[HN Gopher] Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 poi...
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Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
Author : marcusbuffett
Score : 209 points
Date : 2021-10-07 15:02 UTC (7 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (mbuffett.com)
| huachimingo wrote:
| Unpopular opinion: Chess needs an update with more moves or
| randomized pieces (position, etc).
| bikeshaving wrote:
| Look up Chess960! It's a lot of fun.
| WJW wrote:
| This is not actually an unpopular opinion but one that many
| players (including former world champions like Gary Kasparov)
| have voiced as well.
| joshuakarl wrote:
| Chess already has many flavors, but the main one lasted for
| centuries and its longevity is partly the reason of its
| success. The more it last, the more it's played, the more it's
| a universal game. But if you create a new fork, share it and i
| will try!
| neilk wrote:
| I'm quite good at puzzles now, but it doesn't seem to affect my
| ranking in actual play.
|
| I might be asking for the impossible here, but is there a way to
| get better without turning this into a part-time job, where I
| have to read a lot of books, study and memorize openings, and so
| on?
| rantanplan wrote:
| Search for "Ben Finegold" on YouTube. He has many lectures for
| beginners and he's one of the funniest GMs. That makes it less
| boring :)
| a13n wrote:
| Note that going from 1200 ELO to 1800 ELO is going from 18th
| percentile to 74th percentile. Pretty much any form of study over
| 6 months will get you that progress, because you'll have spent
| more time on chess than ~74% of players.
|
| Going from 1800 ELO to 2400 ELO (74th percentile to 99th
| percentile) in 6 months would be a lot more interesting, because
| clearly your study habits are helping you progress faster than
| others.
|
| A lot of being better than X% of people at something is just
| about spending more time doing it than X% of participants... Most
| professional video game players have 5,000 to 10,000 hours of
| experience in their game.
|
| Source: https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/rapid
| Moodles wrote:
| I think by far the biggest improvement newbies can make is just
| not hanging pieces and blundering, honestly. Literally the
| majority of games at <1600 lichess level will be decided by
| mistakes. But apart from that, it's openings and tactics. I
| largely agree with the blog post.
|
| I used to be quite good as a kid, winning championships and
| whatnot, and I'm actually glad my grandfather didn't teach me
| opening theory so much, so I could be trained to think more than
| memorize. Sadly at the highest level, you do just have to
| memorize the best opening lines which makes it a lot less fun so
| I'm not too bothered about not being the best I could be. I think
| games like Fischer random go some way to addressing this and it's
| a shame they're not more popular.
|
| Some really entertaining Chess youtube channels I like are:
|
| GothamChess: https://www.youtube.com/c/gothamchess/about I think
| the number 1 on YouTube these days. He explains games in a high
| level, really entertaining way. He also has other playlists like
| guess the elo, etc. He's a really entertaining guy.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/agadmator I think he number 2 and used
| to be number 1 most subscribed until very recently. He explains
| lines in more detail than Gotham, and has quite a few funny meme-
| able phrases like "captures, captures, captures", "hello
| everyone!", "bishop pair fully operational", etc. I enjoy his
| playlists about e.g. the Morphy Saga, AlphaZero, very much.
|
| ChessBrah: Kind of broey funny with house music, challenges and
| whatnot, and actually very high quality chess from GMs too
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXxdkt1d8Uu08NAQP2IUTw
|
| There's some others I don't watch so much but which are also
| liked by many too, like the Botez sisters, GM Hikaru, Eric Rosen,
| etc. It's quite a nice community (barring the usual drama all
| such communities have).
| mushishi wrote:
| To extend your list, I like grandmasters GingerGM
| https://www.youtube.com/c/GingerGM and Daniel Naroditsky
| https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielNaroditskyGM
| bsder wrote:
| > I think by far the biggest improvement newbies can make is
| just not hanging pieces and blundering, honestly. Literally the
| majority of games at <1600 lichess level will be decided by
| mistakes.
|
| This, in fact, exactly what GM Ben Finegold points out. At
| anything short of Master-level play, blunders define the
| winner. "Never resign" is something that he drums into his
| students.
|
| My biggest issue with chess is that playing chess isn't "fun"--
| it's hard work. There are a lot of games that I would rather
| play when I'm against a human socially.
| cven714 wrote:
| Have to include ChessNetwork
| https://www.youtube.com/ChessNetworkTV/videos
|
| If people like Gotham/Nakamura/ChessBrahs aren't your style,
| ChessNetwork is calm and straight forward without all of the
| youtube/twitch "entertainer" personality I find grating.
| mkaic wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of Eric Rosen, who plays lots of gambits and
| aggressive games with highly instructive commentary.I'd highly
| recommend his content whenever you feel yourself starting to
| get tired of traditionally high-energy YouTubers -- Eric is
| lively and funny but also stays incredibly chill and calm 100%
| of the time. I've watched hundreds of hours of his videos and
| have never seen him lose his cool ever, it's impressive.
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| So I don't mean this is to be snarky , but aren't all chess
| games decided by mistakes?
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| Sure, but in chess blundering is more specific in that it
| means a mistake that is obviously awful. It's the difference
| between making a poor tactical decision that you might not
| realize was the reason for your defeat without analysis, and
| making a move that is so terrible that if you had noticed the
| issue with it in advance even a low ELO player never would
| have made it. A hanging piece being given up for no
| positional advantage is the classical low ELO blunder.
| xapata wrote:
| Depending on your definition of a mistake.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
| move_advantage_in_ches...
| efficax wrote:
| failure to see disaster 3 moves ahead is a mistake, failure
| to see it 10 or more moves ahead is just the limits of human
| reasoning. In between is squishy
| WJW wrote:
| I've managed to progress (over the course of several
| months) from making dumb blunders like hanging a queen or a
| rook to blunders 3 moves ahead that are instantly losing
| according to the engine but completely innocuous to my eye,
| even when reviewing the game. "Just don't make blunders" is
| the standard advice but it is not very actionable. Do you
| have any advice on how to go about this?
| Moodles wrote:
| For one move blunders, it is things like:
|
| - Look for checks.
|
| - Look for hanging pieces.
|
| - Be extra careful with knight forks.
|
| - Be careful with pawn forks.
|
| - Look for zwischenzug when doing exchanges.
|
| - Look for what a piece is currently doing before you
| move it (is it defending something?).
|
| - Apply above reasoning to what your opponent might do in
| the next move after yours.
|
| 2-3 moves ahead is mostly the same, just in a bit more
| depth where some common tactics come in, e.g. the bishop
| sacrifice on A2 if the white king is castled and stuff
| like that.
| WJW wrote:
| By the time the bishop comes in to A2 it is usually too
| late XD. Zwischenzugs in exchanges still get me
| sometimes, otherwise I've mostly fixed these. Thanks for
| the time spent answering though, I think the main thing
| is to remember to take the time to think things through.
| So obvious and yet so difficult :)
| Moodles wrote:
| It is thought that if chess was played perfectly then it is
| probably a draw, but nobody knows. So if by "mistake" you
| mean "not exactly the best move to force a draw from move 1
| to the final move", then yes. But in chess "mistake" usually
| means "large inaccuracy" rather than "not the best move". I
| just mean games at a higher elo are usually decided by
| pressing a smaller advantage, rather than someone hanging a
| queen by mistake, so basically just avoiding massive blunders
| gets the most elo benefit, rather than worrying too much
| about tactics or opening theory.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| Perhaps it's fair to say that a "mistake" in chess is a
| move that you realise is bad as soon as your opponent makes
| their replying move (or, in some cases, as soon as you take
| your hand off the piece you just moved).
| dudus wrote:
| So if you just realize that move was bad after 3 turns it
| was not a mistake by your standards.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Inaccuracy, mistake, and blunder are in a sense technical
| terms related to the gravity of the screw up.
| jiggunjer wrote:
| I'd rank them best first: Gotham, John Bartholomew, Rosen,
| Hikaru, Agadmator, Hanging pawns, others.
|
| The st louis chess club lectures are also very good.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| How is hikaru before agadmator - it's pure entertainment.
| Watching a super gm intentionally blunder on first two moves
| for 3 hours probably hurts your chess more than improves it
| raptorraver wrote:
| Interesting article. Wish I had time to try even some of those.
| I'm nowadays quite casual but still serious player. Have been
| grinding in Lichess since 2019 but played consistently since
| highschool (so 15 years now!). I'm bit over 1800 in rapid and
| around 1700 in blitz. I don't care that much about my rating but
| it sure feels nice to break my records every now and then. I
| think my biggest problem is that my work (coding) exhausts my
| thinking energy and I'm quite tired most of times I play so I
| make stupid blunders which makes me lose many many winning
| positions. I don't know what would help here? Lately I've just
| played mostly 3 minute games. It's not so serious to lose a
| knight or bishop there because the time factor is there always.
| I'm dreaming of attending the local chess club once my kids are
| older but until them, see you on Lichess! Boy I love chess :)
| greenail wrote:
| I think the author is underappreciating end game. Understanding
| how drive winning pawn promotions informs much of the other
| strategy. This sort of thing informs when to make a trade or a
| sacrifice. If you don't understand it you aren't likely making
| good trades. The other simple idea is control of the center and
| evaluating your play to ask yourself how much control did you
| have?
| gpm wrote:
| I'm 1878 on lichess rapid, so slightly better than the author.
|
| At this level (at least with my play style) the end game rarely
| decides games, usually one side or the other will gain a
| decisive advantage earlier than that.
|
| It's obvious to me that there will become a point where I need
| to start really studying endgames if I want to improve forever,
| but it's not yet. Moreover my opponents also don't understand
| engames well, and engines don't play them in a human fashion,
| so it isn't easy to get useful practice in them.
| greenail wrote:
| do you play speed, blitz, longer? If you want to play expert
| or master level I believe you should study end game but the
| format you play may have some impact on how important you
| think endgame is. Blunders become much rarer as you play
| higher level players and early advantage may come down to a
| few 1/2 tempo win/loss moves.
| gpm wrote:
| Rapid (as specified in the rating), specifically 10+5.
| [deleted]
| register wrote:
| 600 points in 6 months is an impressive achievement.
| toolslive wrote:
| going from 2100 to >2250 on lichess in a year, I can confirm
| woodpeckering is the way to go for me.
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| That's solid improvement, good to know. I may pick back up with
| the woodpeckering at some point.
| billfruit wrote:
| Another apporach would be to focus on correspondence matches,
| where people make fewer blunders. May be some of the habits
| learned there will transfer over to shorter time controls.
| someguy101010 wrote:
| I gained 200 point when I started practicing blindfolded, also
| great visualization training! A good way to start this is have
| someone call out squares on the board and you respond with the
| color. Next start naming the diagonals. Then start moving around
| a knight, bishop, and then slowly build up your ability to hold a
| game in your head. Highly recommend!
|
| Thanks for this article. The woodpecker method seems like a nice
| opportunity for a slack bot.
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| How long did it take you before you could play a whole game
| blindfolded?
| nefitty wrote:
| I wonder if this would work for programming. Closing your eyes,
| then recording yourself describing an architecture or module.
| WJW wrote:
| Measuring skill in programming is much harder than measuring
| skill in chess. ELO is imperfect but you can be reasonably
| sure a 2100 will beat a 1200 most of the time. With
| programming, it's difficult to even make a choice between the
| person who write a sudoku solver in an afternoon or the
| person who makes a sturdy website which is secure against all
| known CVEs (but can't make a sudoku solver, or invert the
| proverbial binary tree on a whiteboard).
| zz865 wrote:
| Wow, I'd have enough trouble remembering which color I was!
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| I played once on a board where the pieces were red and blue
| instead of black and white. I was completely messed up...
| Funny how the brain works. Or maybe it is just me?
| benmmurphy wrote:
| i assume you have a direct mapping in your mind between squares
| and colors or actually visualize the board but for those that
| don't you can convert the column letter to a number then add
| the two numbers together and depending on whether the number is
| even or odd the square will be black or white. ie: d1 -> 4 + 1
| -> 5 -> white.
|
| there are a bunch of tricks you can do if you use number,number
| notation but being able to visualize the board is probably
| better than relying on numeric tricks.
| marcinjachymiak wrote:
| chess.com has a really cool vision game for picking out squares
| and moves by name: https://www.chess.com/vision
|
| It seems silly but makes reading chess books and analyzing
| games much easier. The first time I played with the vision tool
| for 20 minutes I felt way faster at it already.
| everyone wrote:
| I keep seeing "after gaining 600 pounds in 6 months"
| ex3xu wrote:
| I'd say that chess fundamentals is three things: Endgames,
| tactics, and positional strategy. OP's strategy of studying
| openings and tactics is a very fun and accessible improvement
| path for intelligent new players, but it is very fragile, as you
| become vulnerable the second the opponent gets you out of your
| opening theory. Studying endgames and positional motifs gives you
| important decision-making tools in unfamiliar positions. Hiring a
| chess coach is probably the easiest way to systematically improve
| in these areas, if you're not a robot immune to the tedium of
| working through Dvoretsky's endgame manual and Silman's Reassess
| your Chess.
|
| After getting a handle on the fundamentals, the next step is just
| the accumulation of _ideas_. GMs use this word all the time in
| lectures and their post-mortem interviews. Some are common and
| obvious -- pressuring f2 /f7, or yoloing a pawn storm in
| oppositely castled positions, or outposting an "octopus knight"
| on the sixth rank, for example. Other ideas require so much
| genius to see they become famous -- Fischer's Nh4!! at age 13, or
| Short's king walk, or Shirov's bishop sacrifice, for example.
|
| Accumulating ideas is why studying openings can be helpful in the
| beginning -- you will learn common plans as well as the most
| dangerous ideas and traps by brute force just by looking at
| enough theory. But rather than this inefficient approach -- since
| you'll never remember every single possible move -- I would
| recommend studying books and lectures that cover common ideas in
| the setups you prefer. Specifically, work through the pawn
| structures you like from GM Mauricio Flores Rios's Chess
| Structures book, and then study grandmasters who match your style
| or otherwise inspires you in some way -- e.g. Fischer/Tal for
| tactical wizards, Karpov/Kramnik for positional specialists,
| Carlsen/Capablanca for endgame grinders, or Rapport/Jobava/Larsen
| if you are a weirdo -- and watch Youtube videos analyzing their
| games and/or buy a book with GM commentary of their best hits.
| macrael wrote:
| I've been watching this YouTube "speed run" by a GM who is a
| great teacher and have gone from 1000 to 1300 so far. He does a
| great job explaining some basic theory and giving advice for
| newcomers.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytkf3qZTj74
| seanwessmith wrote:
| I was thinking of developing a website that helps you analyze
| your games vs naroditsky's games. let me know if you have any
| ideas on what would be useful.
| bennyg wrote:
| I would love that - been thinking about how to automate
| Youtube's generated closed captions from positions I'm in
| based on positions he's in. I typically play Caro-Kann and
| Danish Gambit so it seems likely I probably see common
| positions in the first half-dozen moves or so.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Pedantry alert: As ELO ratings follow a logarithmic curve,
| "gaining 600 points" is a dimensionless metric.
|
| These are good tips for beginner to intermediate growth. The
| things that definitely help the most are:
|
| * Pattern recognition - the best courses for this level are
| things like "Common traps in <some random opening>", applied with
| Woodpecker method. Once you've memorized all the mistakes in the
| Scandi or London system, you can really crush a lot of people who
| play haphazardly.
|
| * Study your own games and games of people at or just above your
| level. Four simple methods:
|
| 1) during the game, write down (Lichess has a notes section on
| the left) 3 candidate moves for every move in the middle and
| endgame, why you're making a particular move, and what you think
| the opponent's response will be
|
| 2) use the "Learn from your mistakes" button after each game
| during analysis
|
| 3) check the most common moves in the opening that are different
| than yours, play through a couple of masters' games to see why
| those positions are preferred.
|
| And my last tip which helped me a lot just with the "meta" of
| playing chess ...
|
| * Use more time. Be okay with losing games because you run out of
| time thinking. Always, always, always try to play the best move,
| even if it means spending a lot of time.
| robomartin wrote:
| That's too much work. All my kids play. I have been playing
| since I was a kid myself. It's just a game. Getting into
| memorization and deep analysis makes it less interesting for
| me. I've been in the 1800 to 2000 range for a while. Spending
| too much time getting great at chess is, in my opinion, time
| that could be better spent getting good at something far more
| useful in life. Exercise is such an example.
|
| My system is very simple: Before I play a game I must complete
| at least five consecutive puzzles. Yes, this might mean I play
| 12 or 20 puzzles before I get five in a row. What's interesting
| about this is that if I get to a dozen or more puzzles and did
| not solve five in a row, I take it as an indication that my
| brain isn't in "chess mode" and go do something else. Every
| time I ignore this indicator I lose games.
|
| Just work on puzzles and keep it simple. My kids have a great
| time with this simple rule. They don't have to memorize
| anything and they progressively get better and better. Above
| all, they don't get worked-up about losing at all. Keep it
| simple and fun.
| acoard wrote:
| Where do you play puzzles?
| robomartin wrote:
| These days mostly lichess
|
| https://lichess.org/training
| llimllib wrote:
| chesstempo has the best puzzles, but worst interface.
| chess.com and lichess both have ok puzzles and better
| interfaces.
|
| I prefer lichess, and sometimes go to chesstempo for more
| focused work, but reasonable people can disagree.
|
| Also there are many books of puzzles.
| msluyter wrote:
| By "Woodpecker method" do you mean this:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Woodpecker-Method-Axel-Smith-Tikkanen...
|
| ?
|
| This is why HN is great -- appears to be an amazing book.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Yeah, and you can take an interactive course version of it on
| Chessable
|
| https://www.chessable.com/the-woodpecker-
| method/course/10582...
|
| And most of the Chessable courses can be "woodpeckered"
| through the interface.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Once you 've memorized all the mistakes in the Scandi or
| London system_
|
| What's a good book for this?
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Usually each opening has its own book (or several books!), I
| prefer just starting with Lichess studies and YouTube videos
|
| e.g.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alichess.org%2Fstudy+s.
| ..
|
| Memorizing the 20-30 traps and mistakes in those studies is
| sufficient for beginners; you can use spaced repetition (I
| use my own private Lichess study to collect positions) and
| cover the 20 or so most popular openings in a few months.
|
| Again, not enough to win but it helps you punish bad play and
| learn how to handle aggressive players (since many of the
| traps are in fact bad play but only with perfect counterplay)
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I love that HN hyper-focused on your 600 points observation.
| However, 600 points means you went from 1500 (the start) to at
| least 2100, which is almost universally recognized as "pro" or
| at least semi-pro for chess.
|
| So yes, logarithmic curve and dimensionless pedantry and all
| that, I'll grant you; but that's missing the trees for the
| squirrels in the forest, since 600 points means "I went from
| noob to pro." No one expects Magnus to gain 600 points, since
| that's quite impossible.
|
| I guess you could argue that it's possible for someone to start
| at 1500, then really suck at chess and drop to 900, and then
| merely become average again (1500), and claim a 600 point
| improvement. As with the other observation, I agree, that would
| be impressively misleading. I'm not sure that's the claim,
| though.
|
| EDIT: I retract every claim. I am in fact an idiot, since the
| article does say they went from 1200 to 1800, not 1500 to 2100.
|
| This is what I get for writing something dumb. At least I admit
| it right away though. Sorry.
|
| At least it's proof that the pedantic-ness wasn't so pedantic.
|
| I also take solace in the fact that the actual title of the
| article was stripped: the title says 1200-1800, not merely 600
| points, which in this case is crucial info. But! It was
| remarkably stupid not to actually click on the link before
| writing, and this is rather public proof that sometimes I
| don't. Perhaps that's a strong signal that in the future, I
| need to be. :)
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > I guess you could argue that it's possible for someone to
| start at 1500, then really suck at chess and drop to 900, and
| then merely become average again (1500), and claim a 600
| point improvement.
|
| This is showing some pretty serious misunderstandings about
| ELO ratings. 1,500 is absolutely not the starting point. When
| you first learn Chess, your rating will be low hundreds (like
| under 500). It takes a decent bit of practice to work your
| way up to 1,500, at which point you are already decent. 1,500
| is roughly average _among people who play Chess
| competitively_. You certainly don 't start there. 1,800 means
| you're good enough to beat most players at an average low
| level local tournament.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| ... Oh.
|
| It turns out that watching GothamChess doesn't make me a
| chess player.
|
| Thank you for that. It's mildly interesting analyzing the
| source of why I was so wrong:
|
| As someone who aspired to be pro at Dota (but was never too
| skilled at it), my "competitive instincts" have been
| calibrated for games where you do indeed start at some
| baseline, even among competitive players, because you will
| quickly be balanced out to the proper ELO. For example, in
| HoN (precursor to Dota 2), 1700 was widely considered pro,
| whereas everyone started at a baseline of 1500. The noobs
| were quickly punted down to lower than that. (It could've
| even been 1300 and I'm misremembering, but the point is,
| the competitive scene was still balanced around 1500 as a
| baseline.)
|
| Ditto for Dota 2, back when they had explicit MMRs. (MMR =
| ELO.) Nowadays they don't have MMR, they have ... tiers?
| ... since they realized that it kind of sucks having a
| community obsessing over what your actual number is, rather
| than what division/tier you're in. So they were like "Ok,
| congratulations, you've reached Immortal tier, you're now a
| pro."
|
| Anyway, _when there was MMR_ , it still started at some
| baseline. Because again, the noobs would quickly be punted
| down to where they belong. 5k was widely considered pro
| back in those days, back when 5k meant something. But MMR
| inflation meant that the benchmark then became 6k = pro,
| and eventually 7k was top tier (I think?), so this was
| already a de facto tier system.
|
| Point is, saying "1,500 isn't the starting point" for
| chess, but _yes of course_ it 's roughly average _among
| people who play Chess competitively_. The competitive scene
| is all that matters. Me blatantly not reading the article
| was based around the assumption of "Of course this is
| referring to the competitive scene."
|
| As I said, it's interesting just how wildly wrong those
| assumptions were. :)
| slingnow wrote:
| Your comment is all over the place with assumptions that are
| odd / incorrect and easily corrected by reading the article.
|
| First of all they went from 1200 -> 1800, not 1500 -> 2100.
|
| Second, just because you are given a preliminary rating of
| 1500 doesn't mean that you are a 1500. I don't know where you
| would get that idea from. If my 10 year old nephew signs up
| for lichess and never plays a game, by your logic he's a 1500
| rated player.
|
| Third, an elo of 2100 is definitely not "pro" in chess.
| Especially not an unofficial lichess rating of 2100. A FIDE
| rating of 2500 is the minimum to be considered a Grandmaster,
| which is the beginning of anything resembling pro.
| yupper32 wrote:
| Meh, I'd say you could be a pro at the IM level. Plenty of
| IMs do lessons and stuff.
|
| But yeah 2100 lichess is not even close to pro.
| dfan wrote:
| I'd start considering players to be "pro" at around 2600
| lichess rapid, which is a pretty normal rating for an
| International Master. (Mine is over 2200 and I just consider
| myself to be pretty good.)
|
| 1800 is still in the "learning how to play well" stage but
| getting there from a standing start in 6 months is indeed
| nice progress. He doesn't seem to claim it's anything more
| than that, which I appreciate.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The full headline is 1200-1800 on lichess, which has a mean
| of 1500. So they started below average, trained up to
| something like 65 percentile on lichess. Its good improvement
| yes, but as someone at that rating, I'd be a mediocre club
| player at best (no more than 1600 FIDE, and probably less)
| saurik wrote:
| I am struggling to understand your point, as this person did
| not start at 1500: they started at 1200. Imagine if they had
| _started_ at 900, not gone down and then back up as you posit
| for some reason?
| Kranar wrote:
| Unfortunately OP was right to be pedantic. Consider that you
| assumed the author went from 1500 to 2100 in 6 months, which
| would be an absolutely monumental achievement, and yet the
| actual article says the author went from 1200 to 1800, which
| is nice, certainly nothing to complain about, but nothing
| even remotely as impressive as going from 1500 to 2100.
|
| 600 points, in and of itself, is almost meaningless.
| CaptainNegative wrote:
| And not only 1200-1800, but 1200-1800 on lichess, which due
| to that site's rating inflation is probably closer to
| 700-1300 USCF/FIDE.
|
| It's a good climb but nothing particularly mind blowing.
| anandoza wrote:
| Doesn't gaining 600 points mean that you are able to beat the
| "old you" (or more precisely, people who you used to be even
| with) with 99% probability? (Or perhaps more meaningfully, you
| can now beat someone who could beat someone who could beat
| someone who could beat someone who can beat the old you, all
| with 80% probability?)
|
| (I made up the exact numbers, but the idea is there.)
|
| That seems like a meaningful interpretation of "600 points"
| that applies to anyone -- though the difficulty of actually
| making this improvement definitely varies with your starting
| rating.
| SamBam wrote:
| > That seems like a meaningful interpretation of "600 points"
| that applies to anyone
|
| It does apply to anyone, but it is more or less meaningful
| depending on where you start, so the meaningfulness isn't
| equivalent.
|
| It's as if you say you can double your money, but it only
| works once and with a value < $1.
|
| The idea that, say, Magnus could increase his chess playing
| abilities in 6 months (or even 6 years) to be able to beat
| the current version of himself 99% of the time would be
| insane.
| wpasc wrote:
| I often wonder if chess players have a natural
| "peak"/"optimal" age range in the way that professional
| athletes do. Being a thinking game that requires strong
| brain functionality combined with accumulated experience, I
| wonder if there is an age range that is best for most
| players.
|
| Trade offs may be something like in yours teens and early
| 20's your brain may have the most plasticity and ability to
| visualize (plan 10+ moves ahead) but you might not have
| accumulated enough experience.
|
| I'm purely speculating here and just wondering aloud. (I
| bring it up in response to this comment because Magnus'
| prodigious talent is so noteworthy I wonder when Magnus
| will stop being able to "beat" Magnus of 1 year ago.
| jbritton wrote:
| I watched a YouTube video recently that talked about how
| difficult it is to go from 2350 FIDE to 2500. It seemed
| to imply if you don't make 2500 by age 20, you will
| probably won't ever get there or it will require years of
| study. The video was just an opinion, no data to support
| it was presented.
| iratewizard wrote:
| Hikaru claims it's 25 when he and many others peaked.
| cosentiyes wrote:
| Someone posted some basic analysis with mild QC on elo vs
| age for FIDE rated players as of 2014:
| https://www.chess.com/blog/LionChessLtd/age-vs-elo---
| your-ba...
|
| I think there are a lot of confounders to consider.
| Though GMs like Anand show a drop in standard rating
| (https://ratings.fide.com/profile/5000017/chart), his
| blitz rating is near his all-time-high (ie. is his
| standard rating drop due to decreased mental performance
| or a shift in interest/focus to blitz?). Similarly, I
| suspect a lot of strong players who fall in the
| `2000<FIDE rating<2300` realize they may not be the next
| magnus and shift focus when/if they make the decision to
| pursue a career outside of professional chess.
| spekcular wrote:
| Here's some data for your question. A list of the world's
| top players (over 2700 Elo) is maintained here:
| https://2700chess.com/.
|
| With the exception of Anand at 51, they're all quite
| young.
| anandoza wrote:
| Hey, I'm not 51 yet!
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| It's worth noting that chess grandmasters can burn up to
| 6000 calories per day while competing in tournaments.
| It's an absolutely exhausting endeavor, and I imagine
| sheer endurance can play a huge role.
|
| So yes, performance does fall off with age, though not as
| intensely as something like hockey.
| pishpash wrote:
| The brain is an organ like any other and gets fatigued
| more easily with age.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Is that true? I thought that the difference between deep
| thinking energy expenditure and rest expenditure of the
| brain was not a huge % of the rest energy expenditure. I
| couldn't find any source to the 6000 calorie figure, and
| this article seems to support that the chess player's
| calorie deficit was likely due to skipping meals and
| stress https://www.livescience.com/burn-calories-
| brain.html
| sharedfrog wrote:
| > I wonder when Magnus will stop being able to "beat"
| Magnus of 1 year ago.
|
| While this doesn't answer your question, it's interesting
| to note Magnus's peak rating was actually 7 and a half
| years ago, when he was only 23.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Then again with how ELO works it doesn't necessary mean
| that it was Magnus's peak only that that the point when
| the gap between him and the rest of the chess world was
| the largest. I think others became stronger and he had
| more competition. Still Magnus himself seems to think he
| is past his peak in interviews.
| pishpash wrote:
| I mean, he himself wouldn't necessarily be able to tell
| the difference of him getting worse or the rest getting
| better. To him it's just getting harder to beat people.
| At his level how can you judge yourself unless you played
| against a fixed-version AI chess program?
| prionassembly wrote:
| It means he can beat _me_ with overwhelming odds. That 's not
| nothing.
| Kranar wrote:
| Someone who is just learning chess will likely be able to
| beat the old them with 99% probability after a few days of
| playing and learning.
|
| Someone who is ranked at around 1200 and really commits to
| improving can likely beat the old them in a couple of months
| by memorizing a few common openings and practicing
| drills/working on fundamentals.
|
| Someone who is a dedicated chess player and ranked above 1800
| may never be able to beat the old them with 99% probability.
|
| So if someone says they improved by 600 points, certainly
| that is meaningful to them as an individual and it means they
| can basically beat their old self, but it won't be very
| meaningful to me.
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| Yeah this is exactly right, as far as my understanding of elo
| goes.
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| Extra pedantry: you're of course right that 600 points is
| somewhat meaningless, given that it's harder to improve in the
| higher ratings, but there's nothing logarithmic about elo. A
| 1500 playing a 500 has the same odds as winning as a 2500
| playing a 1500, mathematically. You earn the same # of points
| at higher elo too.
| neaden wrote:
| Extra Extra Pedantry: Lichess doesn't use Elo, it uses
| Glicko-2 rating system instead.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > there's nothing logarithmic about elo. A 1500 playing a 500
| has the same odds as winning as a 2500 playing a 1500,
| mathematically.
|
| Odds ratios being constant with difference is what you'd
| expect with a logarithmic scale, with a linear scale you'd
| expect odds ratios to be constant with the ratio of the
| ratings.
|
| So, you've just explained the way in which elo _is_
| logarithmic as your evidence that it is _not_.
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| Hm you know what that makes some sense, my bad
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| No, its scale is directly based on log odds - 10 times more
| likely to win = 400 points higher on ELO.
|
| https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1731991/why-does-
| th...
| black_13 wrote:
| I wish there was an alternative to the algebraic notation that
| was easier to remember
| iKlsR wrote:
| Some great tips in there. Will definitely try some of these, I
| find I'm the best the moment I wake up, I will solve several
| puzzles quickly and grind a win streak but as the day goes along
| I get gradually worse, I actually started plotting it to find the
| best time to play. Any time after 9PM is out tho that doesn't
| deter me sometimes.
|
| I try to focus on classical then go lower and end my sessions
| with some blitz. What I hate the most about classical is I will
| be dominating the game and a silly blunder cost me half hour or
| more so I've taken the sit on my hands method and absolutely no
| premoving. I also found the best method to improve for me
| personally was not to shy away from playing higher rated players,
| it forces you to take the game very seriously as compared to
| someone with a ?. I used to sit in the lobby and scan for weak
| looking players and abort games to try and get white but now I
| will intentionally find someone 100 points higher than me and go
| black and see how I do. I also actively try to play moves in my
| head, hard as hell but it's a good exercise to wind down the day
| in bed. The daily arenas are a great help as well.
|
| The final trick I did to improve was "master" two openings for
| each color and learn the traps and tactics they come with. Good
| old london. Every variant I immediately dropped to my true rating
| and I really struggled cracking 1300 - 1400 but using the cues
| above I easily went from 1600 to 1700 in rapid just the other
| day. Catch me here https://lichess.org/@/llazlo
| edgyquant wrote:
| I have found the ratings on lichess to be easier than on
| chess.com. For instance I sit around 12-1300 on lichess but
| have yet to crack 1000 on chess.com for the same game type (5
| and 10 minute games)
| eterm wrote:
| I'm surprised how smooth the curve is, the author never has
| streaks where he loses a few hundred rating points. In fact I'm
| struggling to see he ever dips more than 50.
|
| I've been on a similar journey over the past year, where I'm now
| around 1500 rapid on chess.com but in that time I've had streaks
| where I've been down 250 rating from my peak.
|
| I don't know if I tilt super hard or if the author is remarkably
| resilient to tilt. It might also be a difference in how the
| different sites do match-making or adjust ratings and k-values.
|
| I'd echo the benefit in learning some basic opening theory. It's
| not worth rote learning theory but it is worth having a
| consistent approach to games so you learn from the same patterns
| and can avoid opening traps.
|
| If you play the same opening moves then over time you build up a
| memory of moves that you like in those positions and which will
| get deeper as you get more experience.
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| I think part of this is the slow time control, it's hard to
| tilt for more than a few games on rapid, since games can last
| up to 20 minutes. The other part is I think I was chronically
| under-rated, because of my ratio of studying to playing games.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Not getting into a downward spiral from tilt is fairly
| straightforward for me, when you lose two or three games in a
| row simply don't play more that day. In general, I play at most
| a few games a day and it helps a lot. If you want to just get
| practice with a specific opening or play out your frustration
| there's always computer games, too. When I practice with the
| computer I usually set the difficulty considerably higher than
| my own level, it helps me find weaknesses in my own play that I
| would usually get away with at my own rating level. I also
| don't mind losing to the computer. For some reason there's no
| emotion in losing to a computer whereas there is in losing to
| another human player.
| jstx1 wrote:
| At 1700-1800 I hit a point where I had to study more seriously in
| order to improve so I lost interest and pretty much stopped
| playing. Up to that point I could improve just by playing more
| (with the occasional youtube video but that was more for
| entertaintment).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Eh - I'm 1750 and I feel like this is just where people stop
| blundering obviously as often.
| LanceH wrote:
| I peaked at 1800 USCF. People above that level could press home
| an opening advantage that I wasn't prepared for. Below that I
| could win enough games on a sharp, open game, even if I were
| technically a bit behind a pawn or fraction from the opening.
|
| It felt like up to 1800, everyone is just better at the same
| game. Above that level there starts to be more coherence to
| everyone's game. Above 2000 there seems to be a sophistication
| to the game that can appreciate when I see it, but can build it
| myself.
| iKlsR wrote:
| I'm nearing that point as well. My goal is to hit 2000 in a
| year and it's getting to the point now where I have a book in
| my cart and some printed pages of matches.
| d23 wrote:
| I wish the author had discussed a bit about what worked and
| didn't at a higher level. I don't have the time to get into
| chess, but I'm quite curious about how I could translate his
| learning into other games and domains.
|
| One that was mentioned as a breakthrough was in learning to think
| like the opponent. That's quite interesting.
|
| I'm not sure what I can takeaway from the puzzle stuff without
| knowing more about chess. It seemed like some of the puzzles
| worked better than others, for whatever reason. I'd definitely
| like to know more.
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| I think from a higher level there are some interesting things,
| you're right that I should have gone into it a bit. One of
| those is that raising my ceiling of play, like challenging
| myself with super tough puzzles, was actually totally
| unproductive. Raising the floor of my play, however, was hugely
| beneficial. I imagine this generalizes somewhat to other
| pursuits.
|
| The other takeaway I've had is how different procedural
| learning is from declarative learning. Among one of the weird
| features of it is I don't actually know how much something is
| helping until I get to the board and play some games afterward.
| There were exercises I thought were helping a lot in the
| moment, but had no effect on my play, and vice versa.
|
| Also sometimes people that are good at something are the worst
| to ask for help. For example, if you ask "how can I stop
| blundering?" (one of the most common questions on forums),
| common advice (from good players), is to have a mental
| checklist before making a move: threats, captures, skewers,
| pins, etc. But nobody actually plays like this, running through
| some checklist before every move. You just slowly rewire your
| brain over 100s/1000s of games and puzzles. If my queen and
| king are lined up now, and there's a rook on the board, that's
| as obvious as a flashing light on the board saying "hey watch
| out for pins!", but there's no easy answer to tell a beginner
| that will get him to that state, so people try to convert that
| feeling they get into a manual approach, and it just doesn't
| work. I guess this is like the key feature of procedural
| learning, that it's resistant to verbal explanation, but that
| doesn't stop people from trying, so you just need to learn to
| take it with a huge grain of salt.
| nbulka wrote:
| I read this as "Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600
| pounds in 6 months."
|
| Thought it was the only activity they had left!
| ThomasCM wrote:
| Shameless plug: In case you want to track your chess progress and
| see more statistics on your openings (win rates, etc.), I'm
| developing a website where you can link your accounts to view
| stats for all of your games. It's free and currently in Beta:
| https://www.chessmonitor.com/
|
| Here is an example for the current world champion:
| https://www.chessmonitor.com/u/kcc58R9eeGY09ey5Rmoj
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| I use ChessMonitor all the time, it's a great site, thanks so
| much!
| sabujp wrote:
| you can play "sound" chess using general rules and get to about
| master level on lichess : * trade a piece
| (bishop for knight and vice versa) when it's being less effective
| than the opponent's piece * block opponents bishops
| * block opponents pawns * don't give opponent's knights
| a perch (supported by a pawn) on your side of the board,
| especially near the middle * try to promote edge pawns to
| the middle or clear the path out of the way of your pawns
|
| ..there are many other rules, but you can apply these much more
| quickly (esp in speed chess) thinking "statistically" to improve
| your position. The end game is where it gets hard for humans and
| you actually have to think, especially if there are knights still
| jumping around, rooks and bishops are easier to visualize and
| block.
| Bootvis wrote:
| What is master level to you?
| GoodJokes wrote:
| chess seems like the new dating. Everyone is measuring it, but
| really in my recent experience, y'all are nerding this game to
| death. Not fun anymore.
| sova wrote:
| Surprised you didn't mention "analyzing games I played to find
| viable alternatives or understand opponent blunders." The
| greatest improvements to my score came from reviewing every game
| and using the "Computer Analysis" feature on Lichess to see
| other, stronger moves. This helped a lot in breaking out of old
| patterns and not making the same mistakes twice.
|
| There is a famous series of chess textbooks they use to teach
| kids in Russia, and two of the important "commandments of chess"
| if you will, are: be able to visualize the board (seems crazy to
| me, still) and review/learn from your games.
| Townsendin wrote:
| Not every meaningless achievement needs a retrospective blog
| post. The article starts out:
|
| "For some background: I played chess briefly with my friends in
| high school,"
|
| No one knows who you are or cares. What kind of person has the
| time to read that?
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| Not every meaningless achievement with an unnecessary
| retrospective blog post needs a derisive comment about its
| existence, and yet here we are. Some people are interested in
| the content, you're obviously not, just ignore it.
| Townsendin wrote:
| Take your own advice and ignore my comment then, idiot.
| jimmyvalmer wrote:
| I am here for your grievance about pointless backstory, but I
| think OP got to the point soon enough.
| dragon96 wrote:
| One piece of advice I hear a lot is "review your games", but how
| do you actually do that without a stronger player? I'd sometimes
| use an engine and it'll point out moves I hadn't considered
| before, but without understanding the plan or positional ideas
| behind them, I often find this pretty opaque.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| My general strategy is to review with a computer, and if I
| don't understand the move the computer is suggesting, I follow
| the PV (principal variation) 3 or 4 moves deep. Generally that
| is enough to either tell me what I should have seen or "oh, the
| computer is thinking way above my level and I can probably
| ignore this"
| nescioquid wrote:
| I found that bit of advice similarly daunting. However, in
| trying to understand where things go wrong in a game, you might
| notice patterns emerging after you've analyzed several of your
| own games, which should give you something concrete to work on
| for improvement.
|
| At my level, that basically amounted to identifying blind spots
| I'm a prey to (at one point it was discovered attacks along a
| particular diagonal). A master, expert, or higher level class
| player will be concerned with entirely different things when
| they review their games.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| One thing that helps me is to play a better chess engine,
| dialed down to close to my skill level, and play for a bit
| until I really get stuck. Then I take back a bunch of moves
| and figure out where I went wrong and why, and then play the
| game out until I get stuck again. Or I'll go back and try to
| see if I can find a better way to accomplish my goals. In
| general, creating a low-risk environment to learn, where I
| try to compare my original thinking to my later thinking has
| been key.
|
| I haven't played more than a handful of games since pre-covid
| times, so I'm back to being pretty clumsy, and just started
| "rewinding" games again. It seems to help a lot.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| I forgot to add that simply writing down the moves when I
| play someone else makes a huge difference in my play. I'm
| much less likely to blunder, for one thing.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| at least on lichess there is a "learn from your mistakes"
| button where you need to guess a move that doesn't lose points.
| Try not to just randomly make guesses but think hard when you
| don't see it.
| jdkenney wrote:
| Before internet chess it was very common to analyze games
| either at the tournament with a group, or a club later also
| with a group, both usually having some stronger players around.
|
| To do it yourself, the best explanation and framework I think
| is found in Yermolinsky's "Road to Chess Improvement". It's
| very helpful in systemizing this and also has thorough
| explanations of his experience in analyzing his own games.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| Anyone have any tips for someone who's a bit interested in chess
| but is a _complete_ beginner? As in, I know how the pieces move
| but I couldn 't win a game against a blindfolded dachshund puppy.
| My ELO would be negative (I'd be so improbably bad that it breaks
| mathematics). It's just not clear where to start.
| handrous wrote:
| Drill tactics, like practicing pawns-only exercises and others
| that get you to use a small group of pieces in concert and
| without the distraction of a full game, to quickly get a feel
| for the kinds of moves & patterns that are good for them, and
| the kinds that are bad. Then, in actual games, apply that while
| focusing on advancing while keeping all your pieces guarded by
| _at least_ one other, nearly all the time, while projecting
| lines of attack as far as possible (queen, bishops, rooks).
| Then focus on getting good at checkmating--it can be weirdly
| hard to pin down a king in the late game without practice, and
| getting better at spotting and exploiting early mate
| opportunities is one of the biggest level-ups you can get,
| early on.
|
| I wouldn't worry about memorizing openings and such until after
| you feel like you're hitting a wall with all that.
| sb636 wrote:
| 1) Learn how the pieces move
|
| 2) Play along with some beginner chess tutorials on sites like
| chess.com or Lichess
|
| 3) Watch this youtube series
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9iOeK_jvU
| wingerlang wrote:
| There must be at least a million "complete chess beginner"
| guides on Youtube alone.
| Mizza 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.
|
| I started playing anonymous games on LiChess, and playing without
| ELO anxiety is way, way more fun. It's a game, this is all I need
| out of it.
| X6S1x6Okd1st 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.
|
| He also gave that quote when chess wasn't respected like it is
| today.
| mttabout wrote:
| Huh. I didnt know you could do anonymous lichess games. I've
| always gotten very anxious playing chess as despite being very
| very bad, I've wanted to cling to every point of ELO i had.
| marcusbuffett wrote:
| Yeah this is just as valid. I needed something to sink my teeth
| into, so I've been more interested in the improvement and
| learning side. The bonus is that games get more fun the better
| you get, until very recently I just found my own play
| frustrating, hanging pieces and falling for simple tactics.
| DelightOne wrote:
| Improvement may also matter a bit more. With ELO you always
| lose half the time because when you improve you get a higher
| ELO and get to your half-lose rate again. With anonymous, I
| assume the pool is stable so with getting better you win more.
| Though your enemies may outclass you sometimes, especially when
| your prior ELO is too low.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| I don't really get this. Chess isn't fun if your opponent is
| much worse or much better than you.
|
| My suggestion is to take advantage of LiChess Zen mode, which
| hides the ranking of both you and your opponent. This orients
| me more towards the game rather than rank, while also
| providing evenly matched opponents.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I find crushing people consistently in any competition to
| be immensely entertaining.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you know your opponent is much worse than you, then
| chess can still be fun because you dare to play stupid
| moves. Open with Nh3 and then continue stupid development
| (don't leave obvious blunders). Or otherwise don't make
| your known best move until the game is more even. Or spot
| your opponent the queen from the start. Lots of ways to
| even out a game when you are better.
|
| When you are worse though, you have to depend on your
| opponent doing the above. And then you have to depend on
| the continuing until finally you are so much better than
| even you can win.
| gerijdeth wrote:
| I found this interesting in the context of the quote:
| "Returning to the United States in triumph, Morphy toured the
| major cities, playing chess on his way back to New Orleans.
| Returning to New Orleans in late 1859 at the age of 22, he
| retired from active chess competition to begin his law
| career.[3][4][5][6] Morphy never established a successful law
| practice, however, and ultimately lived a life of idleness,
| living on his family's fortune.[7] Despite appeals from his
| admirers, Morphy never returned to the game, and died in 1884
| from a stroke at the age of 47."
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| My only problem with anonymous is you have no idea if the
| person on the other side is 1100 or 2200 ... I just use Zen
| mode in Lichess, I know the other person is about my level, but
| I don't care what the numbers area .....
| mushishi wrote:
| Yup, that's good to point out. Zen mode helped me enormously
| when tackling puzzles, because just seeing how I had fared
| earlier was making me think about my performance instead of
| puzzles.
|
| And later same thing on competitive games.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I play like 100 ELO better with Zen mode.
|
| I think the effect is actually more that I make fewer
| careless errors playing worse players than that I am more
| intimidated by stronger players.
| Mizza wrote:
| This is a good tip, I didn't know about that mode. Cheers.
| gnarcoregrizz wrote:
| Agree it's more fun without the elo anxiety. Personally 3+0
| blitz hits the spot for me, everyone sucks so dropping a piece
| isnt a big deal. The popular advice is that blitz won't improve
| your game, but I don't buy it.
| WJW wrote:
| I play longer games to try and improve, and 5+0 or shorter
| when I just want to move the pieces to entertain myself. It's
| pretty noticeable in my rating too, haha.
| amotinga wrote:
| I once read 'power of mediocrity' or something like that that I
| saw here on HN. that article talked about the fact that it's ok
| to do things just to enjoy them as opposed to getting better at
| them.
|
| since then I don't worry about my rating anymore, just playing
| on lichess without loggin in, just to have fun.
|
| I'm not improving much, but i have fun.
| [deleted]
| xyzelement wrote:
| A bit of an aside, I love chess because it forces you to think
| several moves ahead including game-theorizing what your opponent
| will do. I want to teach it to my kid for this reason.
|
| I never got into timed chess but I can see it be valuable because
| it forces you to trade off between over-thinking and running out
| of time and under-thinking and making bad moves. This is also a
| real life skill.
|
| But I know that my personal game will always stay amateur because
| once you're in the timed game space, you can't get too far
| without memorizing opening and to me that crosses the line from
| "fun and overall developmental" to "work."
| mrbungie wrote:
| Not to tell you how to raise your children, but please only
| teach your kid if you see he likes it.
|
| Disclaimer: I was a kid that lived my mother's dreams/hopes for
| a time and now I dread every second of that period.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I don't need my kid to live my _dreams_ but it 's my job to
| teach him _life skills_ and chess is a good way for teaching
| what I just talked about.
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