DOMINIC LAWSON: A cheating chess champion and why smartphones are even ruining the pub quiz
As hard as we try, none of us can escape the consequences of ageing. That includes the decline in our mental powers.
Nothing illustrates that more clearly than top-flight chess, where the results of the most difficult of all mind-to-mind combat are measured by a completely objective rating system.
The top handful of players, including world champion Magnus Carlsen, are all in their 20s. And, until very recently, no one in their sixth decade had even managed to retain a position in the top 50.
That is, until this apparent biological barrier was broken by a Czech-based Ukrainian-born Grandmaster called Igors Rausis. Over the past few years his rating soared with a series of tournament victories, until, at the age of 58, he reached a ranking of 40th in the world.
He became an inspiration for older chess players, who saw him as a model for what they might achieve. It had even pricked my interest, as a club player whose ranking has been slipping down gradually, year after year (I am now 62).
Yet now it has been proved a sham. Rausis had been cheating. He used his smartphone in the loo at tournaments, exploiting the fact that chess apps, far stronger than any human, deliver instant, error-free analysis at the press of a button.
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