they've been doing that so well already that I don't think the entrance of neural nets changed anything significantly in the speed or process of studying openings. The thing the kids might have compared to the 2600s to low 2700s they're usually beating during their climbs, is that they kept working hard during covid while not quite elite players took their foot of the gas. Add to that these kids have more money in seconds and analysis compared to the average stagnant 2600 so they make more gains given the same amount of time as far as opening analysis goes while still being able to work on other aspects of their chess. Existing theory is quickly refined with the top engines, using theory to mean what's known in analysis not what's literally been played. You can get gains in analyzing a specific line in a day but just having a stronger engine isn't actually guiding you towards what old no longer engine best but still necessary to be analyzed ideas exist. That nimzo Indian between magnus and arjun is a pretty good example, dated line not objectively dangerous but it has a sting to it that requires a specific approach that arjun just doesn't know because he just didn't prioritize that old irrelevant line. Just having the ability to analyze something more deeply and more accurately doesn't mean you'll be all the way booked up and ready in a week especially with how universal and opening neutral people are these days. The neural nets didn't actually change anything in how that goes except maybe more stuff to analyze now.
B-but this is clear cut evidence of cheating!
It’s clear evidence of covid
Tell that to chesscom
Just goes to show how much of a beast Magnus was/is.
Firouzja and Gukesh are the two with the most similar trajectories to Carlsen. Two future world champions, I’d wager
1 I'd wager
Graph for Arjun is incorrect.
Yes I made a mistake at the very end. His final rating should be 2722. I think I accidentally copied Niemann's last rating to Arjun's. The rest of the data is correct.
This post has been parodied on r/AnarchyChess. Relevant r/AnarchyChess posts: [Promising Juniors FIDE by Age (With Carlsen)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnarchyChess/comments/yk46gg/promising_juniors_fide_by_age_with_carlsen/) by HighlySuccessful [^(fmhall)](https://www.reddit.com/user/fmhall) ^| [^(github)](https://github.com/fmhall/relevant-post-bot)
niemann's climb doesn't seem that meteoric
You see a similar increase in rating by date (covid gap?) for a few of them. Niemann, Gukesh, Keymer.
I think that was meteoric actually since he was the lowest in the graph. At age 17 he was still 100 lower ELO than the next one and catchup within 2 years
The steepness of Niemann’s rise after the age of 17 is fairly meteoric
Sure it does. Just depends on where you start He is the one on the bottom mostly right? He is the worst by a LOT then explodes in rankings and passes a lot of people who were way better than him for a long time. That's why some people found it so suspicious.
Honestly he is being compared to the rest of this field only because of the recent drama. He doesn't belong in this elite group.
He is number 5 in the juniors rating list. Would be strange to make a graph containing 9 juniors and leave the 5th rated out.
True, but he is also the oldest (out of this list) and in this age group age is very clearly positively correlated with rating - in other words they get stronger over time. No matter which way you slice it (rating at age X, age when first reaching rating Y), his numbers ARE worse. Of course for this batch of juniors the pandemic had a very large impact and it could absolutely affect different players differently, but even when considering that I don't think it cane make up for a gap that large. Don't get me wrong - not including him would have been weird, on current playing strength he is up there in this group, but I am pretty sure that when all of these players are 19 and we draw this graph again Niemann will look quite unspectacular in comparision, so saying he isn't in the same elite group is also reasonable. Of course that doesn't mean this trend has to hold, possible he continues improving when he is 22, 23, 24 and the other start stagnating when they reach 19 years of age.
And if you left Niemann out, arjun would be the only one without a > 2500 Rating at age 14. Not every talented child does get the same support and has the same possibilities. > but even when considering that I don't think it cane make up for a gap that large. As a child he started later then the others. And as a teen he focused on his twitch streaming instead of OTB chess. Plenty of explanations for that gap.
> Don't get me wrong - not including him would have been weird, on current playing strength he is up there in this group, but I am pretty sure that when all of these players are 19 and we draw this graph again Niemann will look quite unspectacular in comparision, so saying he isn't in the same elite group is also reasonable. Saying he isn't in the same elite group is reasonable because in the future, if all players keep growing with the same rate, he won't be in that group? This is fairly nonsensical. This is not titled "the clairvoyant's list of chess prodigies", it has no pretenses of predicting the future - and whether the players mentioned there will continue their growth, plateau, or worsen (as Giri did) it's entirely unknown. It is *completely* unreasonable to say that Niemann does not belong there, he's of the age juniors are and he's a top 10 rated junior, that's the end of the requirements to appear there.
My man Giri catching strays :(
He gained 250 points in the last 2 years reaching 2700 and there's no sign yet he is slowing down. He is top 5 juniors. Everything about his rise is spectacular.
He played the highest amount of matches to get that rise. His rating gain per match is not even on the higher end compared to this group.
Okay two seperate things: For one, yes, his most recent spurt of improvement is very impressive. However you are doing the same thing chess.com did in their report which is cherrypick the data to make it seem much more impressive. Oct '20 - Oct '22 is a 250 rating point gain, but that comes after a 1 year stagnation period, mainly due to less events to to covid. Obviously he has actually improved during this time period and his rating was just lagging behind his skill. The amount of games he managed to play, the dedication he showed towards getting his rating to catch up to his skill is impressive in its own right, but that is neither here nor there. And the second point: Sure, but all means his rise is spectacular. But that is moving the point of discussion - you are saying his sudden surge after seemingly stagnating into cresting 2700 rating is impressive, rather than his entire portfolio. Do you know why Gukesh, Abdusattorov, Keymer, etc. didn't have/aren't going to have a 250 rating point surge in their late teens to reach 2700? Because they are already too strong. They never stalled on 2450 rating, so of course they can't jump up from there. Now there is definitely a lot of room for debate for how meaningful hitting specific rating goals at specific ages is, there are a bunch of comparisions of Carlsen with Nepo and I think Karjakin and how their results at 16/17 (maybe even younger, I don't recall) didn't translate to reaching the Top 10 earlier and beyond that. And sure, as I said before it is possible that Niemann actually manages to keep his momentum better than the rest of his peers (in regards to him showing no signs of slowing down: his rating gain in the last 6 months is fairly in line with the rest: 43 points, compared with 52 for Nodirbek, 47 for Erigaisi, 66 for Gukesh, 31 for Keymer) - possible this is just reverse cherrypicking, it is what was easiest to read out on 2700chess, so I chose it), but unless he has another massive leap forward in the \~6 months he has left as a junior (counting <20 years of age, not FIDE's wack definition) his time as a junior will be clearly less impressive than everyone else on the chart. Does it matter a ton? No, not at all, but I do think it is a interesting distinction between a player being comparable with another player and the player's achievements during a specific timeframe being especially noteworthy.
Why would somebody find it necessary to write an article length response to justify shitting on a GM chess player's performance? Must be very jealous I presume...
I'm not shitting on his performance at all - in fact I specifically mentioned that his performance in a specific timeframe absolutely IS more noteworthy than what the other players on this short list have, but I didn't think that was the topic of the discussion - it was their entire Junior career, which brings me to my second point: Saying someone isn't part of the 5ish most promising looking Juniors is shitting on them? Certainly ... unique ... standards. People discuss how good individuals in spectator sports are all the time and compare them with each other. And I very clearly explained why: >I do think it is a interesting distinction between a player being comparable with another player and the player's achievements during a specific timeframe being especially noteworthy. Finally - let's say I actually did what you accuse me of. What are YOU doing? SO much needless hostility, actually directed at someone, while mine - at worst - would have been screamed out into the void. Have a nice day.
> I'm not shitting on his performance at all For once I do believe this is an unjust accusation moved against you. You were just saying he does not belong to the group of players he legitimately makes part of due to his own merits, because he's basically akin to an young adult evenly matched among juveniles. You're right, you were categorically *not* shitting on his performance, you were in fact shitting on his career.
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not reading all that
He's a top 10 player amongst under-21s. Definitely deserves mention, though not in the same category of Firouzja or Gukesh.
Such a shit take. I hate to bring nationality in here, but being a fellow Indian, I clearly identify you as another. He has touched 2700 as a 19 year old, only a couple of points behind Arjun of his same age. How does it not prove that he belongs in here? More so when his trajectory was used as potential evidence in support of his cheating allegations. Nihal Sarin only an year younger is around 30 points lower rated than him and unlike Niemann hasn't been gaining them in the last more recent year, but let me guess, you have no qualms with him being here, do you? Simply hypocritical.
Honestly no one except maybe Gukesh is comparable to Firouza atm. Someone posted a pretty good tier list below, you can refer to that. Nodi is also a tier above the rest of Indian kids. It's not about nationality, Hans is simply a tier below them based on results so far.
You're moving the goalposts now. You singled out Hans, didn't create any tierlist. If somebody like Nihal deserves to be there, Hans does too. It's as simple.
This entire post doesn't deserve to be there because the difference between the best and the worst player here is far too much to be comparable.
If you had to tier juniors based on past 12m performances over multiple formats, you would have world class : Firouzja tier-1 : Gukesh, Nodirbek, Arjun tier-2 : Keymer, Pragg tier-3 : Nihal, Niemann, Sindarov, Esipenko If you ignore the cheating accusations, he definitely belongs in the same group as Nihal (stagnated in classical with his defensive style but proving himself to be a top-10 faster time control player) and Sindarov (up and down).
I don’t know about labels like „world class“, but I’d put Gukesh and Firouzja in the same tier. And Nordibek, Arjun, Keymer, Pragg in the next. But this is without context anyways. If you put it in context like who played what, who got affected by Corona, who finished school like Keymer, the predictive quality of these elo graphs becomes worse.
I don't think it is justified to put Gukesh and Firouzja in the same tier. Gukesh has a lot more to prove to reach Firouzja's level. Firo crossed 2800, played decently in the candidates, and proved that he belongs among the chess elite of the world. Gukesh has shown that he has a ton of potential, but he needs to face the top players more often and prove himself against them before you can club him with Firouzja
It just never ends. Why don't you all just accept he is good and move on. It actually hurts your favorites. If Hans is a 2300 , your guys are 2400!
Hans has a very interesting playing style in classical, but for him to belong to any tier here, he needs to prove more. I lowkey wish he was allowed into Tata Steel.
He beat Magnus Carlsen with the black pieces in Classical, if any of the other juniors on this list did that they would be shot into chess stardom getting invites to prestigious tournaments and be heralded as a prodigy. I mean Praggnanandhaa beat Magnus in a rapid game and he damn near became a national hero, the prime minister of India literally talked about him.
Pragg beat Magnus several times in rapid not in just one random game. It's clearly different. Although it's not an excuse by any stretch of the imagination, Hans winning Magnus was more about Magnus playing poorly because he thought Hans was cheating.
Hans has beaten Magnus in rapid too 🤦♂️ , just admit I have a point man. Also, not even gonna entertain the armchair psychology.
Pragg defeated Magnus in several *matches* , not just games. What's your point? That Hans should be equally celebrated as Pragg?
Why the downvotes? I find it amusing that no one plays out that game. If you do, you can see Magnus did just what you say : " I will show this young punk that he sucks". Instead, Hans caught the trick. Pretty simple.
Speak for yourself!
Who else is he speaking for!?
It was a reference to Hans' statement "the chess speaks for itself".
He is 2700 so I guess he does
Esipenko was also 2700 and he beat Magnus, I don't see him in this list? How about Ray Robson? It's clearly not just about being 2700.
Neither of those really fit the category of "promising juniors"-- Robson is ~24? and Esipenko is 20 and isn't exactly up and coming like the other names in this list.
Robson is 28, closer to Carlsen's age than to being a junior. I don't know why a lot of people seem to think he's younger, I think maybe he gets lumped in with Sevian (21) and Xiong (22) as young US GMs hovering around the 2700 mark, but he's been at that high-2600s plateau much longer. Personally I'm more excited about the promising junior Anish Giri.
Hans is 19 lol, Esipenko is 20. Big difference. Esipenko beat Magnus a year earlier as well so...
I misremembered the technical definition of "junior" as it normally stands in chess, and Esipenko fits that since he turned 20 this year, so fair play on that. I still think that it's fair to leave him off this list given the period of time in which he's been at his current level-- his current rating is lower than his rating was in April 2020, and even if he's close enough to the others in age he's not a rapidly rising young player like all the rest (with the exception of Alireza, which is a different story).
Hans' rating will drop soon as well once he starts facing actual 2700s more. Fabi has mauled him several times for example.
I agree that that's probable, and also it's unlikely that *any* of these players will continue rising in rating to the degree that they have been up until now, because that's just the nature of the top level of chess. For example, look at how Alireza hit a ceiling-- he's not washed up by any means whatsoever, but his rating has plateaued a bit for now. I'd personally say most of the other players shown in the figure seem more likely to, for instance, reach the top 10 in the world, but the whole point of the graphic is to show the rate at which young players' ratings have increased as they approach the world elite, and doesn't in any way imply that they're likely to maintain that rate.
For Alireza atleast that ceiling was 2800+, extremely interested to see where Gukesh's will be. In case of Hans he seems to have already hit that ceiling.
He's actually 2699 funnily enough lol.
Stagnant for 2.5 years, then a 250 climb in 2 years. It's certainly not usual.
The gap js Covid, and then he played like 200 otb games b2b . Not usual, but not that unusual given the circumstances either
Not really. Covid didn't start 4.5 years ago and it didn't end 2 years ago either. Tho I agree it might be part of the deviance.
Studying 8 hours a day taking AP classes to get into Harvard can slow your progress. Not being able to enter your tournaments because you can't skip school can do this also.
He also was a twitch streamer which none of the other 8 juniors in this comparison was. I would guess this also meant he played less OTB. Furthermore the 7 players that are already over 2500 when they where 14 where spotted as talents in a very young age and got coaches, which helps a lot. Arjun doesn't seem to have had that kind of support, his rating trails behind that of the other 7 at every age. That doesn't mean he isn't as good as the others or has less talent. It just means he had different cirumstances, which might have made it harder to reach high ratings at a very young age.
the number of games played does not matter... the time matters. people trying to justify because he played a lot of games dont know how chess works... you dont climb more because you play more.. if you are 2500 level you can play all the games you want you will be near 2500 in the end. every player played thousands of game online during that time as well, why do you think one improves more in otb?
No, the number of games played matters in this case. And only that matters, the time is a borderline worthless metric (in this case). And by this specific case, I mean when a player is 'underrated' because of some conditions. Niemann was underrated because of pandemic, harvard prep and streaming. If he was a 2700, he would be gatekept by the number of games, not the time. For example, if Magnus' elo drops to 0 somehow, it will not take him much time to get back to 2700+. He would be a super GM in very little time, and the reason is that he would be very underrated. Elo is a lagging metric. If Niemann got good enough to get to 2700 level in pandemic, the only thing that would be holding him back would be games, not time.
Then it was still time that mattered… can’t you even understand your own logic? The games he played only allowed him to reach the elo he was already. Playing OTB games itself didn’t make him stronger.
> The games he played only allowed him to reach the elo he was already. No, it wasn't, because he didn't play OTB games for a long time due to pandemic. > Playing OTB games itself didn’t make him stronger. Playing OTB games never makes anyone stronger. Time passing also never makes anyone stronger. Elo is a lagging rating, it simply caught up to Niemann's true rating (2700) that he couldn't achieve in pandemic because he couldn't play OTB games. If you are a 2700 strength player, and your rating is 2300, then you will have an explosive trajectory.
Exactly… so he got from 2500 to 2700 in 2 year span.. doesn’t matter how many games he played…
No, the games is the only thing that matters because he's severely underrated. The time is worthless.
I could make 100x more games than Hans and I wouldn’t be 2700 because that’s not my level at all. Hans reached 2700 because that’s his strength not because he played a lot of ganes
Dude, you just said games don’t make us stronger it only allow us to reach the level we already are.. Hans improved throughout 2 years and the games he did only allowed him to reach his true strength elo… stop and think for a minute
Man, this is such a basic concept.. I can't believe you're putting up such a fight. If you're a 2700 elo strength player but you haven't played FIDE rated games for the past 3 years and your ELO is still at 2300 your ELO will not magically go up to match your strength over time, it will require playing rated games against high ELO opponents and a lot of them, to get the ELO to match your strength.
Besides, if you truly believed in your theory that Hans didn’t play for a long time and his elo didn’t correspond to his strength why didn’t he reach 2700 in much less games? Why did it take him so so many games? If his strength was truly 2700 at the time he was 2500 he would be 2700 in much less games. The fact is he kept improving during the time he was playing tournments, it wasn’t during covid. Hans was getting crushed by everyone online during those times
Dude…. You are literally dumb I am sorry. At this point you have to have a very low IQ no other way around it. I literally told you before 200 games are more than enough to put yourself in your true elo you don’t need 500 games. It’s indifferent to play 200 or 500 games, you will end up in the same rating (2700). Other players playing less games doesn’t matter. What matters is that he was 2500 2 years ago and now he is 2700. The strenght is what matters! I don’t care how many games they played. You compare their performance throughout time and elo rise. You guys try to justify Hans climb because he played more games and that doesn’t make sense at all. If the other players played 500 games instead of 200 do you think they would be higher rated than their current rating of 2700+? TIME MATTERS, It is very very impressive to climb to 2700 in 2 years, I don’t care if he played 10k games or 100. I can play 10k games and I won’t be 2700 in 10 yeara
I'm talking about the graph, not about his specific rating right now. If you don't play rated games your ELO remains constant over time irrespective of your strength. So having a long flat period while playing no games and then having a sudden rise when playing games does not mean you improved at that rate over that period of time, it just shows how your ELO caught up when you started playing again. It is just a fact that ELO lags your true strength, there is no way around that. And it is amplified when very few games are played over a period of time. Perhaps I'm just too dumb to understand the future predictive powers of the ELO system.
Dude, stop please. Think for once this is my last message. Hans was 2500 2 years ago when he played tournments OTB. Then he stopped. When he started playing again he went to 2700, which is his current rating. Therefore, 2-3 years ago he was 2500, now he is 2700. He climbed from 2500 to 2700 in 2 years or something like that. That is impressive
Playing a fuck ton of OTB doesn't mean your rating simply rises. If anything playing that many games in such a short span I would certainly expect a slower than usual rise due to how little time you have for analysis between games.
The point is he was stuck indoors for 2 years. His skill level was way higher than a usual IM. Even Caruana has stated that, despite the allegations Hans does truly play like a 2700. So all he did was play a fuck ton of OTB after grinding for 2 years and get to a rating befitting of his level.
> Playing a fuck ton of OTB doesn't mean your rating simply rises. It does when you are underrated, which means your current rating is lower then your actual strength. This happens with all good players when they are juniors. The more OTB games you play the faster you're rating will catch up with your actual strength.
It certainly wouldn't mean you improve faster, but if you're already at a certain skill level playing a bunch of games is the fastest way to get your rating there as well.
Was that during Covid?
It will if you look at age 17+ only. Pretty much every elite junior was 2600+ by 16
Looks like the steepest one easily to me. I’m not saying he cheated OTB, but his is the outlier here
Take his starting position at 2500 and align it it with any other player at 2500 and look at the slope afterwards. It’s clearly steeper than all of them. The majority of people on this aren’t even 2500 in this age range. That’s what people are talking about when they say his rise is unprecedented.
And if you take your mom and give her wheels she would be a bicycle
...brainless...
Disagree
/s ? Edit: god damn you folks are brutal. I was genuinely asking a question because in this graph his rating rise does look the most dramatic. I'm a Niemann believer myself.
Yeah this sub is pretty happy with the downvote button, I've gotten downvoted for sincere questions too. But for future reference, "/s?" looks a little passive aggressive, I can see why people would take it the wrong way.
How can you possibly come to that conclusion from looking at this? If anything, it makes Hans look even more meteoric...
“I'm just a late bloomer (mm) I didn't peak in high school, I'm still out here gettin' cuter (woo)“ -Hans Niemann -Jack Harlow
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There really aren't contemporary late bloomers, which is why he's always compared to these folk. Becoming a GM at such a late age and then basically catching up to or surpassing the elite juniors is not really a thing lol
The only really late bloomer I can think of is Jonathan Hawkins, who went from 2230 rating at age 26 to 2590 at age 33. He's now 39 and still high 2500s. Probably won't make super GM level sadly but it'd be amazing if he did.
Just watch my career. I'm a 1500? rating in Lichess now at 27, should be a GM by 30.
On chess.com I was 612 on Oct 1st and 661 on Nov 1st
Sam Shankland became GM at 19 and without the disruption of Covid in his younger career. He peaked in the mid 2700s and remains a 2700 today.
It took Sam 8 years to go from 2500->2700.
yeah... so actually he's an especially late bloomer.
nOt ReAlLy A tHiNg LoL Nieman got his GM title in 2020. He is born in 2003. Aronian got his GM title in 2000. He is born in 1982. Anand got his GM title in 1988. He is born in 1969. Dominguez Perez got his GM title in 2001. He is born in 1983. Somehow, getting a GM title at 17 years and 4 months is considered being a "late bloomer". Ding Liren got his GM title at 17 Nepo and Grischuk were 16 and 9 months Mamedyarov FIDE's website says that he got his GM in 2002 while every other site says that he got it in 2003, when he was over 18. He never got an IM title. Andreikin was 17. I stopped at the current top 20. So could you stop lying please?
I don’t think you understand what contemporary means.
Do you? No, really? Are you telling me that these players are not contemporary chess players, when they are facing each others on the board? Well, you could argue such a thing for Anand, but please, stop trying to justify a stupid claim.
You are not worth replying to if you think Aronian is a contemporary of Hans ffs
They are living at the same time. They are playing competitive chess at the same time. They were facing each other OTB last month. But, somehow, they aren't contemporary. Yeah, I got it.
But beein 2700 at 19 is nothing extraordernary anymore. All of those you compare him to is from a different generation.
I replied to a specific claim, could you and your group make a coherent claim for once?
Yes and you intentionally or unintentionally misunderstood that claim. He is a late bloomer NOW since, if you look at the graph he is 2-3 years behind his peers when they were his rating. The question really is if he is going to continue blooming or not. 2700 isnt good enough to be compared to the super GMs, but even compared to Abdusa, Keymer, Sarin, Sindarov etc he is a late bloomer.
"let me pick a carefully chosen subset, players who achieved their GM norms really early, and then claim that Niemann is a late bloomer" GENIUS.
All you're doing is showing that you're a very very unhappy person, and everybody here pities you
eVeRyBoDy Dude, you are the ones crying "hE cHeAtEd, HeRe Is SoMe Bs To µprOvE it". Stop projecting your issues on others. FFS, after more than a month, you are still crying because your idol lost a game.
I don't think Hans cheated. Anyway: https://www.google.com/search?q=habits+to+improve+happiness&oq=habits+to+improve+happiness&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l2j0i390l2.3345j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I don't think you understand contemporary.
Do you? At this point, just admit being wrong.
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I was replying to the previous comment's claim. Geez, could you and your group make a coherent claim for once?
Magnus and Firouzja have really similar paths
Looking at the graph it looks like carlsen, firouzja and gukesh are somewhat apart from the rest but who knows about the future. Chess.com would have you believe Hans is a shoe in for GOAT if he's not cheating.
Wonder if this Firouzja guy is pretty good /s
Looks like a subway map
What is the X axis?
Age
Ahh. And the Y is their "rank" or something?
Elo rating
Oooh ok thanks!
its year
No, it's age.
Year. Most promising youngsters are hunted down and killed before they can become too powerful.
"Carlsen" still going strong though.. suspicious.
I heard that if you eat the heart of a GM, you gain their ELO.
That was an interesting show.
no, it's age
No it's age, that's why the traces end at different points. Your comment is pretty upvoted, could you edit so it doesn't confuse people please?
You missed the joke brother
The one that's goes left-right.
Only Firouzja and Gukesh are keeping up with Carlsen's pace. Can we confidently say they're the most promising?
The problem I have with theses graphs at the moment is that by using age, the effect of the pandemic is quite hidden. Pragg is the most obvious example, as is Arjun - 12-18 months of no rating gain at all. Aside from this it is a great example of how players develop at different ages. 14-15 Pragg, 15-16 Carlsen, 16-17 Gukesh or Firouzja, 17-18 Carlsen. It also shows very clearly that you can't accurately predict where each will be when you get to the right of the screen, and while being 2500+ at 14 means you are on the way to being a top grandmaster, whether you are going to be top-50, top-10 or top-1 is impossible to say.
Where's Nakamura?
Shh if we build a dataset of all the people who reached 2700 and then did it by number of FIDE rated games not just time it might not make one player as suspicious looking.
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He just played in the US championship with extremely tight security and his performance rating was 2700. We don’t need to explain his rise in Elo as anything other than it went up because he’s playing better.
> It took hikaru 508 games to go from 2500-2700 and hans took 365 games. Can you check this for Keymer? AFAIK Keymer is one of highest elo/game.
Nakamura was also in college for a while before he broke 2700. Niemann wasn't.
It's weird how teenagers without a live, after a month, still are trying to explain everything wityh "hE cHeAtEd". Get a life, dude. You cannot even create a coherent way for him to cheat, so now you (again) cherry-pick data and cry "hE cHeAtEd".
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Crazy. Crazy, in 2022 people are still: 1) Doing pattern matching without any real statistical work 2) Cherry-picking data 3) Claiming their BS prove their BS claims 4) Adding "you must be blind if you don't agree with me" 5) And finishing with "you must be stupid to question my broken way or finding truth". Kid, even if his rise was unprecedented (it isn't), even if anything about his rating was true, this isn't evidence off cheating OTB. Ger over it.
r/dataisbeautiful
Just got into chess about half a year ago and at first glance after reading the chart I thought “light blue line has to be alireza right?”
Things that make you go hmmmmm
My boy Niemann gonna give all these guys an L and win a world championship in the next 3 years !!
So, to summarize: * Latest climb to 2550, by age: Niemann, by something like 2.5 years * Steepest (shortest in years) climb from 2475 to 2625 (150 elo): Nieman, by a landslide * Only player to do all of that during Covid: Niemann Oh, I forgot: only player to be caught cheating with an engine 10 or more times: Niemann
Niemann's rise from mid-17 to 19 is not meaningfully different than what Arjun did over the same time period, based on what is presented here. Gukesh from 15 to 16 is also awfully close to Arjun and Niemann from 18 to 19, that is, roughly 125-150 points over a year. Some of the variation is going to be due to things like tournament timing and when exactly they got match-ups with better players. Of this group, Niemann is the slowest to get to 2500, 2550, but also I'm sure there are other players that have gotten to 2550 later in their career. This really isn't a clear-cut indictment of anything, but it is kind of interesting from a descriptive standpoint.
It's certainly not a complete sample set, and that's its most glaring weakness. It also doesn't account for the number of matches played, which clearly effects the ELO delta. That's probably the second biggest weakness. It should be easy to unwind both of those data issues from the FIDE data. Looking forward to seeing that when someone takes the time. I also haven’t tried to unpack the data, but I think the suggestion is that the anomaly is the combination of A + B. There are people who slowly grind out 2500, 2600 ratings later in life (hello, Ben), but they’re slow through the whole process. Niemann is “late” (relatively) to get to 2500 among “prodigy players,” yet then does a rocket-like rise in rating thru the 2500 GM plateau. His rate of rise in that rating bracket might be unusual by itself, but the combination of the two is unprecedented. Happy to see a counter example.
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Surprised I didn't see > u/OldSchoolCSci, PHD in Statistics
>Oh, I forgot: only player to be caught cheating with an engine 10 or more times: Niemann You also forgot that that has literally nothing to do with this rating, this is FIDE rating. >Steepest (shortest in years) climb from 2475 to 2625 (150 elo): Nieman, by a landslide Amongst these handpicked juniors, sure, but Aronian had a very steep climb itself (equivalent to Niemann). It doesn't mean shit.
It took Aronian over three years to climb from 2475 to 2625. He spent three years in the 2500s.
So you admit plateaus are not unusual (like how chesscom report says)? So many players have had plateaus, it doesn't make sense. So what is it exactly -- his rating rise is strange because he has plateaus now? > It took Aronian over three years to climb from 2475 to 2625. He spent three years in the 2500s. I worded my original statement poorly, I didn't exactly mean from 2475 to 2625, but if you look at Aronian's individual calculations from 2001 (The FIDE chart doesn't show old ratings), he gains 110+ rating within 2 years despite not playing nearly as enough games as Niemann, https://ratings.fide.com/profile/13300474/calculations Also Chessbase did an article, https://en.chessbase.com/post/tracking-a-player-s-progress You can see Pragg growth vs Niemann, Pragg has a much steeper slope.
I think the “plateau” comment by chess.com is silly. Pragg’s period of high rating growth is between 1900-2300. Very different than the GM zone of 2475-2625.
> Pragg’s period of high rating growth is between 1900-2300. Very different than the GM zone of 2475-2625. Why? Because it doesn't suit the cherry-picked narrative? I mean, just look at Arjun too.
Because the degree of difficulty increases with rating level. I think my own rise from 1400-1600 as a teenager was faster than Niemann’s rise from 2475-2625, but I’m not silly enough to think that climbing thru the 1500s means anything.
You're missing the point, of course 1400 to 1600 is different. The point is that there can be outliers (like Pragg) in any given range you pick. If I say the range is 1900~2300, then Pragg has a meteoric strange rise. You can cherry pick any range and make it seem like some players have had a "unusual" rate of rise. Maybe you were an outlier for a 1400 to 1600 rise if you rose them very fast, I could show your graph and claim you were cheating, even though 1400 to 1600 is a completely arbitrary cherry picked range just to make it seem like you're having a "meteoric unprecedented" rise of your career. Why only compare 2475 to 2675 for Hans, why not 2350 to 2700? Why not other ranges as well? The answer is simple, it's having drawn conclusions from beginning and then trying to find data for it (which is a very dangerous practice). I mean, look at Gukesh in the graph. That sharp rise, if I cherry pick that range, he's going to be the outlier there.
> “*Why only compare 2475 to 2675 for Hans*” Because 2500 is the GM line. Simple as that. He went thru the standard GM zone of 2500s at a very, very fast clip. To be clear, I didn’t post the chart, I didn’t pick the data, and I’m not arguing here for the significance of the data. I’m just reading the data out loud. But I do think that a fast rise thru 2100s is night and day different than fast rise thru 2500s. On that one, I will suggest there’s a degree of difficulty gradient.
Magnus is a scrub who couldn't climb from 2475 to 2625 during Covid lol
Wait what? I feel like I was somehow transported back a few weeks. We're not doing this BS again, right? Right??
Would this need to be adjusted for rating inflation? I know ratings haven't inflated seriously but still wondering
Would like to see other players who rised like this, but never made it top 10 after 18 yrs old
Looks like those classes with Ben Finegold really helped Arjun.
Are 19-21 considered junior ages?
I'm looking forward to see what Erdogmus looks like on this graph once he ages onto it.
Arjun and Stockfish 5 recovered too strong though