[HN Gopher] Learning Chess at 40 (2016)
___________________________________________________________________
Learning Chess at 40 (2016)
Author : sebg
Score : 94 points
Date : 2022-05-19 12:49 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nautil.us)
(TXT) w3m dump (nautil.us)
| evanmoran wrote:
| It's fun seeing so many parents at 40 jumping into chess
| personally and with their kids. I'm doing exactly the same thing
| and it makes me want to take lessons to step it up :)
|
| Since you all have more experience than I do, does anyone have a
| sense of what rating is reasonably achievable with daily effort?
| Perhaps this is the wrong approach, as we obviously want to be as
| high as we can, but just curious if 1800 or 2000 is out of reach
| for most people or not? For context I can beat 1500 bots, but get
| crushed by a 1700 (though it isn't clear if bots are accurately
| rated or not, so maybe I should use a different metric?)
| ar_lan wrote:
| I think you should try playing people instead of bots. I'm 1100
| but can beat the 1500 bots (not necessarily easily, but about
| 1/3 of the time). The problem with the bots is they are rated
| by just throwing in a random blunder every once in a while
| (which is what humans do too, but usually the bots are a bit
| more _apparent_ about it).
| lubesGordi wrote:
| I started playing chess regularly a few years ago, in my late
| 30s. One thing that's helped me probably the most is lichess's
| puzzle storm. If I'm clear minded, I can hit 25. Out of curiosity
| I looked up 'puzzle storm gm' just to get a sense for what a gm
| can do with that, and it's seriously mindblowing.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1arZ7pHspDo
|
| This really shows how much of chess is subconscious recognition
| of patterns. Training that is much easier when you're young.
| Learning chess is a fascinating way of getting in touch with that
| kind of training.
| swah wrote:
| Thanks for this. I tried learning a few weeks ago, enjoyed
| playing but didn't get better, and forgot about it.
|
| (The Youtube chess scene is booming, btw. Thats how I got
| interested.)
| aliston wrote:
| I'm also in my 30s and enjoy the challenge of chess, but have
| never been able to get beyond the basics. Sure, I can learn one
| particular gambit by approaching it like an algorithm, but I've
| never felt like I was able to grasp the high level strategy in
| the way that the author describes. There just seems to be too
| many permutations and tricks for me to memorize them all. Did
| you ever reach a point where the game come together? If so, has
| it been from memorizing very specific lines (kings gambit, if
| this then that) type of stuff or is it really more like
| intuition?
| Dr_Birdbrain wrote:
| I would recommend two things:
|
| - Do lots of tactics puzzles--treat it like exercise,
| consistency is key. 1 to 3 puzzles per day is ideal.
|
| - Read strategy books. Don't worry about memorizing, just get
| the intuitive gist of things like moving rooks to open files,
| knights to outposts, keeping pawns on opposite color squares
| of your bishops, try to pile up pieces against the enemy
| king, etc.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| Both. Intuition tells you which moves are even possible. It's
| like having a voice in your head that tells you "sacrifice
| the knight here", since the pattern of the pieces looks like
| it "has that move" in it. But you don't know how. This is
| where the algorithmic part comes in, you brute-force the most
| likely ways to do it by playing your best move, then your
| opponent's best move and so on. Your ability to win is
| defined by how many moves you see and how many moves ahead
| you can think.
|
| Of course, it's more fuzzy than this. Intuition can be wrong.
| Sometimes the messages are along the lines of "there's some
| good move here", or "my opponent has mode some sort of
| mistake", rather than something definite. But when it all
| comes together, it feels like you're a pattern-matching
| wizard machine.
| mpol wrote:
| Using brute-force, algorithms or rules is too hard for
| humans, there is too much going on at the same time. Even
| Stockfish didn't manage that against AlphaZero :) If you do
| want to have a more strict repertoire, you could find a few
| openings that you like and that play naturally for you. The
| way I choose them is by simply playing them and then see the
| first ten results. The first 5 games with King's Indian
| defence were wins for me and felt very natural, the first 5
| moves are slow and after that there is a game going. I tried
| Ben-Oni, but I am too messy of a player and just mess that
| up, the same with the French. Ofcourse, getting to know an
| opening better, with the themes that belong to it, will make
| you better at it long-term.
|
| Anyway, there are so many things going on, you need to feel
| some intuition or patterns on what is currently important on
| the board. Rules are so very much based on context, like, for
| black, c5 is almost always good while f6 is almost always
| bad. But there are many games with exceptions. And if you
| play against people of your same level games can just be fun.
| xnorswap wrote:
| I'm also in my 30s and have also been learning, and I
| recognise the frustration of trying to learn through learning
| specific opening lines.
|
| What helped me was to stop trying to learn specifics outside
| of the first 3 or 4 moves, and just playing so much that I
| built up memory for specific cases where it was either a huge
| blunder or missed win, while at the same time sticking to
| trying to do the same things each game.
|
| So I'd try not to vary my responses to particular lines so
| that I'd get the same situations repeatedly.
|
| If I found myself consistently being uncomfortable, I'd
| change something earlier about how I'd respond, such as an
| early Nbd7 instead of trying to more aggressively fight for
| the centre in the Italian.
|
| Overall, my three pillars of learning were puzzle rush
| (puzzle streak equivalent on lichess), playing more (~10k
| games over 2 years), and every day watching one of
| Naroditsky's speed-run videos, where he plays rated games
| from rating 400 up to around 2000 and explains his thinking.
| (They tend to end when he starts playing against too many
| cheaters).
|
| That said, I've also plateaued around 1500 rating on
| chess.com. That rating is high enough for me to enjoy without
| feeling that every game is decided by silly blunders. I'm not
| sure that I have the capacity to get much higher, because my
| rating has barely moved for a year despite playing every day
| and trying hard to learn.
|
| Strategic thinking at my level is still infrequent, but I
| feel like I won't progress my game until I get more of it.
| I've reached a level where just thinking over each move in
| turn just looking for tactics is no longer enough. To get
| better I need to think about "how to improve your pieces"
| which is another word for strategic and positional chess.
|
| From watching videos, I think a lot of it is intuition. Quite
| often during his speed-run videos when faced of a choice of
| two seemingly fine moves, Naroditsky's intuition will take
| over and he'll say, "I'll play this move, I can't explain
| concretely just yet why but this other move just feels worse
| somehow".
|
| There's an intuition about moves which obviously is
| incredibly strong in a bullet-specialist GM.
|
| So part of it is just falling into the same tricks over and
| over you'll come to recognise them. Other parts is there is
| an intuition which as you get stronger at other aspects of
| the game will come to fruition.
| stouset wrote:
| You should _not_ be approaching chess as a memorization
| problem. Yes, as you gain skill and familiarity, your brain
| will pattern-match on particular aspects of positions but
| outside of openings memorization will not get you very far.
|
| The things you should spend your time and effort on are
| tactics and positional play. Tactics will directly help with
| pattern-matching on situations with direct and immediate
| impact: taking advantage of forks, overloaded defenders,
| x-rays, etc. (as well as _defending_ against those things).
| Positional play will help with pattern-matching on higher-
| level concepts: getting knights to ideal squares,
| understanding the implications of certain pawn structures,
| how to leverage bishops ' strengths and weaknesses,
| maintaining rooks on open files, restricting your opponents'
| space and movement options, etc.
|
| For the former, tactics trainers are your best bet. For the
| latter, I think books are probably still optimal. I'm a big
| fan of Jeremy Silman as an author, and Reassess Your Chess
| (4th Edition) is my personal favorite book for learning these
| concepts.
|
| Studying openings should be done sparingly. Learning the
| basics and general principles of one opening system as white,
| and one each for 1. e4 and 1. d4 as black can be useful in
| helping you always get to midgame positions where you
| understand the basic ideas, but I wouldn't spend too much
| effort past that.
| lubesGordi wrote:
| Tactics is the main thing to learn in the beginning, which
| builds the 'intuition.' Later study a couple openings like
| ruy lopez or giocco piano. You can learn a couple traps too
| and be on the lookout for them (fried liver and scholars mate
| in particular).
|
| The game 'came together' for me when I realized how easy it
| is to squander any advantage you've gained. So in a game, you
| might be rocking it and winning. Suddenly, you've done the
| wrong thing and now your opponent is capitalizing on it and
| crushing you. That situation is very frustrating in the
| beginning. Once you recognize it, then you can try to be the
| one to not step in doo-doo by being very careful with every
| move.
| trey-jones wrote:
| I've thought that maybe it's a good idea to play Chess 960
| because memorization is out of the question from move 1. This
| way you learn to analyze each position individually and
| hopefully understand the consequences of candidate moves. I
| think obviously it's important to learn specific openings and
| problems that have already been solved as well, but 960 can
| help develop "chess eyes" a little bit. Don't take my word
| for it; I'm bad at the game, but these are just some ideas
| that I've had.
| TylerLives wrote:
| nescioquid wrote:
| The psych literature on expertise draws in part from studying
| chess masters, and this expertise in chess mainly consists in
| recognizing a large number of critical positions. But this is
| founded in a fluency with tactics.
|
| The parent is doing probably the most effective thing at
| their level by focusing on tactics, tactics, tactics. Learn
| the basic tactical motifs, practice finding them in puzzles,
| and practice employing them in games.
|
| When you are starting with chess, don't study openings, just
| learn basic opening principles -- how to develop your pieces.
| Learning opening lines is the least productive thing you can
| do right now. The same positions can arise from multiple
| opening lines, so you are better off understanding principles
| and learning tactics (and how to calculate).
| notreallyserio wrote:
| I'm middle aged and I'm lucky if I get to 5 on puzzle storm. It
| takes me several times longer than it probably should to solve
| puzzles, and even then I get about half wrong. Dunno what it
| is.
|
| Folks say you should spend time studying past games to learn
| weaknesses but I feel like that's as bad advice as is asking
| children to grade their own homework -- it will simply
| reinforce bad ideas.
|
| Still, I enjoy it. Mostly the self-paced puzzles. I'm hovering
| around 1200-1300 there (on lichess).
| lubesGordi wrote:
| Just try to find how to put the opponent in check first. Make
| the move before even seeing the solution. That approach works
| pretty well until you get to the 1300 rated puzzles (around
| 16-19 puzzles in).
|
| Of course it's good to have some practice on different types
| of tactics. You want to be on the lookout for knight forks in
| the beginning too.
|
| Another thing that might help with your tactical vision is
| the chessable checkmate in 1. You can just drill that all day
| and its really great. You can feel your chess muscles flex
| (chess swol).
| sleepdreamy wrote:
| It's never too late to learn something complex. If you tell
| yourself you will be mediocre/average then those will be your
| results. I'm 30 so not old by any means but - the secret is
| to obsess over the thing you want to learn intimately.
| Obsession beats practice any day.
|
| If you have trouble finding that obsession - you weren't that
| interested anyway. Let your mind decide what you truly enjoy
| and want to grasp. Listen to yourself
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| Doing these things quickly is mostly an exercise in pattern
| recognition. As you memorize patterns the moves become
| automatic. If you need to think through the position it will
| take too much time. It just takes thousands of hours of play
| to memorize the patterns as the puzzles get more complex. I
| don't play a lot so it is a good day for me if I get to past
| 5 in puzzle rush on chess.com.
|
| I don't know what percentage of high level play is
| memorization and pattern recognition vs calculation. I
| suppose pattern recognition instantly culls thousands or
| millions of branches from the decision tree, and the rest is
| calculation on what's left.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| > Folks say you should spend time studying past games to
| learn weaknesses but I feel like that's as bad advice as is
| asking children to grade their own homework
|
| Are you using an engine to analyze your past games? It is
| much more efficient than using your own brain power to find
| your mistakes. If you think the games that engines show you
| aren't realistic (they aren't), then play out the opposite
| side of the engine yourself. That way you can see how to
| refute players of your skill level.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| >subconscious recognition of patterns.
|
| Its very true. Lower level players will view the board in
| isolation, piece by piece. Higher rated players will see
| structures, shapes, and patterns. The coordination of those
| structures and patterns using simple chess fundamentals allows
| for some really intuitive play that looks otherworldly to most
| people.
| mikej1000 wrote:
| Try learning Japanese at 55. It's the same.
|
| I was in an evening class with other students who were mostly in
| their 20s. The age thing was really obvious. All the older
| students struggled.
|
| I kind of thought I could be super organised, come up with smart
| efficient ways to learn characters etc. But no, you need raw
| brain power - mostly memory I think. Wisdom doesn't count for
| much.
|
| I learnt more about the reality of growing old than I did about
| Japanese:-)
| thepoet wrote:
| I too started learning chess at the beginning of this pandemic
| when I turned 29. While I knew how the pieces moved as a kid, I
| was unaware of rules such as promotion, pawns moving two squares
| in the beginning, en passant etc. When I started I was 900 blitz
| on chess.com. I moved to ~1750 on Chess.com blitz and ~2000 on
| lichess blitz. I assume I would be higher in rapid if I played it
| as much, probably due to less competition in it online. I learned
| a single opening with white (and probably the most hated - London
| system), and one with black (Sicilian hyperaccelerated dragon). I
| guess most of my improvement came from observing tactics in games
| and in puzzles. Watching a lot of agadmator kind of videos also
| helped in figuring out what is a better move out of multiple
| candidate moves (I guess this is what is positional chess is
| about.) I have reduced playing it these days since it is quite
| addictive and takes up a lot of my free time. Also, it is quite
| demotivating to hear that no matter how much effort I put in as
| an adult, a 5 yo kid will be much better than me with the same
| amount of effort.
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| I have a similar story to you, learning those same systems as
| well! I don't really buy the guy's story I'm pretty sure the
| kid would eventually beat me regularly with enough years, but
| at age 5? I have access to more resources and more motivation,
| more focused training, less likely to make blunders.
| racl101 wrote:
| I can learn a lot of programming languages at 40 no problem but
| learning fucking DnD and/or chess at 40 or how to play an
| instrument is a fucking nightmare.
|
| It's even worse when people say to me: my 15 year old can figure
| this out.
|
| Yes, the embarrassment of being a Novice at anything at 40 is
| part of the issue, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't.
|
| But yeah, I just find myself having trouble learning things fast
| enough.
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| I disagree that it is cognitively more difficult to learn an
| instrument as an adult - in fact I think adults have a lot of
| advantages in that regard, at least up to a "proficient" level.
| Clearly it would be different talking about the highest levels
| of professional playing, but at even "normal" levels of
| professional ability I think this holds.
|
| But it's about time spent. Kids just have fewer demands on
| their time, so it's easier for them to practice regularly. They
| might also have a parent enforcing the practice time. They
| might also spend more time on important fundamentals (scales,
| theory), while adults might gravitate toward current
| applications (a song I want to learn).
|
| I believe that if you try to learn an instrument AS THOUGH you
| were a kid, you would learn at least at the rate a kid would,
| subject just to whatever natural talent difference there might
| be.
|
| I've been learning piano as an adult, and over several years
| have managed to stay ahead of all my kids. Not sure how much
| longer that will hold true, but if nothing else it's a strong
| motivator for me!
|
| Re: DnD - I did try to get my kids into this along with me (I
| never played before either), and while one of my kids seemed
| interested, I just felt my adult brain had trouble getting into
| the imaginary world in the way that a kid might. There's a
| level of "pretend" that I just can't find anymore.
| Tenoke wrote:
| There's never really been an adult who started playing chess
| and reached GM despite some devoting as much or more time
| than children do. Obviously GM is a high bar, and you can
| learn plenty as an adult but it does seem to be harder even
| when you account for hours spent.
| tarentel wrote:
| You just have to find enjoyment in it or whatever else you're
| trying to learn. There will likely always be people better than
| you, this is especially true of chess. If the only enjoyment
| you get out of it is being good then chess is probably not the
| hobby for you. I started in my early 30s and I likely lose to
| 12 year olds online all the time, I lost to one in real life
| even though I'm a fairly highly rated player. It's still fun
| though.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| If you're not genuinely interested in chess or DnD, it'll be
| harder to learn. You don't need to be interested in either, no
| one will think less of your intelligence or geekiness if you
| aren't! It's just that there's a certain expectation that
| certain geeky things are (best, only?) learned when one is 12.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| At 40 you are dumber than a 15 year old. Your brain just can't
| compete on learning new things. Accepting this will help in
| aging gracefully given soon you will become physically weaker
| than most 15 year olds as well.
| Jaruzel wrote:
| Reading through this, I have to wonder why the Father was so
| obsessed with beating his Daughter? I have a daughter, and I have
| nothing but admiration for the things she does well, that I am no
| good at. Would I devote hours/days/months of my life to become an
| expert in a thing just so I could beat her at it? Certainly not.
|
| The Father in this piece is running the risk of ruining for her,
| one of the very things she is really good at (and clearly
| enjoys), and all because of his own insecurity.
| acatnamedjoe wrote:
| My reading was that the author was exaggerating the "obsessed
| with beating his daughter" part of the story for self-
| deprecating comic effect.
| tetsusaiga wrote:
| I didn't really read it as him having an obsession with beating
| her--
|
| It struck me more that this was his reckoning with the
| inevitable regression of his own cognition, in the context of
| comparison to the developing cognition of his daughter. Like
| racing the clock even if you have competitors on the track.
|
| Sure, there was some disconcert over the fact he was "getting
| lapped" and he knew it, but I think that realistically we'd all
| feel that way at least a little. Even if it was our kid. Not
| because we're jealous of them, but rather because they are
| forcing us to face our own decline.
|
| Not that I am necessarily correct. Just a thought.
| sritchie wrote:
| I had the same reaction. I have a 3.5yo daughter now, and it
| feels like spending time and attention being truly interested
| in the things she loves is a great way to bond. The extra zing
| of needing to beat her is ego, and as you say feels like it
| would sour the positive effect of all of those hours.
|
| Same observations seems right for many other types of
| relationships. Time and attention is a gift, don't ruin it with
| ego.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| He was obsessed with proving to himself that he wasn't aging
| uncontrollably and that he still had some hope for his future.
| It's an existential problem he is articulating, not a literal
| problem with beating his daughter in chess.
|
| He also has a very small window to still beat her before it
| never happens again because she will simply be too strong.
| Which is the story of every young chess player playing their
| parents.
| exhilaration wrote:
| But she beat him after that. Don't you see the enormous value
| in her knowing that she's beating him fair and square? Even
| after the enormous effort he's making? She must feel like the
| smartest kid in the world.
|
| My son is 11 and he started beating me at chess when he was 10.
| I never once let him win, each of his wins was 100% earned and
| I tried like hell to beat him each time.
| Jaruzel wrote:
| Ah Ok, I didn't see it like that - thanks for the alternate
| viewpoint.
| ajdegol wrote:
| I deep dived into chess several months ago, probably on the back
| of that netflix series (Queen's gambit?).
|
| Then you realise, that chess nowadays is purely a memorisation
| exercise of the first 20 moves you can make, and if you make one
| wrong move you get systematically beaten. After you break out,
| then fine, then there is chess. This just killed it for me: the
| fact it's a memorisation exercise. I'd rather remember less
| useless facts if I'm rote doing that.
|
| The chess puzzles are fun, the new variations are fun, but the
| original game, just pointless.
| tarentel wrote:
| This isn't even remotely true unless you're playing at the
| highest levels of chess. I'm a fairly highly rated player on
| chess.com and I only know the first few moves of a handful of
| openings. I end up playing the book moves a lot but that's
| because I've played so many games and practiced so much that
| it's pretty intuitive at this point.
|
| I've never played 20 book moves, ever, in any of my 1000s of
| games.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| I don't quite know what you mean by "chess nowadays".
|
| It's always been the case that the players who make the best
| moves win more. And it's always been the case that memorization
| is a part of making good moves. Nothing qualitatively changed
| nowadays, it's always been true. What has changed
| quantitatively is that the quality of the average player is
| going up over the centuries, and memorization is part of that.
| So basically, what you said is equivalent to "with the amount
| of effort I'm willing to put in, I'm in a low percentile
| nowadays".
|
| Well, yes. And that's a good thing.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| >Then you realise, that chess nowadays is purely a memorisation
| exercise of the first 20 moves you can make
|
| Not even remotely true. I'm 2000+ rated on chess.com and I
| can't tell you the first 6+ moves of any single opening.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I think whether or not you're right about memorizing openings
| as others dispute, I suspect you do ultimately memorize lots of
| patterns. Usually it's done through sheer practice, but if you
| dig enough, someone has probably given a name to all sorts of
| situations and tactics faced.
|
| What I think you're touching on with your gripe is that there
| isn't as much room for flexibility in chess. At high levels,
| the first to screw up loses. At low levels, you just don't
| recognize each other's screw-ups and vulnerabilities. You
| recognize them probably from experience more than anything.
| That still qualifies as 'memorization' to me, but you just
| can't get that from a book, in the end. To me it makes chess
| appear stiff and uncreative.
|
| Now, grant: with competitive play, lots of mind games go this
| way. If you have time to reflect and have expert-level
| knowledge, there are probably a narrow range of correct plays.
| It's difficult to allow for intuition.
| adamnew123456 wrote:
| You might find Chess960 interesting then. The starting position
| is randomized, with enough variations that memorizing an
| opening book no longer really helps. You have to start
| evaluating the board from move 1 in the same way that you do 20
| moves later.
| slothtrop wrote:
| You could try Go instead. But it won't be any easier despite
| having (arguably) less to memorize.
| platz wrote:
| have you ever heard of joseki
| slothtrop wrote:
| looks intimidating
| stnmtn wrote:
| The opening is in no way like that until you get to extremely
| high-level high-skill games, which will take years if not a
| decade
|
| Until then, all you have to do is understand a few basic
| opening goals; and you're good to go. You don't have to
| memorize 20 moves deep of every opening if you are 800-1900
| ELO, that's just silly and completely wrong.
| wjossey wrote:
| Add me to the list of folks likely to respond to this thread
| about getting back into it later in life. I have a toddler (and
| soon baby number 2) and I find it a really enjoyable brain
| exercise when I have brief gaps.
|
| For those of you with just basic experience, or looking to learn,
| I really recommend the "Chessbrah Building Habits" series on
| YouTube.
|
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8N8j2e7RpPnpqbISqi1SJ9_w...
|
| GM Aman is a really pleasant dude, solid teacher, and takes the
| most methodical approach to coaching beginners to intermediates
| how to build habits at each elo range to keep growing.
|
| For those new to time controls, 15 minute rapid games are a good
| place to start. I felt a lot more comfortable after a couple of
| months jumping to 3 or 5 minute blitz based on my schedule, once
| I felt like I could get out of the opening without being totally
| lost :)
|
| Other great content creators are GothamChess (be aware his
| YouTube and twitch styles are different but equally awesome),
| Hikaru, Eric Rosen, Nemo, St Louis Chess Club, and so many more.
|
| The chess community is really great. I hope y'all come and join
| the fun.
| mingusrude wrote:
| I too came back to chess. The weird thing is that now at age 48
| I'm obsessed with it while when I was young (I played from very
| young until approx 15) I never really liked it. It was
| something that you were just supposed to do. I played in a club
| and played regional and national tournaments with varying
| results but it was never enjoyable. Had i known the word then,
| I would've said it was a grind.
|
| I taught the kids as soon as they were old enough (age 4-5) but
| they never liked it back then either, it was something I think
| they did because I wanted to do it and I only wanted to do it
| because it was something my dad and grand fathers did with me.
|
| And then, booom! When my son was approx. 15 a couple of years
| ago he met a few friends at school and chess became something
| highly competitive and I was drawn into it again and suddenly,
| it was so much fun and I was completely engulfed by it. And my
| kids were also drawn into it (I have a daughter too).
|
| I used to study openings as a kid but hated it and now, it's
| the best way to spend an evening. Now I play almost daily with
| the kids (one daughter that is also playing) and after my son
| moved off to uni it's how we keep in touch (but he's effing
| killing me with the London System).
|
| Youtube channels? No day is complete with out a game from
| agadmator's channel.
| innocentoldguy wrote:
| I had the opposite experience. I was really into chess when I
| was a teenager, but after getting back into it in my 50s, I
| find it a bit "samey." I also picked up Go and Shogi. I like
| both of those games better than chess because they both seem
| to have more variety between games. The Duck Chess article
| from HN yesterday did pique my curiosity though, so I'll have
| to give that a try.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Would be a shame not to mention Naroditsky. Watch him play
| through lower rated players and give you great insight to both
| his and his opponents thought process.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielNaroditskyGM/
| trey-jones wrote:
| Guy is also doing a very ambitious series on endgame
| concepts. I'm bad at chess, but learning a lot.
| wjossey wrote:
| You're 100% right. Thanks for adding Danya.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I watch all of his videos but if you are starting, 'Building
| habits' is definitely much better, Aman will often keep
| making the simple moves he preaches even when more complex
| ones are available just to drill it into you. Naroditsky,
| while a great teacher and highly educational can't help
| himself from playing overly complicated lines that people at
| those levels wouldn't see. Hikaru is even worse in that
| respect (tho he doesn't attempt to be particularly
| educational in the first place anyway).
|
| Other than that, I'd also recommend John Bartholomew who also
| explains his moves thoroughly in his series where he plays
| lower rated players.
| Flankk wrote:
| Thank you for sharing that series. I've been looking for
| something like this and chess books put me to sleep. Check out
| BotezLive, Maurice Ashley, and Hanging Pawns on YouTube. xQc
| also has a series on how not to play.
| icambron wrote:
| So timely. This (and the replies) are just what I needed. I am
| 40 and getting back to chess. I was never really good to begin
| with (I think I was in the 1400s in high school) and I'm quite
| awful at chess now. But my 7yo has become obsessed with chess.
| I would like to not only get better myself but also get better
| at teaching him.
| david927 wrote:
| One day, a year before turning 50, I decided to play a five
| minute game of chess against Lichess, level 2. I lost horribly
| but I wanted to make it a habit. So every day with my morning
| coffee I would play a quick game.
|
| For months I didn't win a single game until, one day, I did. That
| was five years ago. I still don't play more than a game or two a
| day, always 5+0 Blitz, but each year I've moved up a level in
| Lichess and I think about 100 points. I'm somewhere between 1700
| and 1800 rating currently.
|
| Now I'm plateauing and I can see that some openings are killing
| me and I'm still too tactical, meaning moving up in ranking won't
| be as easy now, but if the author is using an anecdote to say
| that you can't be a novice when you get older, I'll use one to
| say that's nonsense. It's a mindset; it's up to you.
| eismcc wrote:
| After training AI Go engine for competitions and seeing an AI
| learn more in one weekend than I can in one lifetime, I feel it's
| hard to be motivated to learn this kind of thing. I feel like I'm
| training my bespoke artisanal neural network.
| pfortuny wrote:
| But do you stop running just because an F1 car is much much
| faster? The fun is not in losing but in exercising.
| eismcc wrote:
| I think it's more along the lines of playing against HAL9000.
| HAL politely beats you and asks you for another game.
| gfaregan wrote:
| How about learning 4D chess at 40?
| v8xi wrote:
| I started playing regularly about 5 years ago after a New Year's
| resolution to break a video game addiction - I figured I would
| play it when the urge was too much and that either I would stop
| playing games entirely, or come out being decent at a timeless
| game that is at least considered a respectable pastime...
|
| I started playing 5+0 rated on Lichess (which if you've never
| been to, you should check it out right now as an awesome example
| of beautifully designed, open-sourced software) . Right away
| dropped to ~1000 elo which was like the bottom 10-15% at the time
| but kept it up and have climbed as high as 1900 recently. I
| always thought chess was so boring but I realized I always just
| hated waiting for the opponent to move so Blitz was perfect for
| me. And, believe it or not, it'll get your heart racing just like
| any other high-stakes game.
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