¿Puede un adulto mejorar su nivel ajedrecístico?

Los días otoñales atraen la tristeza y los recuerdos. He pasado por el blog de Robert Pearson, que inspiró el nacimiento de Ajed-Red y su primera entrada. Robert vuelve a publicar despues de dos años inactivo. Y regresa con un post titulado "Derek Slater is BACK! And (Perhaps) Me Too..." Se refiere al blog "Reassembler", que curiosamente había permanecido parado también dos años.

Estos blogs y muchos otros de contenidos ajedrecísticos tratan del tema de cómo mejorar el nivel de juego (Improvement). Derek Slater titula la entrada de su regreso "The third age" y, aunque no se refiere a lo que sería la traducción literal a nuestra lengua, escribe lo siguiente:

I’m 48, way way way way past any reasonable expectation of improvement. And yet, why not try? Trying keeps the brain alive (I hope).

En su más reciente post (09/09/2015) titulado "My (Slighty Tattered) Chess Career" Robert Pearson también se sube al carro de los recuerdos y dice:

Most of my improvement came from playing good players from 1982-90, and that's it!

Y luego:

I believe I'll never completely abandon the idea of improvement, and the quest, but at this stage what I'm looking for is more the joy of chess.

También cita a Temposchlucker, cuyo subtítulo bloguero era "Finding my way in the chessdevelopment- and training jungle in order to improve my rating". Éste, que dejó de publicar hace un año, escribió en su post de despedida algo que ilustra maravillosamente el tema del "Improvement" en ajedrez:

There are things in life that one can call "unfinished business". In my life I had two which stood out: fishing and playing chess.

I hardly caught any fish when I started to experiment with fishing.
It took me 25 years to get the hang of it. At the moment I understood how to do it and started to catch lots and lots of fish, I abandoned fishing. Since I don't like fishing. Experimenting and finding out  how it works was a definite challenge, but when the challenge was over, it was finished. I never touched an angling rod again.

I made a genuine effort to get substantially better at chess. I failed. The final conclusion is that the common belief that you can become good at anything just by willing it and working hard is not true. No matter how intelligent you are.

  Amen, Temposchlucker.