[HN Gopher] Becoming a Chess Grandmaster
___________________________________________________________________
Becoming a Chess Grandmaster
Author : _ttg
Score : 205 points
Date : 2021-07-25 09:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nextlevelchess.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (nextlevelchess.blog)
| pHollda wrote:
| Chess is a boring game about memorizing patterns.
| vecter wrote:
| Although there is a lot of memorization required, especially at
| top-level play (opening theory and your opponent's preference,
| as well as preparation), the most beautiful aspects of chess
| are brilliancies involving quiet positional moves or explosive
| piece sacrifices that seem unbelievable at first. Search for
| "Stockfish NNUE sacrifice" on YouTube to see examples, or the
| AlphaZero vs. Stockfish playlist on chess.com's YouTube
| channel.
| MaysonL wrote:
| I gave up playing chess seriously after watching the one
| grandmaster I ever played compete in the US championship, and
| learned that he was driving a cab to make ends meet.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Top 50 players in the world can make rather decent ~$100k per
| year. But that's just top 50!
| bttrfl wrote:
| I've stopped playing chess as a teenager having reached ~2360. I
| was national youth champion, a vice-champion, 5th in the world at
| one point. I played 100+ games every year. Each game could last
| up to 5-6h. Some games were exhausting, some not. After each game
| you had to prepare for another one - study your opponent's games,
| prepare openings and variants. This effort took tool on some and
| older players were visibly weird, plenty were alcoholics. I used
| to say that football (soccer) players have bended legs, chess
| players have bended minds.
|
| Anyway, if you want to make chess your profession (you don't need
| to be a GM to make a living), keep your mind healthy!
| [deleted]
| airocker wrote:
| I recently started playing blitz games on lichens.org. It has a
| similar rating system. It takes 10 min a game and I have been
| having lot of fun. Wish it translated to fide points.
| Upvoter33 wrote:
| this is a great typo
| airocker wrote:
| Oh man, I cant edit it. I should not comment from my phone. I
| meant lichess.org
| univalent wrote:
| IM checking in. My cousin became a GM while still a teenager.
| There will come a point sometime in your life (for me that was
| the ripe old age of 14 or 15) when you realize that you are
| simply not smart enough to make the cut. When that point come,
| the best thing to do is bail, play for fun and focus on
| academics.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" There will come a point sometime in your life (for me that
| was the ripe old age of 14 or 15) when you realize that you are
| simply not smart enough to make the cut."_
|
| Chess playing ability is not a good measure of intelligence.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| I think the poster was just generalizing there. Playing chess
| at the GM level just requires an astounding leap in working
| memory and recall to be able to remember similar board
| positions and then further thoughts on end-game and mid-game
| macro strategy.
|
| Chess playing ability is probably a good correlation with
| higher intelligence (if intelligence is measured by strong
| working memory)
| password321 wrote:
| I think it is safe to say when both players have had the same
| level of training and same level of interest that the better
| player has better analytical ability. I can't see why else
| there would be a difference in chess ability at that point.
| argc wrote:
| If you can remove opening preparation (and all preparation) I
| think it probably is. Calculating moves is a good measure of
| working memory and is an important aspect of intelligence.
| There are certainly other things that are important, like
| creativity, but anyways, intelligence is probably not a
| specific enough word for this to be meaningful. But as an
| example, I think I'm intelligent enough in a lot of ways but
| my ability to calculate far ahead is held back by my mediocre
| working memory.
| glxxyz wrote:
| Yes brute force RAM that works with these types of problems
| is of important, and is the reason why the vast majority of
| us would never be able to become a grandmaster no matter
| how much of our lives we devoted to it. Here's a clip of GM
| Peter Svidler talking about his memory:
| https://youtu.be/ssBcIg3cEPI?t=3622
|
| In the same way, most of us would never be able to compete
| at any given physical sport no matter how much time we put
| in.
| nextlevelchess wrote:
| If you were an IM at this age (14-15), you were actually
| stronger than myself at this age. I believe it is not about
| being smart enough, but more about what you are willing to
| invest (time/energy/finances). I understand everybody that says
| it is not worth it to go for the GM title or more. But saying
| you are not smart enough is a limiting believe I don't really
| like, especially if you got so close. Certainly not everybody
| has the ability to get a GM title, but 99% that get the IM
| title can also get the GM title with the right work.
| [deleted]
| kruxigt wrote:
| Why is chess so much more racist than basketball?
| exhilaration wrote:
| Related: there was a recent article in the New York Times about
| the problems with this process:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/sports/chess-karjakin-mis...
| bradleyjg wrote:
| After reading that article it seems like it would be better to
| replace the "grandmaster norm" part of the process with
| standardized tournaments against a calibrated computer engine.
| dannyz wrote:
| While computer engines that are significantly better than the
| best chess players are plentiful, computer engines that are
| human rated and play human like moves do not exist. From the
| definition of ELO you could make a 1500 rated chess engine
| that plays perfectly half of its games and plays random moves
| the other half of the games, and it would stay at 1500 ELO if
| it continued to play against 1500 ELO players. This is an
| extreme example but it is not too far off from what chess
| engines do to reduce their ELO.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| I believe this has not been true for some months now.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I haven't followed the new wave of DL based engines but in
| the old Alpha-Beta algorithm days engines could be tuned by
| giving them a fixed processing budget per move (or a more
| sophisticated processing budget to allow for bursting).
|
| Is that not a viable strategy on the new engines?
| sweezyjeezy wrote:
| I think it's really hard to make it play like a human.
| Even GMs miss two-move tactics sometimes, wheras
| computers are pretty perfect at this.
|
| On the other hand traditional algorithms might not be
| very good at positional chess when on a budget, wheras
| even weak human players can understand basic concepts
| like putting your rook on an open file. Then it gets even
| more complicated with the NNUE position evaluation models
| - maybe even with a one-move budget the neural net is
| still implicitly strong at understanding several moves
| ahead, and could still beat a strong human player.
| sweezyjeezy wrote:
| Yeah exactly - it's easier to build an engine that plays as
| well as possible compared to an engine that plays
| reasonable/imperfect moves like a strong human player.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > computer engines that are human rated and play human like
| moves do not exist
|
| Without knowing much about chess, I'd be inclined to say
| this can't possibly be true. Predicting human chess moves
| given an ELO rating sounds like a much easier task than
| training it to be good at the game. It is a different task
| alltogether, but until you reach relatively high elo
| scores, I'd expect a fake human ai would have a much easier
| time simply because it only needs to plan a few moves ahead
| to mimic the mindset of a lower level player.
| ryanmonroe wrote:
| The problem is that humans don't play that way, by
| evaluating a tree a few moves ahead and selecting from
| that. Humans use conscious heuristics and unconscious
| intuitions to make their moves that would be hard for a
| computer to mimic. It's easy to make a machine complete a
| task better than a human would, much harder to make it
| convincingly human-like in its behavior. Consider the
| task of picking apples from a tree. You could easily make
| a machine to do that. But what if you had to make a
| machine that to an onlooker (who couldn't see the robot's
| "face", let's say) would appear to be a human picking
| apples from a tree? And these people aren't just glancing
| at the apple-picking robot, they're spending their entire
| lives painstakingly analyzing the movements of this
| machine and trying their hardest to predict how they will
| move next. And the people doing this are self-selected to
| be the best performers in the world at predicting the
| moves of this apple-picking robot. Think you can make the
| apple-picking robot that will fool these people??
|
| There are many chess AIs on chess.com specifically
| designed to play "like" a specific grandmaster or well
| known chess streamer. I don't think any titled player
| would not be able to guess they're playing a computer if
| they played a few games against the AI without being
| told. It's very well known that computer moves are very
| different from human moves, even the ones specifically
| designed to represent a human.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > The problem is that humans don't play that way, by
| evaluating a tree a few moves ahead and selecting from
| that.
|
| As a modest 1400 blitz player, I definitely evaluate
| future states. That's not all I do, but it's certainly
| one thing I do. AlphaZero can also run just intuiting the
| next move without evaluating any additional states also
| fwiw. Though it is much better when it is allowed to do
| so.
|
| > Consider the task of picking apples from a tree. You
| could easily make a machine to do that. But what if you
| had to make a machine that to an onlooker (who couldn't
| see the robot's "face", let's say) would appear to be a
| human picking apples from a tree? That would be much
| harder.
|
| This is a very deep and nuanced task, made doubly
| difficult by obscure robotic hardware requirements. Not a
| great parallel.
|
| > There are many chess AIs on chess.com, specifically
| designed to play "like" a specific grandmaster or well
| known chess streamer. I don't think any titled player
| would not be able to guess they're playing a computer if
| they played a few games against the AI without being
| told. It's very well known that computer moves are very
| different from human moves.
|
| Maybe? A quick google suggested Maia is a close match to
| what I was suggesting. People are suggesting it does feel
| like a human in the thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/ches
| s/comments/k4o6z1/introducing_m...
| thom wrote:
| I don't know that human calculation is so fundamentally
| different than computer evaluation, it's just that it's
| much, much slower. The human GM's eval of any given
| position, without thinking ahead at all, is probably
| better than most engines. The problem is that strong
| evaluation isn't worth much compared to a weaker
| evaluation that is nevertheless several candidate moves
| wider and many plies deeper (you might argue AlphaZero
| disproves this, but Stockfish was regularly beating the
| neural network engines even before its own neural
| network, for example).
|
| Humans see fewer candidate moves. They regularly miss
| quiet moves that are the strongest. They often calculate
| to a certain depth (even a very shallow one) and stop
| based on gut instinct. But it's still just trees of moves
| with some eval function.
|
| I don't think it's fundamentally that hard to mimic, and
| it would actually be genuinely interesting for didactic
| purposes. But for fairly obvious reasons it's not a
| priority outside of a couple of projects.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I think the proposal is to train neural networks on games
| played by human players at a given ELO.
| ryanmonroe wrote:
| Even if it were possible, I don't think there's a way to
| do it in a way that would make any sense. Would we set up
| an AI now and then forever use the same one? In that case
| people will learn any small quirks of the AI and optimize
| against those vs human play, fundamentally changing the
| game. If the proposal is to be constantly updating this
| AI, well even in that case I'd argue that people will
| over time identify any small difference between machine
| and human play, but in that case people will also be
| upset that someone got normed against the "easy" AI, or
| against the AI that didn't know about the dumdenmorph-
| joyce-allens countergambit yet, etc.
| GreedCtrl wrote:
| That kind of engine exists! It's called Maia, as
| mentioned in a sibling comment.
|
| https://maiachess.com/
| [deleted]
| MauranKilom wrote:
| > computer engines that are human rated and play human like
| moves do not exist
|
| I submit that you're wrong there: https://maiachess.com/
| jointpdf wrote:
| I have played a few hundred games against the various
| levels of Maia (https://lichess.org/@/maia1), and it has
| helped me improve from 1100 to 1425 blitz rating on
| lichess (along with playing against stronger players in
| the arena tournaments). It does seem to encapsulate the
| "average" playing style and common mistakes of the
| different ratings. It feels much fairer, more
| instructive, and more relaxing than playing against
| Stockfish, who will wildly blunder and then subsequently
| torture you.
|
| However, even as a weak player, Maia is exploitable in a
| way that even novice humans are not. For example, it
| loves to give up obvious back-rank mates and almost never
| protects against it (e.g. with h3). It is easy for humans
| to spot if they are in danger of back-rank mate
| (especially if you've been burned before) and defend
| against it, so it does not happen much even at low
| levels. But Maia, game after game, gifts you an obvious
| mate in 1.
| sd8f9iu wrote:
| Computers are far stronger than humans and win every game.
| They cannot be artificially weakened as they do not play like
| weaker humans, but rather make a mixture of incredibly strong
| moves and random mistakes. As such, it would be a tournament
| of trying to lose the best game against a computer, which is
| not an accurate simulation of what human-human chess is like.
| astrange wrote:
| Maia plays like a human: https://maiachess.com
| thom wrote:
| This isn't really how most engines work. Reducing the depth
| that engines calculate to, or altering how they weight
| certain aspects of evaluation, are both perfectly natural
| ways to reduce an engine's strength. They still won't play
| like a human, but they don't need to be forced into random
| mistakes.
| sd8f9iu wrote:
| Your experience with engines then is very different from
| my own and that of the wider chess community. The general
| consensus is that playing computers at any strength is
| both counterproductive and unfulfilling. They do indeed
| make random blunders if you lower their search depth. The
| engine will play brilliant moves for any tactic that
| falls within the search depth, but fail miserably for
| tactics that fall one ply outside of it. Humans function
| very differently to computers: they evaluate a fraction
| of the positions, but use a much more sophisticated
| evaluation function. There is no way of emulating human
| weakness with such a vastly different style of
| computation.
|
| Here is a game I just played that illustrates this
| phenomenon:
|
| https://lichess.org/PiIFqI2c/black
|
| The engine plays well before making a series of random
| blunders no human would make. You can try this yourself
| by playing the different Stockfish levels on lichess.org.
| You will be unable to find a level that makes for an
| enjoyable game. There are some new engines that use
| neural networks to try and play similarly to how humans
| do [1]. I can't comment on their success, but their lack
| of wide adoption by the chess community signals to me
| that it is still incomparable to humans.
|
| [1] https://maiachess.com/
| gurchik wrote:
| Sorry if I misunderstood but it sounds like you're saying
| engines aren't programmed to make random mistakes in
| order to lower playing strength, but this is how
| Stockfish works. Lowering the calculation depth and
| calculation time is used to reduce difficulty, but _in
| addition_ to those it is programmed to make mistakes:
|
| > Internally, MultiPV is enabled, and with a certain
| probability depending on the Skill Level a weaker move
| will be played.
|
| Within the constraints of the depth and calculation times
| it determines the best move, but depending on MultiPV it
| will deliberately not play that move and play an inferior
| one instead.
| bttrfl wrote:
| Why?
| bradleyjg wrote:
| You can't pay off a computer to throw a game.
| gurchik wrote:
| While it might solve issues with the norm process, it
| introduces more problems, specifically that two players of
| equal rating can have vastly different performance against a
| computer because they don't play like humans do.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| Why is that a problem?
| michaelt wrote:
| TLDR, as the article is paywalled:
|
| * You have to win a bunch of games against grandmasters,
| earning 'GM Norms', in order to become a grandmaster yourself.
|
| * It is normal, at some contests, for lower-ranked players to
| pay to attend, while GMs are paid for attending.
|
| * It is widely rumoured some contests are "norm factories"
| where fee-paying players get matched up with washed-up GMs who
| essentially throw the game.
|
| * There are even rumours of contests where an aspiring
| grandmaster's parents offered cash to their opponents. There
| are even rumours of contests that took place only on paper.
| nextlevelchess wrote:
| yeah, sadly there are some dirty things going on when it
| comes to Norms. I guess with a better leadership and a clear
| policy of not tolerating pre-arranged games, this should
| change. But as with doping, it will never be erased 100%.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Pay money to advance in ratings? Nonsense! Just come up with
| a clever way to employ Stockfish over the board!
| blitz_skull wrote:
| I do not believe everyone has the mental capacity to become a
| grandmaster. In case you think that's overly harsh, I'll expand
| that to say I'm almost certain I do not have the mental capacity
| to become a grandmaster. It just takes a different type of
| analytical thinking ability.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| The best way I've found to think about this is that,
| physiologically, there's nothing stopping your brain or mine
| from being the brain that holds a GM mind.
|
| However, in order for that to have happened, we needed to have
| our brains manipulated a very specific way as children, when
| plasticity was at its highest, into learning how to think the
| way that best fits with being a chess GM. Since that didn't
| happen, our minds have settled into patterns of thinking that
| are _very_ hard to now undo or rebuild, and likely not as well
| suited for chess.
|
| Could we tear down how we think about problems at a fundamental
| level and rebuild ourselves to think like GMs? Yeah, probably.
| Could we do this while maintaining any amount of day job,
| social life, or literally any other aspect of a natural human
| life? No, probably not. Changing not just your opinion on a
| topic, but literally _how_ you think, seems pretty insanely
| hard to do after childhood /adolescence.
|
| I don't love the phrase "mental capacity", maybe "mental
| configuration" is more accurate.
| foobarbaz33 wrote:
| > here's nothing stopping your brain or mine from being the
| brain that holds a GM mind
|
| Is it really true everyone has the same mental potential?
|
| For the specific case of a chess GM, it could be many people
| have the potential. Or maybe not.
|
| There are some easy tests to quickly observe and compare
| mental traits between people.
|
| For example, some people can juggle many distinct numbers in
| their head at once. Their brain is like a computer memory.
| Personally I start to fall off around 4 variables when doing
| mental math and don't believe I can increase that
| significantly. Do I have (or ever had) the same potential as
| someone who can juggle 50 variables in their head?
| password321 wrote:
| We have different capacities. That is why some become a GM at
| 12 and some are stuck an IM for life. And it extends beyond
| just being a GM or not. No one atm is as good as Magnus
| Carlsen for example, yet have been training at even younger
| ages.
| imglorp wrote:
| I found this interesting: "Most active Grandmasters are living in
| Russia. A whopping 256 Grandmasters are registered under the
| Russian Flag. The United States of America has 101 active
| Grandmasters, while 96 Grandmasters are playing for Germany."
| That's: pop gm gm per 1e7
| US 333091348 101 3.0 RU 146001137 256
| 17.5 DE 84070834 96 11.4
| djtriptych wrote:
| Chess has been a huge part of Russian culture (compared to the
| US) for like a century. I imagine we'd have more with
| state/popular support. I doubt the average American can name
| any American player besides Fischer, even though we've had the
| current world #2 for years (Caruana, although he may slip to #3
| this month).
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I doubt the average American can even name Fischer.
| djtriptych wrote:
| Yeah maybe most Americans over 60 or something. He was huge
| domestically at his prime.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| A tad bit unfair re: Caruana, considering he's flipped back
| and forth between the US and Italy a bit, most recently as
| 2015. Hikaru Nakamura is a bigger personality, he might have
| _marginally_ more name recognition, though generally the
| point is well made.
|
| Hikaru is making inroads with streaming culture, so honestly
| the group that might know him best are younger people, not
| even necessarily chess players. He's known for... well, being
| exactly himself, and it fits perfectly with the rest of
| streaming culture, so honestly it's a great match.
|
| While we're talking about money, Hikaru has 4.4k subscribers
| [0] on his twitch channel, of which he makes $2.49 per (so
| $11,115.36 per month), in case you were curious about what
| kind of monetization he's able to create out of this.
| [0] - https://twitchtracker.com/gmhikaru
| kofejnik wrote:
| he has >1M subs on youtube, and I hear CPM on chess content
| is among the highest in the industry, so he's probably
| making quite a bit more even without sponsors
| Nemerie wrote:
| Maybe you'd also find it interesting that Iceland holds the
| highest ratio
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess...
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Russia actually has even bigger factual ratio, because a lot of
| GMs in other countries are from exUSSR, which usually means 70%
| Russia, 20% Ukraine and 5% Kazakhstan. I just checked three top
| players in Australia, two of them are clearly exUSSR guys.
| V-2 wrote:
| The choice of color scheme in the "Chess Grandmasters Per
| Country" pie chart doesn't strike me as particularly well thought
| through, especially in terms of accessbility.
| Nohortax wrote:
| "I am definitely not believing that is has to do something with
| Biology. People telling "female are just less smart" or some
| bullshit like that are living under a rock and not in the 21st
| century."
|
| I'm happy to read that. So many guys have hard thoughts about
| women on this topic. I'm nevertheless sad that women are not more
| present in "guy's stuff". They might reverse this way of thinking
| and put themselves forward. But the education even in developed
| countries is still deepening a gap gender. E.g. dollies/ make
| up/dance for girls, cars/ shirt/football for boys. We don't mix
| enough "gender interests" and we inculcate this difference in
| kids even not on purpose. I hope it's changing
| watwut wrote:
| > E.g. dollies/ make up/dance for girls, cars/ shirt/football
| for boys. We don't mix enough "gender interests" and we
| inculcate this difference in kids even not on purpose. I hope
| it's changing
|
| Another side of it would also be boys in girls hobbies I think.
| There is no reason boys can't dance, except cultural. It is
| perfectly fine sport/art.
|
| I think that one can't exist without another.
| legohead wrote:
| I'm very interested in this male vs female subject with regards
| to games (chess, video games). I don't think it has to do with
| intellect, but there has to be some biological difference.
|
| I don't know why everyone is so afraid of men and women being
| different biologically. Men are physically stronger, that's a
| fact. Why can't other differences exist?
| hirundo wrote:
| There could be a male biological advantage across the
| population without females being less smart as a population:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis
|
| But that's hard to separate from the fact that there are just
| so many more males in the pool of chess players.
| equivocates wrote:
| > It is sad that I have to mention it, but it has absolutely
| nothing to do with their race, but with opportunities.
|
| As if access to opportunities has nothing to do with race.
| blitz_skull wrote:
| Access to opportunities has to do with socio-economics.
|
| His point was that simply existing with a darker shade of skin
| does not preclude you from being a GM due to any innate
| (in)ability. It's generally considered in bad-faith to presume
| an author is making a political statement that they very
| clearly aren't making.
| judofyr wrote:
| This is a very factual article explaining how to become a
| grandmaster, but I feel like it needs a disclaimer:
|
| I know that Hacker News likes the idea that if you work hard
| enough then _anything_ is possible [especially when there 's so
| many easily available resources], but when it comes to becoming a
| grandmaster it has to be said that it's _painstakingly hard_. If
| you actually intend to become a grandmaster you 'll essentially
| have to make your full life be devoted to chess for _years_. We
| 're talking about making it your full-time job for at least 10
| years. Yes, that's how hard it is. Today there are countless of
| IMs (the title just below GM) that has played since they were
| small kids, won a bunch of tournaments when they were teenagers
| and yet they realize that becoming a GM is so much work that it's
| not worth it.
|
| If you like chess, then play chess! It's a fun game with an
| amazing depth and a huge player base. But if you're just starting
| out: Please forget about having "becoming a grandmaster" as a
| goal.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| Actually I think there are seperate titles for correspondence
| chess, and these might be easier to get.
| judofyr wrote:
| That's a good suggestion!
|
| Chess also has a very decent rating system (either the
| official FIDE rating or the ratings on online chess servers)
| so another way of setting yourself an _achievable_ goal is to
| pick a rating (i.e. 1700 on Lichess) and then work towards
| that. Rinse and repeat!
| edgyquant wrote:
| I'd be happy with 1000. I keep getting close and then
| falling back into the 800s
| 300bps wrote:
| I used to play Scrabble daily and got pretty good. Memorized
| all of the two letter words, memorized a good number of the
| three letter words and thought about playing in a tournament.
|
| Then someone gave me the book Word Freak and I lost any
| interest in playing in a tournament. The people that win
| Scrabble tournaments memorize dictionaries as their full-time
| job hoping to make $20,000 in tournament prize money per year.
| I can't compete with that.
|
| It's still amazing to me though that the winner of the 2015
| French Scrabble Tournament didn't speak French.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/21/424980378...
|
| All of his strategy tools and anagram skills would've helped
| him but he still had to memorize 386,000 French words that he
| didn't know the meaning of.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| This reminds me of when I got front row tickets to see
| Michael Moschen, a world-class juggler, perform. I knew just
| enough to understand how much he outclassed ... everyone. And
| then I stopped trying for any of the harder tricks.
| yupper32 wrote:
| It's strange to me that so many of you seem to stop when
| you realize you're so far away from being at the top of the
| top of the top.
|
| I know the chances of me being on the PGA tour or being an
| Olympic level skier are basically 0%, but that doesn't stop
| me from improving myself and even competing in golf
| tournaments sometimes (I'm not a good enough freestyle
| skier yet to compete, but that doesn't mean I think it's
| impossible).
|
| It's not about winning the tournaments, it's about
| constantly improving myself and testing myself at the
| highest level I can qualify for.
|
| It's so confusing to me when I see people completely write
| themselves off. "Oh I'm 30, there's no way I'll be [a
| scratch golfer, able to do a backflip on skis, etc]". Maybe
| it won't happen, but why completely write yourself off
| before you even try?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It depends why you're doing it. I have no illusions that
| I'll ever be anything close to an Olympic level skier,
| but I still find skiing fun, thus I do it. Similarly, I
| find Chess fun enough to the point that I will
| occasionally play a quick recreational game in situations
| where a Chess board is present.
|
| But if improving oneself involves doing lots of practice
| that itself isn't fun, then that's exceeded the limit of
| what I'm willing to do recreationally. I'm only putting
| that level of effort in something I don't find fun into
| one thing in my life: work.
| yupper32 wrote:
| Sure, if you find the required work unfun, then so be it.
| I get it.
|
| I was more talking about the attitude of the person I
| responded to. They saw someone world class perform and
| then "stopped trying for any of the harder tricks." I
| don't understand that attitude. It's basically "I don't
| think I'll ever be world class, so why try anything at
| all?"
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Ah, you have not understood. It wasn't even "world class"
| I was trying for. I never set my sights that high, on
| anything, as I believe that statistically one is likely
| not to be rewarded. I just realized how _vast_ the gap is
| between where I was and even "middling decent" and,
| based on my current status and effort expended, realized
| that I had not been spending my time wisely.
|
| Sometimes, you can try hard and just be _not very good_
| at something, and it was witnessing his performance which
| made me understand that "middling decent" might need to
| be a lifetime pre-occupation to attain, for me.
| xtracto wrote:
| This is really interesting to me. Back when I was a kid, I
| did a lot of programming for fun. I made small computer
| games, cracking and all sort of fun things.
|
| Nowadays that I do it as my main job, it is nut as fun. Once
| you have to learn yet another framework or technology, it
| becomes "a chore" (that I am paid to do.)
|
| I also play chess as a very light hobby. I am only ~1750 at
| Lichess and would be happy to be better, but apparently I am
| at the point that to improve I would have to dedicate a lot
| of time to read books and memorize openings/middle games etc.
| I decided not to do it because I would not enjoy it at that
| point.
| paulcole wrote:
| > We're talking about making it your full-time job for at least
| 10 years
|
| I played pretty high level scrabble and devoted 3 years of
| full-time effort to it (while holding down a menial job). I
| wasn't particularly talented but I was willing to put the work
| in. Until one day I woke up and realized it was a total waste
| of time and moved on with my life.
|
| During that time I heard it put even more pessimistically about
| chess. That 10 years of dedicated effort allowed you to maybe
| see most of the game.
|
| There are people who devote their whole lives to Scrabble,
| poker, chess, backgammon, basketball etc. Many are horribly
| adjusted people and some of them end up incredibly skilled at a
| game. And a few of those people can end up making a living at
| it.
|
| The average person just can't comprehend the skill gap between
| the people who live their lives around a game and themselves.
|
| There was an NBA benchwarmer named Brian Scalabrine who said
| about good YMCA basketball players, "I'm closer to LeBron James
| than you are to me."
|
| It's nearly impossible to even fathom how good truly top-level
| game players are.
| rhines wrote:
| Absolutely, and the gap is so deceptive - it doesn't look
| like there's that much of a gap when you watch the pros. Like
| I watch pro badminton players, and compared to the best guys
| at my club who've trained for 10+ years it looks like they
| both play the same. But the guys at my club have no hope of
| winning provincial level tournaments here - like they're
| lucky to even make the quarterfinals, 0% chance of beating
| the top few players in the province. And the guy that wins
| provincial level tournaments here has no hope of winning
| national level tournaments - he rarely makes it past the
| first round, 0% chance of beating the top 5 players in the
| country. And the guys that win national level tournaments
| here have no hope of winning high grade international level
| tournaments - they could maybe pull an upset on a top 10
| player 5-10% of the time.
|
| But from my position, it's easy to watch the pros play and
| think "wow, that looks doable in 10 years of hard work". Yet
| so many people have put in that much work and still are
| effectively as far away from those pros as I am.
| matwood wrote:
| > Absolutely, and the gap is so deceptive - it doesn't look
| like there's that much of a gap when you watch the pros.
|
| It's the unknown unknown. I used to play a lot of ball and
| lucked into playing pick up with some good college players
| and even ex-pros who played over seas. Until I had that
| experience, I had no idea _how_ much better they were.
|
| There's also nuance in the sport that requires knowledge to
| see the difference between top players. For example, when I
| started training BJJ all black belts were the same - as in
| they easily kicked my ass. After a few years of training,
| they still easily kick my ass, but I can feel the
| difference and have some idea just from our rolling which
| ones are better than the others.
| stinkytaco wrote:
| Scalabrine is very accessible and does regular interviews and
| has talked extensively about "The Scallenge" (where he
| challenged several high level non-professional players in
| one-on-one). One extremely insightful point he once made on
| Duncan Robinson's podcast is that part of the reason he's
| "closer to LeBron" is that he's played LeBron. He wouldn't be
| a good player if he hadn't played professionally against top-
| level talent. It might not be worth it to dedicate yourself
| like that, but that kind of dedication and commitment to
| competition is probably the _only_ way you will achieve close
| to a high level and even then, you may end up only an also-
| ran.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Chess ratings make this point really strikingly.
|
| A rating difference of 400 points means that the better
| player will score 0.9 on average (where 0=loss, 0.5=draw,
| 1=win).
|
| A typical hobby player might have a rating of 1600. A good
| player at a chess club will have a rating of around 2000,
| meaning that they beat the hobby player around 90% of the
| time. A low-level grandmaster will have a rating around 2400,
| meaning that they beat the strong club player 90% of the
| time. The top few chess players in the world have ratings
| around 2800, meaning that they beat low-level grandmasters
| 90% of the time.
|
| You might think the top human players are nearly perfect, but
| the top chess engines running on an average desktop computer
| are probably >800 Elo points above the top humans, and
| they're getting about 100 Elo points stronger every year,
| based purely on algorithmic improvements (not computing
| power).
| zeteo wrote:
| It's more likely for the stronger player to have 8 wins and
| 2 draws in that line-up. If you're up against such a big
| divide you should play safe and aim for the draw, it's
| quite attainable.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| I simplified a bit by saying the stronger player wins 90%
| of the time. They score 0.9 on average. That could be 9
| wins and one loss, or as you say, 8 wins and 2 draws.
|
| You would think that a low-level GM would be able to
| achieve more draws against the super GMs, but somehow the
| ratings indicate they don't. It may be that the super GMs
| deliberately avoid drawish lines against much weaker
| players and try to keep the game complicated.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I think it was Bill Murray that had a quote/idea that in the
| Olympics they should have a regular person compete in each
| sport for reference.
| CalChris wrote:
| I've played NBA players a few times. I was a quite good YMCA
| level player. What you can't imagine is just how fast they
| are. But what most people really don't see on TV is how
| strong they are. My brother blocked a European pro player's
| shot at the rim and above the rim. That guy just brought his
| other hand up and dunked it through.
|
| Scalabrine closer to LeBron James than the likes of me are to
| him? He's a _lot_ closer. But I considered it an absolute
| privilege to be on the court with these guys. Fact is, they
| were actually really nice. I got a compliment on my
| rebounding. The second time I walked into the gym when this
| NBA player I 'd played against was there, he came over and
| said hi. _He came over to say hi._
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Your friendly neighborhood normal distribution curve and z
| score makes this pretty easy to fathom. The z score of a 50th
| percentile player is 0. A player who is 1 standard deviation
| above the mean is about 84th percentile. The z score of a
| 99th percentile player (let's say Brian) is ~2.4. The z score
| of a 99.99th percentile player (grandmaster or lebron james)
| is ~3.8
|
| So with these hand waving assumptions, Brian's comment holds
| true if the ymca players are <= 84th percentile of basket
| ball players. Sounds reasonable to me.
| CalChris wrote:
| I like this but you might want to up the z score for
| LeBron. GM is 2500 plus norms. LeBron has 4 rings and 4
| MVPs. He would be Magnus level or at least one of the few
| who hit 2800 (there have only been 13).
|
| NB: I'm a huge LeBron fan and a huge Magnus fan.
| majormajor wrote:
| I took my own crack at this, because I think your numbers -
| intended to show the big separation - still make it seem
| too easy! Lebron is NOT just a 99.99th percentile player!
|
| There's fewer than 500 players in the NBA. There are
| hundreds of millions of people in the US (being US-centric
| initially to try to do the YMCA comparison), so probably a
| few million that play frequently as amateurs? One in a
| hundred? Let's call it 3 million out of 300,000,000, to
| work with relatively round numbers.
|
| So being in the best 1 out of 100 - top 99% - is a z score
| of 2.3. Being in the best 500 is then much smaller even
| than THAT! 99.983%, z score of 3.481. The single best one?
| 99.99997%, z score of 4.991.
|
| So if you define closer by z score, they "good amateur"
| YMCAer is closer to the worst in the NBA than that person
| is to Lebron, but I think it's more meaningful to define
| closer by "how many people stand in between you and them" -
| and the answer is millions for the amateur.
|
| And I think that shows that work alone only gets you so far
| compared to talent. If you and a million other amateurs all
| start putting in ten hour days, the vast majority of you
| aren't getting to the NBA - it's just not big enough.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| That is sort of interesting. Depending on how extremely
| good Lebron James is at basketball could make Brian's
| statement false. I think I disagree that number of people
| is a meaningful metric. The difference between you and I,
| assuming we're both near average competency, could be
| millions of people, while the difference between Lebron
| and Brian could be just hundreds or thousands of people
| but represent a substantially larger skill gap. Otherwise
| you're suggesting that the more skilled two players are,
| the less noteworthy differences in skill are because
| there's fewer people around them to measure with.
| majormajor wrote:
| That's true, we could be separated by millions of people
| but at the same time only, say, a year's worth of two-
| hours-a-week practice.
|
| But in the absence of a reliable way to measure absolute
| skill, the z score one does seem about as good as we can
| get, though it can't truly answer something like "Lebron
| vs Jordan" - and you also would get different numbers
| depending on which population you picked. Population of
| the world, population of the US, population of the
| basketball-playing world, population of people who play
| basketball at least once a month? That's gonna change the
| denominator for the percentiles for the Scalabrines and
| Lebrons both.
| bumbledraven wrote:
| "These Regular Guys Challenged An NBA Player And Instantly
| Regretted It" https://youtu.be/i93vF0WOX6w
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| Years ago I watched a documentary on the World Series of
| Poker. They asked one of the top players if he was a gambling
| addict. His response was essentially, "To reach our level of
| play, you pretty much have to be." This is true to be the
| best in really anything. I've had the privilege to meet
| people who are considered the best in the world in a couple
| of different disciplines. They all see to have similar
| traits, bad home life, most of the alcoholics, obsessive.
| Losing everything else seems to be the price of greatness in
| a discipline.
| paulcole wrote:
| For the most part I agree. But that said, there are
| definitely exceptions. Some truly world-class scrabble (and
| poker) players are well-adjusted, nice, friendly people,
| who seem otherwise normal.
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| No, you're absolutely right. There are a number of people
| who are phenomenal at what they do, and balance their
| personal lives as well.
|
| edit: I would say some (not a lot) great people. I really
| do think it is an exception, but they are out there.
| me_me_me wrote:
| There is a great quote of Paul Morphy
|
| "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The
| ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."
|
| Only with age I can appreciate how true that quote is. There
| was an article that came up not long ago about GMs selling
| games for others to earn their GM norms. And the sad truth is
| being GM in chess doesn't put a food on the table.
|
| The very peak of the players can make a living some as coaches
| or streamers but not everyone can be a 'winner'.
| nextlevelchess wrote:
| There are certainly some negative examples. But "The ability
| to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play
| chess well is the sign of a wasted life." is way too harsh
| imo. You learn dozens of things that help you in life &
| business as well: -pushing yourself to the limit -how to
| learn best -how to get back on track after defeat and much
| more. For me, getting the GM title was sort of a life school.
| I'll profit from the journey my whole life.
| robrenaud wrote:
| The oppurtunity cost is huge though. That level of
| dedication, focus, and intellect applied to a productive
| endeavor like science, technology, or business is likely to
| push science forward or create millions of dollars of
| value.
|
| Hikaru says becoming a GM to like getting two PhDs.
|
| If studying and playing tons of chess very well brings you
| joy, by all means go for it. The wasted life part seems
| very harsh and judgy.
| nextlevelchess wrote:
| Sure, the oppurtunity cost is big. And I'm not saying it
| is the best way to put out value in the world.
|
| Two PhDs sounds like a lot. After all, most GMs get the
| title before their twenties. But such comparisons are
| very hard anyway. But it is also possible to get the
| title while pursuing another career path, you don't have
| to focus 100% on chess.
|
| As you say, the wasted life part is way too harsh and
| based on only some madly crazy examples in chess history.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The
| ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."
|
| A long time ago, someone characterised chess as a DOS on the
| mind.
| toss1 wrote:
| This is why my grandfather never played chess with me and
| actively discouraged it - "too many great minds are wasted on
| chess".
|
| We always instead played checkers, for real - always
| encouraging and teaching, but no patronizing wins for me - it
| was a long time until I could actually take a few games.
| Great memories, and he was gone too soon.
|
| I did play some in HS & college, very much enjoyed some
| intense games, and still think it was good advice.
|
| The Paul Morphy quote is spot on, save maybe for great
| champions like Garry Kasparov, who also went to to greater
| things. I suppose the same could be said about many pursuits
| where only a few get to truly earn a living, such as acting,
| music, sports - it becomes what you make of it but perhaps
| chess is a bit more extremely consuming?
| me_me_me wrote:
| Learning and playing chess is great for you, but probably
| only up to the point of being competitive.
|
| Mid/high level players to progress up are in large degree
| forced to study positions memorise lines etc. To large
| extend its a competitive memorisation game.
|
| This is natural step in high level chess, its like a
| precopmutated hash table, the more upfront work you can
| precomputate the less time you need to spend over the board
| on that move.
|
| I play chess for fun and as casual hobby, and i think its a
| great way to exercise your brain. Thinking about board and
| evaluation positions. It translates into real world too.
|
| Its also one of the last few things i can do and not get
| distracted by anything else.
| smichel17 wrote:
| > but not probably only up to the point
|
| I'm really struggling to parse this. Can you reword it?
| me_me_me wrote:
| my bad, the 'not' was an accident.
| toss1 wrote:
| I suspect you are right about the strategy and point at
| which it reaches a point of diminishing returns. Your
| likening the memorization of huge numbers of opening and
| mid-game sequences to precomputed hash tables seems spot-
| on...
| fernandopj wrote:
| This phrase from Morphy and your story about your
| grandfather reminds me of this "Maybe I can win a pawn"
| scene: https://youtu.be/pOzaIcZwpwQ?t=60
|
| This is what the mentor in the movie means: some become
| good, some foolishly pursue nothing. The game can be
| addictive. But to be great is the rarest thing.
| js8 wrote:
| Funny part about the Morphy quote is that he would probably
| waste less of his life had he actually stick to chess.
| neaden wrote:
| Eh, there was nothing really for him to do in the Chess
| world. At that time period there wasn't really professional
| chess like there is today, he could have made a living
| gambling at it essentially but he would have considered
| that wasting his life.
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| Become a history teacher and open up a chess club.
| Organize tournaments and write books. There's a lot he
| could do beyond "professional chess" as it's known now.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Reminds me of Michael Jordan abandoning basketball because
| he became too good at it, and realizing he wasn't that good
| at other sports.
| nojs wrote:
| > The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life
|
| Wasted in what sense? Aren't we all playing made up games and
| solving artificial problems at the end of the day? Most GMs
| probably aren't doing it to make money, they get a similar
| thrill from it as, say, a mathematician gets from
| understanding and solving deep math problems.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Most GMs probably aren't doing it to make money, they get
| a similar thrill from it as, say, a mathematician gets from
| understanding and solving deep math problems.
|
| Very apt analogy. Most math faculty members in my
| department stopped being productive in the last third of
| their career. After a while, it just gets old. Proving yet
| another theorem no longer excites them.
|
| At least they collect a decent paycheck, though.
| fenomas wrote:
| This reminds me of a quote from Raymond Chandler, describing
| a chess game:
|
| > ..seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the
| irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle
| without armor, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste
| of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an
| advertising agency.
| pmastela wrote:
| Chess is to humans as Bitcoin is to computers (Chess :
| Humans :: Bitcoin : Computers). Except humans stick up for
| the wastefulness of both, and computers stay silent on the
| matter.
| Lordarminius wrote:
| You know little about either chess or bitcoin. The first
| enables self knowledge, molds character, and helps
| develop a mental model transferable to other pursuits;
| the second is the first iteration of computer money.
| reader_mode wrote:
| >The first enables self knowledge, molds character, and
| helps develop a mental model transferable to other
| pursuits;
|
| That's what quickly got me out of chess, when it was me
| playing with my brother as a kid it was about thinking
| really hard and trying to explore as many options as I
| could - it was really about who can think faster and
| outsmarting eachother since we only knew the rules.
|
| When I decided to look into chess I found out it was
| about learning openings, recognising patterns, traps,
| etc. I didn't feel any smarter learning those, I just
| learned more about chess. You can draw up silly strategic
| methapores with any activity, but chess does seem to have
| that Sun Tzu status.
| nezirus wrote:
| I kindly disagree. It may appear that chess is a
| memoization game, but when or if you want to become a
| master of the game , you'll notice that rote learning
| will not take you there.
|
| You do need to understand phases of the game, set up
| strategy, estimate your position, know when to attack or
| to defend, and have confidence in your technique.
|
| Mind you, that is only for the plain master title (FIDE
| or even a national master). Grandmasters are a whole new
| level in comparison, aliens.
| reader_mode wrote:
| But this wasn't my critique. Chess strategy is again
| chess specific, the things that translate are going to be
| superficial. You can draw parallels between many domains,
| like there are phases, strategy and coordination in many
| competitive online games, and I'd argue that the
| cooperative nature translates better to most real world
| than chess.
|
| Chess has this poetic image of playing around with kings,
| queens and pawns that lets artist paint grandiose
| metaphors about real world, but at the end of the day
| spending a bunch of time on chess is going to make you
| good at chess, doubt it will do much better than any
| other similar hobby for transferable skills.
| antaviana wrote:
| Kasparov wrote a book called ,,How Live Imitates Chess"
| that tries to prove you wrong.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| >> the second is the first iteration of computer money.
|
| I mean... I am charitably trying to find
| interpretation/context in which this is meaningfully
| true, and failing. In which way is bitcoin more "computer
| money" than any other money these days?
|
| I purchase things, pay my bills, obtain payment, invest,
| and do all my transactions at least 95% digitally, with
| "computer money".
|
| Uncharitably, I could call Bitcoin "that, but less
| practical / more wasteful". Charitably, I could say
| "There are specific goals/circumstances where Bitcoin has
| benefits".
|
| But I feel it's decades late to be "first iteration of
| computer money", unless there's some squinting and
| extremely specific ad-hoc defining that I haven't
| imagined. Even the "Money" part (as practical
| transactional currency) is these days increasingly less
| relevant,by proponents and pundits alike, as opposed to
| "investment vehicle" or "storage of value".
|
| (as for chess, I don't know; I gave up when I realized
| how much memorization, as opposed to developing of
| understanding, was involved to get much better; it may
| indeed enable self-knowledge and mold character at some
| level beyond the ones I've achieved. Therefore, I cannot
| contribute to discussion on whether Chess is
| practical/efficient/meaningful way to grow those
| characteristics - i.e. hammering rocks for 5,000hrs
| probably grows character at some level but may not be
| sufficiently practical/efficient to matter. I respect it
| like a do Golf - it takes immense skill, dedication, and
| investment to develop it to a high level, and world-class
| players are incredibly good at it; but it's not a skill I
| desire to grow myself anymore).
| Razengan wrote:
| > _computers stay silent on the matter._
|
| I don't know, their fans complain quite loudly.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| > elaborate a waste of human intelligence
|
| Hmm... any way we can turn chess into a proof of work
| algorithm? xD
| drcode wrote:
| He must not have had much experience with quant desks at
| trading firms.
| brudgers wrote:
| Chandler did not. He died in 1959.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler
| uyt wrote:
| I thought "advertising agency" was referencing that the
| best minds of our generation are thinking about how to
| make people click ads at google/facebook.
|
| I guess it was always a thing even back then?
| petamask wrote:
| Possible. But I think more likely is that it was a good
| frame of reference for him as he was an executive at an
| advertising agency for quite some time.
| leto_ii wrote:
| I have to say I don't really like this quote. The first part
| smacks of superficiality i.e. learn chess enough to be able
| to show off in polite society. The second part I think simply
| denotes a misunderstanding of what playing chess well means.
| You can play chess well without being a GM.
|
| In my family I had/have two people who plaid chess well
| (2000-2300 range) without wasting their lives in any way.
| They held full time jobs, had families and enjoyed the game
| at a pretty serious level. If anything chess helped them stay
| mentally active and engaged well into their 90's.
| Scarblac wrote:
| > The second part I think simply denotes a misunderstanding
| of what playing chess well means.
|
| The quote is from _Paul Morphy_ , the best player of the
| 19th century. He practically invented playing chess well.
| And he hated it, he felt he should have become a lawyer and
| did something useful with his life.
| cyberdynesys wrote:
| He did; he never played chess competitively past his 20's
| and was a lawyer until he died.
| thomasahle wrote:
| Can you recommend a biography on Morphy?
| leto_ii wrote:
| > The quote is from Paul Morphy, the best player of the
| 19th century.
|
| The point was taken, see my comment below. I didn't know
| the context behind the quote, I understand that Morphy
| didn't mean it the way I took it.
|
| Nevertheless, I think that under the general
| interpretation of what it means to know chess well (which
| is surely different from Morphy's), I stand by my idea
| that knowing chess well can be a positive thing.
| thomasahle wrote:
| Sounds like the disagreement is just about what is
| required for "playing chess well". If we raise the bar to
| 2500+ maybe you will agree?
| leto_ii wrote:
| > Sounds like the disagreement is just about what is
| required for "playing chess well".
|
| I think so. I'm getting a lot of flak over it though :-<
|
| > If we raise the bar to 2500+ maybe you will agree?
|
| I can't say. I do have an acquaintance who is at ~2600
| level who is also a well adapted guy. He's not a full
| time player anymore, though.
|
| I have no opinion on whether chess performance at a GM
| level is bad for you. All I wanted to say was that you
| can get pretty far with chess (I think a level of
| 2000-2300 qualifies as pretty far for the general
| population) without it affecting your life negatively.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| There are currently only 267 players who have 2600+ Fide
| rating. That's extremely high bar. Are you sure your
| acquaintance is one of them?
|
| 2600 rating on sites like lichess or chess24 is much more
| plausible, it corresponds to roughly 2150-2300 fide
| rating.
| leto_ii wrote:
| > Are you sure your acquaintance is one of them?
|
| Yes. He's a pretty well known Australian player, not sure
| how active he is anymore though. Now has a full time
| academic career.
|
| Edit:
|
| After verifying on the FIDE website, I see his ranking is
| around 2500 now. He is a GM though.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Hm, there seems to be just 2 Australian players with more
| than 2550 rating (3 if we take 2549!), and all of them
| have played rated games recently.
|
| (Two of them are from exUSSR, and the last one has a
| surname that sounds Chinese)
| leto_ii wrote:
| See my edit. I just don't feel comfortable dropping his
| name here. I wanted to make a general point about my
| impression of the impact of playing chess on people, I
| don't want to turn this into some personal thing.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Well the pool of 2500+ players is _significantly_ larger.
| It just immediately raised my attention because 2600 is
| superrare, and prior to 1990s only select few ever had a
| higher rating: it is really something special.
|
| (Also, verifying the plausibility of statements by
| internet users is a personal hobby of mine, hope you
| understand)
| leto_ii wrote:
| Googling "Australian chess grandmasters" I get the
| following list: Walter Browne, Max Illingworth, Darryl
| Johansen, Temur Kuybokarov, Moulthun Ly, Ian Rogers,
| David Smerdon, Anton Smirnov. The guy I'm talking about
| is on the list, I won't give the exact name.
|
| > verifying the plausibility of statements by internet
| users is a personal hobby of mine, hope you understand
|
| https://xkcd.com/386/ not sure it's the healthiest hobby,
| but I guess I understand.
| misja111 wrote:
| +1, Paul Morphy might have been the most fascinating and
| influencing chess player of all time.
|
| When he was still actively playing, he seemed almost
| unbeatable, and nobody understood why. Somehow Morphy
| intuitively knew when to start an attack and when he did,
| it magically always worked out, while other top players
| at that time often saw their attacks turn into nothing
| and would soon lose afterwards. It took a decade until an
| a dedicated studier of his game, Wilhelm Steinitz,
| figured out the logic behind it. His theory of positional
| play changed the way people looked at chess and meant the
| start of the modern chess era.
|
| Morphy himself didn't live to see this, after quitting
| chess he became increasingly schizophrenic and eventually
| died penniless and alone.
| manquer wrote:
| The point is it exponentially harder to break the 2500 /
| 2600/ 2700 barriers . It is hard work.
|
| The reason it is hard work is because beyond a point the
| preparation is a lot about memorizing and remembering a lot
| of lines variations not improving on your understanding or
| theory. That's also why older you grow it is harder to be
| at the top, understanding is not diminished at 40+, however
| memorizing abilities are.
|
| You will have to understand Paul morphy story to understand
| to why he said something like that.
|
| He was the world best by a good distance and he quit
| playing at 22. He had struggles and was consumed by it.
| After spending most of your formative years and not finding
| the meaning in the life despite having won pretty much
| everything can be life altering. He is known as the pride
| and sorrow of chess with good reason.
| leto_ii wrote:
| It's true I didn't know about Morphy when I made my
| comment, I read on Wikipedia afterwards.
|
| In context the quote has different connotations. However,
| having taken it at face value, I stand by my comment.
|
| Nothing in the Morphy quote explicitly addresses the
| technicalities of becoming a world class chess player.
|
| In general playing chess well means something else to the
| general public than to a GM level player. My comment was
| made having the former interpretation in mind - Morphy
| was obviously talking from his (very different) point of
| view.
| me_me_me wrote:
| You took a quote out of context, then admitted it later.
|
| And yet you still claim that your point is correct if
| quote is taken out of context.
|
| Its shifting goalpost fallacy.
| leto_ii wrote:
| I didn't take a quote out of context, the context was not
| provided. There is no a priori expectation that somebody
| should read a Wikipedia page to find out the missing
| context behind a quote.
|
| > Its shifting goalpost fallacy.
|
| There's no fallacy here. I have my opinion, I stand by it
| regardless of the quote's context. I understand that
| Morphy didn't mean what I thought he meant. It's just
| that my opinion on the usefulness of chess is still the
| same.
| manquer wrote:
| Yes, without knowing the world of chess or morphy it is
| difficult to understand the quote.
|
| In his defense I don't think morphy intended for people
| outside the chess world as a general statement.
| leto_ii wrote:
| Indeed. I didn't mean to attack Morphy, I just
| interpreted the quote on its own, thinking it was made by
| some random person (in different places in the thread
| people had quoted various writers etc. not necessarily
| great chess players).
| bsder wrote:
| > That's also why older you grow it is harder to be at
| the top, understanding is not diminished at 40+, however
| memorizing abilities are.
|
| I'd like to see some evidence of that.
|
| However, what does decrease with age is _physical
| stamina_. And classical chess tournaments, oddly, take a
| lot more physical stamina than you might think.
|
| Oddly, the whole faster/blitz chess systems have been
| good for older chess players.
| hutrdvnj wrote:
| > In my family I had/have two people who plaid chess well
| (2000-2300 range) without wasting their lives in any way.
|
| Although seemingly not so far away by sheer number, the
| 2000-2300 elo range is worlds apart from 2500+ (GM) levels,
| in terms of how much effort (and talent) is required.
| leto_ii wrote:
| > Although seemingly not so far away by sheer number, the
| 2000-2300 elo range is worlds apart from 2500+ (GM)
| levels
|
| I know that. My point was that a score of 2000-2300 can
| still qualify as knowing chess well. Didn't know Morphy
| was a top level player when I made the comment.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| The quote is attributed to Paul Morphy, World Champion of
| chess. Playing chess well meant grandmaster level for
| him.
|
| The Wikipedia section about his abandonment of chess is
| tragic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy#Abandon
| ment_of_che...).
| paulddraper wrote:
| "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The
| ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." -
| Paul Morphy
|
| Frighteningly apropos
|
| EDIT: After becoming the greatest chessmaster of his time,
| Morphy retired from chess at 22. He then had a rejected
| marriage proposal, failed legal practice, and died at age 47.
| qqtt wrote:
| "After becoming the greatest chessmaster of his time,
| Morphy retired from chess at 22. He then had a rejected
| marriage proposal, failed legal practice, and died at age
| 47."
|
| Put another way, after abandoning chess at 22, he lived
| another 25 years, fell in love, and was given wide latitude
| to live a life of comfort and pursuing his passions owing
| to his family's wealth. Unfortunately he developed
| something akin to paranoid schizophrenia before the world
| knew how to effectively treat it.
|
| Really hard to sum up an entire lifetime in a couple
| sentences. Pointing out only a few bad things is just as
| misleading as only pointing out a few good ones.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Fair, just emphasizing the similarities to his quote.
| GPerson wrote:
| You just bounced me back from a momentary bit of
| depression.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| How much of a life did you waste if you were "the greatest
| chessmaster of his time" at 22. I have heard worse tales of
| misspent youth.
| teachrdan wrote:
| To put it more succinctly, "Good at chess, bad at life."
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> make a living some as coaches or streamers
|
| And in those jobs being good at chess is only part of the
| equation. You have to be personable, someone that people
| aspire to. Physical attractiveness is also never a bad thing
| in the world of streaming. I once chatted with concert
| violinist. She was not happy about trends in the soloist
| community. "The moment I saw an exposed midrift in a concert
| hall, I knew I would never be a soloist."
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I think Alexandra Botez manages this kind of thing well--
| obviously she's young and attractive, and there's a certain
| amount of goofing around that goes on (her younger sister
| is a co-host), but overall the channel is pretty tightly
| focused on chess games, commentary, etc. And she's
| certainly a very serious player herself and has
| specifically spoken out on sexism issues in tournaments and
| the larger chess community, eg:
|
| https://www.insider.com/how-chess-was-more-sexist-than-
| its-p...
| zestyping wrote:
| I'm curious what would constitute managing well or not
| well in your opinion. She certainly uses it to her
| advantage, while nonetheless being a very strong player.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'm not a regular follower so I don't have a lot of
| history to base it on, but based on the streams I've
| caught, it just seems well balanced-- like the
| presentation is definitely not "sexy" in the way of,
| like, a hot tub streamer, but it's also not completely
| locked down and soulless-- there's personality and
| shenanigans in the way of a radio host or commentator,
| and also a lot of great chess-playing.
|
| Another good example is Xyla Foxlin, who walks a similar
| line with a YouTube engineering/maker channel and has
| been very explicit about her approach: "I refuse to "act
| more like a man" in order to achieve legitimate and
| respectable success in the professional world. I happen
| to be someone who embraces her femininity and feels
| powerful in cute shoes and sparkly makeup, and I don't
| see how any of that makes me less of an engineer." [0]
|
| [0]: https://medium.com/1517/beauty-and-the-invisible-
| beast-c2a8d...
| Claudus wrote:
| There is certainly sexism built into the rating system,
| as woman titles require 200 less Elo points to achieve.
| https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-become-a-chess-
| gra...
| argc wrote:
| If the titles required the same Elo to achieve then there
| wouldn't be a point to have separate titles. The female-
| only titles are useful to encourage women to compete imo.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| They're different titles though. Grandmaster (GM) !=
| Woman Grandmaster (WGM). Judit Polgar, for example,
| peaked at an Elo of over 2,700, so she easily qualified
| for Grandmaster (requirement of 2,500).
|
| Similarly, a Brigadier General is not the same rank as a
| General, despite some commonality in word choice between
| the two ranks.
| namdnay wrote:
| Well OK, but it doesn't explain why there's a WGM. There
| isn't a "woman sergeant" position, and we'd definitely
| take offense at a company defining separate "senior
| engineer" and "woman senior engineer" positions.. so why
| accept the condescension of WGM?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Not all female players do:
|
| "These titles are sometimes criticized and some female
| players elect not to take them, preferring to compete for
| open titles. For example, Grandmaster Judit Polgar, in
| keeping with her policy of playing only open
| competitions, never took a women's title."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles#Women's_titles
| xenocratus wrote:
| > Physical attractiveness is also never a bad thing in the
| world of streaming
|
| You mean like this?
| https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/715141
| busyant wrote:
| > Physical attractiveness is also never a bad thing
|
| I used to work with an ex-military guy (extremely bright,
| hard working, excellent leader, etc. etc.).
|
| He was about 64 inches (1.63 meters) tall, balding, and not
| the handsomest fella. He told me point blank: "I was never
| going to become a general or achieve any other extremely
| high rank simply because I didn't have 'the look' or
| physical stature of a general."
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Photos have been a big part of promotions in the US armed
| forces. There has been pushback in recent years, iirc the
| marines abandoned photos last year, but you still have to
| "look the part" and attach headshots to many promotion
| applications. I've seen people pay actual money ($$$) for
| professional photographers to get an edge over their
| peers.
|
| Compare Canada where, beyond not having photos, even
| gender-based pronouns have been removed from performance
| reports in order that reviewers not risk gender bias.
| paulddraper wrote:
| When I was a contractor (Air Force) in 2000s, I certainly
| didn't notice a looks difference.
|
| If there was one, there was at least a ton of exceptions
| to the rule, male and female.
|
| EDIT: Though I didn't work with any generals. There are
| only several hundred U.S. generals, and that number is
| capped.
| epivosism wrote:
| How do descriptions of physical attributes work? Possibly
| by just giving the candidate's percentile rank by sex?
|
| That would be gender-blind but also ignores the fact that
| absolute scale actually matters in war sometimes -
| running speed, ability to lift and load heavy tank shells
| for a few hours etc.
|
| One might argue that actual physical strength doesn't
| matter much. One way to check this claim would be to look
| at recently granted medals for valor, and see how many of
| them are related to absolute (not relative) physical
| prowess.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Physical attributes are not particularly important wrt
| promotions in the military; you just need to pass that
| baseline fitness bar to not be flunked out on medical.
|
| Indeed, the higher up you go, the more your job becomes
| about leading and the less it becomes about individual
| feats of strength. I think you're thinking about the
| military a little bit wrong here -- this isn't the Roman
| era (when centurions led from the front and had to be
| legitimate physical badasses). Being higher up in the
| military nowadays is a lot more akin to being a paper
| pusher director at a company.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> baseline fitness bar to not be flunked out on medical.
|
| Medical and fitness are different things. Lots of people
| can pass the fitness tests but still flunk out for
| medical reasons. Diabetics. People who get cancer.
| Failing eyesight. Sever allergies. It is very possible to
| ace the fitness tests while still failing the medical.
| colmvp wrote:
| > Physical attractiveness is also never a bad thing in the
| world of streaming.
|
| That's life in general. Even at my company when choosing
| photos of people to profile to for recruitment posts on
| LinkedIn, it's pretty clear they lean towards attractive
| people.
|
| I also notice that with Company Profile page, where who
| they show is not really indicative of who comprises the
| company.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >That's life in general. Even at my company when choosing
| photos of people to profile to for recruitment posts on
| LinkedIn, it's pretty clear they lean towards attractive
| people.
|
| There have been several studies on this. Apparently being
| an attractive woman is a net negative when it comes to
| being hired by other women (6% fewer callbacks than the
| same resume with less attractive photo attached in one
| particular study).
|
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=17052
| 44
| [deleted]
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| I suspect it's even harder than that. Chess GMs have a certain
| kind of mind, and no amount of training will give you that if
| you're not born with it.
|
| I honestly don't understand the "If you work hard enough you
| can do _anything_ " mindset.
|
| To me it's clearly, obviously, objectively wrong - because
| otherwise you'd be able to take take absolutely any random
| child and turn them into a chess prodigy, a musical prodigy, an
| art prodigy, a literary prodigy, a sports prodigy _or_ a STEM
| prodigy just by hot housing them.
|
| There's no doubt a lot of talent is wasted by circumstance. But
| does anyone really believe that at the top levels, hard work
| will compensate for lack of aptitude?
|
| Edit: Polgar experiment. Inconclusive without a bigger sample
| and a control group, surely.
| nvilcins wrote:
| I think the problem is that people interpret the "do
| anything" part as "become #1 at anything" (i.e., "prodigy" as
| per the parent post).
|
| I would say something like "get to the 80th percentile at
| anything" (or even 95th) would be much more accurate, though,
| that doesn't sound as catchy. Heck, in many areas you don't
| even need to work _that_ much or hard to get to the top 20%
| or so, it's just a matter of a reasonably informed and
| structured approach, exercised over time.
| lovecg wrote:
| Obligatory Dan Luu reference on how 95th percentile of
| anything is not that impressive
| https://danluu.com/p95-skill/
| WJW wrote:
| The article mentions that chess GM level is probably more
| like 99.9th percentile. At that level you need to be both
| very talented _and_ practice very hard.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > I would say something like "get to the 80th percentile at
| anything" (or even 95th) would be much more accurate,
| though, that doesn't sound as catchy.
|
| In many areas (sport, art etc.) being in the 80th or even
| 95th percentile means failure.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| >I honestly don't understand the "If you work hard enough you
| can do anything" mindset.
|
| I've encountered these people and it's always a case of being
| insulated from the reality of what the "anything" in question
| is.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Working hard to get 90% good at something is very valuable
| though. That's how I pay my bills.
| fernandopj wrote:
| Polgar set out to turn their children into prodigies, but it
| could have been any field.
|
| They all descibre chess as been what they were introduced and
| chose to pursue [1], but they were educated in many areas.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r
| blindmute wrote:
| What makes it even harder is that chess elo is a zero sum game.
| You not only have to reach a certain level of skill, you have
| to be better than other people and beat them. Those other
| people have also been training for 10 years since they were
| four years old. There has never been a person who became a GM
| who started chess older than 17; other than him it's almost
| exclusively under 14. If you aren't top 5% (~1900 FIDE) within
| the first year of starting to play, you don't have the talent.
|
| I cannot stress enough how impossible it is for anyone as a
| late teen or older to decide to become a GM. It has never
| happened. You might as well be 22 and decide you're going to
| start training for the olympic ice skating team. It's just not
| going to happen.
| bjourne wrote:
| A Croatian player named Stjepan Tomic is trying to do exactly
| what you are claiming is impossible:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/HangingPawns/videos The odds are
| clearly against him, but we'll see how it goes.
| blindmute wrote:
| I know, I watch his channel a lot. He has been training
| hard for three years and is still only 19XX elo. He doesn't
| have a chance. He may get a FM title eventually though.
| bambax wrote:
| I just watched his most recent game (153) where he makes
| a mistake he says he "can't explain" (starting at 18
| minutes) and that after having made it he immediately
| resigned (apparently not even waiting for his opponent to
| play). He also says at other moments in the video that he
| was "terrified" of this or that.
|
| Isn't it possible that superior players simply have
| "better nerves" and self-confidence that let them stay
| calm in stressful situations, and avoid mistakes that
| other players make sooner or later?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > What makes it even harder is that chess elo is a zero sum
| game.
|
| It's not zero-sum though, because as more Chess players enter
| the ranks the pie itself grows larger, meaning there will be
| more total players who can attain an Elo of 2,500+ and thus
| become a Grandmaster.
|
| Zero-sum typically means that the entire pool is of fixed
| size, but that's not the case here. I'd say that Chess is
| win-lose but not zero-sum.
| Lordarminius wrote:
| > I cannot stress enough how impossible it is for anyone as a
| late teen or older to decide to become a GM. It has never
| happened.
|
| I have been a serious chess amateur for the past 20 years. I
| am now stronger than I ever have been (mainly because access
| to training materials has improved greatly in that time), I
| have no doubt that I could improve more if I devoted time and
| effort into more focused training like I have done during
| competitions. I know one or two people like me. I think the
| thing stopping me and the other people I mention from
| climbing the Elo ladder is lack of interest and motivation,
| not ability. You develop different vistas concerns and
| interests at 35 to 40 than you did at 12 to 20
|
| My point is that with time, it is possible to improve and
| stating categorically that because no late teenager has ever
| become a grandmaster, none will sounds wrong. At one time we
| believed that ladies couldn't become grandmasters, the
| chinese could not beat westerners, grandmasters could not be
| minted before the age of 15 etc.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Unless we reach a truly post-scarcity society where people
| don't have to work, I doubt that someone who has picked up
| chess as an adult will be able to become a GM.
| t0mbstone wrote:
| Neural pathways have to be formed while the brain is still
| malleable
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| > _If you aren 't top 5% (~1900 FIDE) within the first year
| of starting to play, you don't have the talent_
|
| People will think this sounds insane, but it's so true.
| Honestly top 5% even sounds a bit low.
|
| Everything gets exponentially harder the higher up you get.
| If you're not dominating immediately you're quite literally
| never going to reach the very top (Like >0.1% kind of top).
|
| The caveat to this is that it's a year of dedicating yourself
| to the thing, not doing it on and off casually for a year.
| oldspleen wrote:
| > I know that Hacker News likes the idea that if you work hard
| enough then anything is possible [especially when there's so
| many easily available resources], but when it comes to becoming
| a grandmaster it has to be said that it's painstakingly hard
|
| what do you have to say about this article?
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grand...
| scott_s wrote:
| That article agrees with what the parent poster said, based
| on my skimming it. That article documents the great lengths
| those women, and their parents, went through to achieve their
| mastery. It also indicates their may be cognitive differences
| between high-level chess players and good amateurs.
| curiousllama wrote:
| The Polgar sisters are very well known. The more you learn,
| the more you will agree "painstakingly hard" is an apt
| description.
|
| Hard work will get you there, and in their case, hard work
| meant they were literally born and raised as human chess-
| playing experiments.
| hrasyid wrote:
| so for people who likes chess: What level/rating is a good
| target for playing chess as a hobby, without trading away your
| life as would be needed for GM or other high statuses?
| tedsanders wrote:
| Your question has no answer. Different people have different
| aptitudes and desires and time to devote. There's no rating
| above which everyone should feel proud and below which
| everyone should feel ashamed. People should play chess for
| fun and if they want to set targets, it's likely most fun to
| set them on a personalized basis, a bit above wherever they
| are now. Hobbies are supposed to be fun. Each person should
| do what they judge is fun. :)
| paulddraper wrote:
| Watch grandmasters. Especially playing bullet/blitz.
|
| _These are just a different species of human._
|
| The "I'm intelligent and I know the rules" is rated 800.
|
| The "I'm pretty good at chess" is rated 1200.
|
| A 1600 player will beat a 1200 player 9/10 times.
|
| A 2000 player will beat a 1600 player 9/10 times.
|
| A 2400 player (grandmaster) will beat a 2000 player 9/10 times.
|
| People like Eric Rosen and Levy Rozman base their entire career
| around studying, playing, and teaching chess on Twitch and
| Youtube. Hours and hours a day. They are really, really good
| and play in competitions.
|
| But even they are not at the grandmaster level.
|
| EDIT: To use an analogy, reaching grandmaster status is
| comparable to playing in the NBA.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| When I watch super grand-masters calculate tactics, or play
| simuls while blinded, I know that they are just built
| different in a way that I was either never built for, or
| would have had to begin my training early during development.
| bluedino wrote:
| Even an IM (International Master) is blown away by the waya
| GM (Grandmaster) thinks/analyzes. Levy does a video with
| Hikaru and he looks like an amateur in comparison.
| paulddraper wrote:
| I was trying find that video.
|
| I think Hikaru plays him at rook+knight odds or
| something.
| starik36 wrote:
| The video where they analyze tricky positions on their
| own and then compare notes is pretty illuminating.
| Hikaru's thought process is just different from an IM.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dQzTnvsNG4
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| To be fair to Levy, Hikaru is the best blitz player alive
| and one of the top 20 classical players. Hikaru is better
| than your typical grandmaster by about the same amount
| that a grandmaster is better than Levy (250 rating vs 150
| rating points).
| jpeter wrote:
| A 2882 player (Magnus Carlsen) will beat a 2400 player 9/10
| times.
|
| A 3544 engine (Stockfish) will beat a 2882 player 10/10
| times.
| t0mbstone wrote:
| Maybe not fair to say "beat". Probably more fair to say
| "beat or draw"...
| snarkypixel wrote:
| Why? At equal level, sure, but when so far above it'd be
| surprising not to win.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| I think the context here is it's an average win rate
| across multiple games (i.e. playing both white/black an
| equal number of times per player).
| paulddraper wrote:
| A draw counts as "half beaten."
|
| So 8 wins and 2 draws is winning 9/10.
|
| ---
|
| A 660 point difference between Stockfish and Carlsen
| should be a 1 - 10^(-662/400) = 98% win rate for
| Stockfish.
|
| More than likely, that's 96% win, 4% draw, 0% loss.
| munificent wrote:
| This Neal Stephenson quote is relevant too, I think:
|
| _Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often,
| that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest
| motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts
| monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my
| family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore
| myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to
| live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just
| dropped out and devoted my life to being bad._
|
| When you're young, to some degree, anything is possible. But
| _everything_ isn 't. You gotta pick how you spend your time and
| once that choice is made, the time doesn't come back.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| So true. Professor. Husband. Father. Now I'm just trying to
| eek in GMing a tabletop adventure. That is the extent that my
| time+ability will allow...and I'm not sure I'm that good at
| any of them (impostor syndrome)
| password321 wrote:
| Not just painstakingly hard, I think for many it is impossible.
| Many IM's do think it is worth the effort but just can't reach
| it.
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| > We're talking about making it your full-time job for at least
| 10 years. Yes, that's how hard it is.
|
| Very true
|
| An uncle of mine is a state chess champion in India, has often
| reached national level, but finds it hard to compete for this
| reason.
|
| He says most people who play and win at national level have
| sponsorships--so they practice chess full time.
|
| So its hard to even become a national level player without
| doing this either full time, for for many many decades
| (decades, not years)
| foobarian wrote:
| So basically same as becoming a hardcore nerd-level software
| engineer :-)
| edgyquant wrote:
| I'd say it's easier to make money as an engineer. Hikaru is
| an amazing player but he has to stream to make good money
| agarden wrote:
| Hikaru was making six figures before he ever took up
| streaming. He was sponsored by Red Bull back then.
| bijant wrote:
| Even if you're willing to devote 10 years of your life to chess
| you will not become a grandmaster unless you're starting out as
| a child. You might be some kind of Ramanujan level chess
| prodigy, but those are rare these days and in any case You
| would find out quickly if you had that degree of talent. The
| accessibility of chess databases and engines that even the
| world champions of yore did not have means that anyone with a
| smartphone can train at the highest level. The best Ballerinas
| start dancing quite young, the greatest Chess Players have to
| start even younger. The case of the Polgar Sisters [1]is quite
| instructive. So even if your ambitions to become a GM might be
| doomed, you're Children might just realize what you never will.
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laszlo_Polgar
| belter wrote:
| On "The Man vs. The Machine"
|
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-man-vs-the-
| machine-...
| js8 wrote:
| I really admire Laszlo Polgar, and I agree that everybody can
| be raised a genius, but there is a caveat in it too - it
| takes a lot of effort on part of parents to groom children
| that way. Maybe it's easier than to become a chess GM, but in
| practice, lot more effort than most people are willing to (or
| even can) afford.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| With Olympics going on, this is very relevant. China has a
| training camp to dominate all aspects of the Olympics and
| training at young age is absolutely crucial.
|
| https://youtu.be/8-OGKGmxSbw
| yboris wrote:
| Thank you so much for sharing Laszlo Polgar! I have not heard
| of him before - I love his work now!
|
| I believe his claim: if we tried, we could turn "any healthy
| newborn" into "a genius".
|
| Laszlo Polgar raised his children focusing on chess. His two
| daughters became the best and second-best female chess
| players in the world.
| Scarblac wrote:
| He had three daughters, the youngest was "only" an IM, but
| one of her tournament results was so astonishing people
| still refer to it as "the sack of Rome". (
| https://www.chess.com/blog/damafe/the-sack-of-rome-
| magistral...).
| sireat wrote:
| Sofia is the middle daughter - reportedly the most
| talented.
|
| Judith being the youngest had that kill instinct at an
| early age.
|
| The sibling dynamic is something I did not appreciate
| until I had kids of my own.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Curious about what sibling dynamics you've observer.
|
| I'm the oldest child, and my youngest sibling definitely
| doesn't have, "that kill instinct".
| yboris wrote:
| I feel like there's a bit of irony in using the word
| "talent" in light of what Laszlo Polgar's work was
| attempting to demonstrate.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > I believe his claim: if we tried, we could turn "any
| healthy newborn" into "a genius".
|
| I don't. Intelligence is partially heritable, which is also
| the problem with his experiment. He was himself a leading
| intellectual, the probability that his daughters will
| inherit his high intelligence is pretty good. (it's not
| that much known about the mother, but I assume he married
| someone with above average intelligence as well).
| yboris wrote:
| I agree that intelligence is _partially_ heritable. But
| there is also "regression to the mean" - where, for
| example, we should expect children of taller parents to
| be taller than average, but often not as tall as their
| parents.
|
| There is likely tremendous potential that we as a society
| waste by not providing resources and opportunities for
| and and encouragement of better education at earlier
| stages of life.
|
| Personally, I learned to read by 3 years old, but not
| because I was a prodigy -- but because my mom spent
| numerous hours encouraging me and building in me a love
| of it. I am confident more than 50% of children can learn
| to read by age 5 - meanwhile in the US we don't expect
| that kind of success until after a few years of
| schooling.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > Even if you're willing to devote 10 years of your life to
| chess you will not become a grandmaster unless you're
| starting out as a child.
|
| Well that's bullshit.
|
| The main reasons adults don't start chess and reach
| grandmaster levels at the same rate as those starting as
| children is the lack of free time and the lack of desire to
| put in the effort. Those two things eliminates the vast vast
| vast vast majority of adults, but it's not a factor in your
| hypothetical.
|
| If some adult wants to spend 10 years of their life mastering
| chess, and didn't have to worry about work, life, dating,
| children, etc, they'd have about the same chance as a child
| of becoming a Grandmaster eventually. The chance is still
| extremely low for each, of course.
| rodiger wrote:
| Surely neuroplasticity is a factor as well.
| yupper32 wrote:
| Maybe. But it's not a significant enough factor to say
| "you will not become a grandmaster unless you're starting
| out as a child".
|
| I'd wager that free time (and overall lack of
| responsibilities) is the vast vast vast vast majority of
| what factors into children excelling at chess.
|
| Am I a bit off when I say "they'd have about the same
| chance as a child", all else the same? Maybe. But it's
| certainly closer to reality than the original post I
| responded to.
| tralarpa wrote:
| > I'd wager that free time (and overall lack of
| responsibilities) is the vast vast vast vast majority of
| what factors into children excelling at chess.
|
| I don't agree, but I cannot prove my position. It's an
| interesting question that also applies to other fields
| (music etc.). My opinion is that when a child starts a
| certain activity at a young age, that activity "burns"
| its patterns into their brain like a language. I see that
| effect with one of my kids: although we started learning
| to play an instrument at the same time (and I can
| guarantee you with 100% certainty that he didn't practice
| more than I in terms of number of hours), his way how he
| handles the instrument and the music is completely
| different from mine: completely natural (like a mother
| tongue), recognizing patterns without needing to think
| about them,... I am certainly not the first who made this
| observation. The question is why chess should be
| different.
| yupper32 wrote:
| It certainly seems difficult to prove either side here
| :). I think I just trigger when someone says something so
| definitive like "you can't become a grandmaster if you
| start as an adult".
|
| I'm one who has excelled in a handful of hobbies to
| pretty high levels while holding down a day job. Started
| golf at 23 and 4 years later I'm a low-single digit
| handicap. Started skiing around the same time and I'm
| working up do doing backflips off jumps, while already
| being able to do several tricks off jumps, slide rails,
| and drop moderate sized cliffs.
|
| I'm not trying to brag, and I'm not saying that those are
| even extraordinary or comparable to anything
| professional. But I've had people legit tell me that the
| only chance I have of being a scratch golfer or do a
| backflip on skis was if I started as a kid. Which is
| obviously ridiculous to me, and I'll prove them wrong in
| the next few years.
|
| MY POINT: Take a bunch of adults like me and give them
| the resources to practice golf or skiing all day every
| day? You'll eventually get someone who can go pro (which
| I'm saying is the equivalent of being a grandmaster for
| this conversation). At what rate would they go pro
| compared to kids? Who can say. I'd wager it's a lot
| closer than people in this thread are thinking.
| bijant wrote:
| Well if it's bullshit you should have no trouble providing
| a counter example. There are tens of thousands of adults
| learning the rules of chess each and every day. Is there
| any Grandmaster among them ? I have worked with adults and
| children learning chess and regardless of how much time
| they invested the learning curves would invariably look
| very different.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > Well if it's bullshit you should have no trouble
| providing a counter example.
|
| That's logically not true. It's not like there's a huge
| pool to choose from. There are less than 1800 GMs right
| now in the entire world.
|
| And it also depends on what we mean by all this. Learning
| the pieces? Most children learn the rules of the game at
| some point, I'd imagine. That takes a way too many
| people.
|
| Actually starting to try? There are a few examples I can
| find of people being around ~1700 rating when aged 18+
| and making it to GM (Jonathan Hawkins, Jacob Aagaard,
| John Shaw)
|
| Ye Jiangchuan didn't learn the moves until they were 17.
| Still young, but not crazy young.
|
| > There are tens of thousands of adults learning the
| rules of chess each and every day.
|
| How many find they have a massive passion for chess,
| without having a job, a significant other (or pursuit of
| one), any worries about money/bills/etc, or have children
| or family to take care of? That, and they can't have
| found their passion for chess during their childhood.
|
| Probably almost zero people fit that bill. You basically
| need a lottery winner or trust fund person who doesn't
| care about having an abnormal life of chess with minimal
| upside in the small chance they actually reach the GM
| level.
|
| But those are all not related to the fact that they have
| an adult brain, which is my point.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| There is no counter example because of the things they
| mentioned.
|
| You're going to have real trouble finding an adult that
| is sufficiently motivated to become a chess GM, has an
| enormous amount of free time, willing to dedicate the
| next 10 years of their life purely to chess, etc.
| tralarpa wrote:
| > If some adult wants to spend 10 years of their life
| mastering chess, and didn't have to worry about work, life,
| dating, children, etc, they'd have about the same chance as
| a child of becoming a Grandmaster eventually
|
| A friend of mine stopped playing chess competitively at the
| age of 50 because, as he said, he didn't have anymore the
| necessary physical stamina to learn and practice for hours
| and hours every day. Age /is/ a factor, even if the
| external conditions are identical.
| polytely wrote:
| Something also to keep in mind is that even if you become a GM
| making a career out of playing chess tournaments is REALLY
| hard, it is sometimes hard to break even because you have to
| pay travel costs to go from tourney to tourney.
|
| Hikaru made a really enlightening video about the economics of
| pro chess playing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hWlbsAVRN0
| V-2 wrote:
| Out of playing tournaments, sure, but that's not the only
| source of income they have. Not even the main one. Tutoring
| is likely among the best options.
| lcall wrote:
| I know someone (a little) who is a grandmaster. He obtained the
| title maybe around age 17 (+/- 2y) after doing it basically
| full-time through his youth, with strong family support, after
| showing strong promise at age 3. I'm pretty sure he and his
| family are glad of it, and it was a lot of work. His brothers
| and father are also very good at chess and have taught (rated,
| but not IMs I think).
|
| I'm very glad (AFAIK) he didn't have to abuse his body etc to
| get to that point. That doesn't seem worth it.
| axus wrote:
| It sounds a lot like playing professional sports, but without
| "Chess scholarships" in college.
| slyall wrote:
| There are inter-college Chess competition. A few US
| Universities are serious about it and they do have people
| getting scholarships to play on the chess team.
|
| Source: Local (non-US) player got one of these.
| zeteo wrote:
| Great, a top comment that aims to discourage people from even
| trying. It's unclear where you got this stuff from (maybe
| you're a grandmaster too?!) but this is well beyond what the
| author says. He mentions 2 hours per day for 10 years and that
| it's about consistency, not total time spent.
| huachimingo wrote:
| If you want to have a more engaging round like real life battles,
| try to play chess with a clock. Give 15-20 min to each one
| without any adding system, or 5min (or less) if you want to play
| FPS-ish chess.
|
| There are some apps to simulate these clocks. See also adding
| systems if you want more variety.
| TylerLives wrote:
| > There are much fewer female Chess players, so it is logical
| that there are less female GM's
|
| But even relative to the total number of female players, much
| smaller % reaches GM.
| hereforphone wrote:
| Should we do what we now do in other areas (military) and
| change the definition / standards of GM to encourage
| "equality"?
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles#Woman_Grandmaste.
| ..
| V-2 wrote:
| It's a different title, however. It is Woman Grandmaster.
| It is not at all easier for a woman to obtain the regular
| Grandmaster title. A subtle difference perhaps, but
| nevertheless a difference.
| dahart wrote:
| It makes sense that if the participation rate for women is
| lower, then the attrition rate is also higher, no? Or what was
| your point?
|
| There is a variety of possible reasons this is happening, and
| the same effects can be seen in business (smaller ratio of
| female CEOs than employees) and other competitive sports
| historically dominated by men.
| typon wrote:
| Most likely because the dedication required to reach
| grandmaster level, essentially wasting your life away for a
| game, is socialized out of women in most cultures because they
| have to have responsibilities and be care givers. It's becoming
| less and less true though, at least in western culture.
| ar_lan wrote:
| > But even relative to the total number of female players, much
| smaller % reaches GM.
|
| Less women also have access to top-tier coaches and the
| training available to their male counter-parts.
|
| It's not just that fewer women play - it's that there are less
| females in the community, in the form of role models, coaches,
| competition, etc.
|
| Note that the top female in chess history (and her sisters, who
| are both highly accomplished chess players) were heavily
| coached by a decent player himself from the age of 4-onward.
| But how many women get that similar type of opportunity?
| alberth wrote:
| http://lichess.org
|
| I can't recommend enough lichess.
|
| It's been featured on HN numerous times [0]. Will always be free
| and has an extremely interesting tech stack.
|
| Note: lichess isn't just about playing chess with other people
| online. They have great "training" section (e.g. how to mate in X
| moves, pick the best move available, etc). I almost enjoy the
| training section more than playing against someone else.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26910579
| dragontamer wrote:
| There's a big difference between looking at a "puzzle" (and
| knowing that there's a solution), and playing a game (and not
| knowing if there's a solution to any position).
|
| Puzzles are good for when you're still learning how to look at
| basic things: forks, pins, etc. etc. But you need lots of
| experience in-games (especially with the "lack of knowledge"
| about whether or not a pin is possible in any position).
|
| Puzzles are much easier than playing a game. Focusing for just
| 1 to 2 minutes on a particular board state is much less tiring
| than focusing for an hour over a "Rapid" game.
| manquer wrote:
| Puzzles are not just for training.
|
| Many like me enjoy puzzles because it a problem to solve like
| any other type of pzzule not because it helps in the learning
| the game.
|
| Knowing that a puzzle(chess or regular) has a solution does
| not take away the joy of solving it.
| kofejnik wrote:
| and https://listudy.org/en is a great free study complement to
| lichess
| [deleted]
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