[HN Gopher] How to learn chess as an adult (2021)
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How to learn chess as an adult (2021)
Author : pseudolus
Score : 504 points
Date : 2023-12-17 10:32 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.alexcrompton.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.alexcrompton.com)
| gnicholas wrote:
| Interesting to see a shoutout to Gwern for his writeup on spaced
| repetition.
| kqr wrote:
| I'm curious: which part of that is interesting? Aside from
| Piotr Wozniak's writing, Gwern is the common coordination point
| for these techniques.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Oh, just interesting to see a reference to Gwern, whom I'm
| only familiar with through postings on HN, in a blog post
| that's on HN.
| tasuki wrote:
| This is also on HN. Same bubble, not much of a coincidence?
| gnicholas wrote:
| I wouldn't have been surprised to see him referenced in a
| comment. I was surprised to see it in a blog post that
| ended up here, where the blogger didn't reference HN in
| any way -- it was all about chess (which is not one of
| the more common things discussed on HN).
| locallost wrote:
| On a side note, it's a good demonstration that knowledge beats
| intelligence. Being smart just gives you a higher ceiling, but
| most people can get pretty good at almost anything if they work
| hard enough. The question is of course why would you do it, and
| do you have the motivation.
| ckuehne wrote:
| This conclusion does not follow from the article.
| eviks wrote:
| Most people are intelligent, that's why they can get good, but
| being smart not only has a big effect on the ceiling, but also
| on the speed to get to the same level, which in turn affects
| motivation, so you can't judge it to be an inferior factor
|
| But this isn't a good illustration anyway since it's a very
| constrained artificial example of a game based on pattern
| matching
| locallost wrote:
| I see examples of that pretty much everywhere. People that
| regularly do and practice something get to be better than the
| vast majority of people, so talent and intelligence end up
| playing a lesser role. This is true for physical skills and
| also mental. The author said he ended up in the 95th
| percentile -- I doubt this is achievable for all people, but
| "high" yes (whatever the interpretation of high is).
| petercooper wrote:
| For most cases, I agree. I think almost anyone with the time
| and determination can get to 95th percentile or up in a non-
| physical pursuit. Intelligence becomes a key determinant if you
| want to break the _top 0.1%_. Most people of average
| intelligence could become a top 5% programmer if they wanted
| to, but getting 2 minute solutions on Advent of Code? Almost
| certainly not. (I pick AOC because I 've been looking into the
| folks who hit the leaderboards and they all seem to give off
| high IQ vibes so far.)
| gwnywg wrote:
| When I was a kid I heard proffessional player opinion that
| people who play more games get better results, he stated chess
| is game of numbers. I'm probably not on that level as no matter
| how many games I played there is rating level I cannot beat,
| it's glass ceiling for me.
| cwillu wrote:
| (2021)
| rtpg wrote:
| and here I was happy to get up to 1000 in Chess.com after 2 years
| (only to then just hover around forever). Knowledge is power etc
| etc but at one point nothing replaces studying.
|
| I've found that anything under 15 minute clocks just feels like
| brain poison to me, though. Your brain goes completely into
| pattern matching mode and lose out on the actual interesting
| tactical analysis you can do when you're taking a bit more time.
| I have been queueing up daily games instead and it's nice. Games
| take a month to resolve but if you just continuously add to the
| queue that's good.
|
| EDIT:
|
| > I learned a bunch of openings with White for 6 months or so,
| also via Chessable. Amazingly I won more games with Black, where
| I had learned nothing, than with White. I got frustrated with
| this, and switched my openings entirely. It had literally no
| impact on my rating, and I continued to improve.
|
| I felt this so much recently. I got kind of obsessed with the
| Evans gambit, and would still lose to people who would play into
| the gambit and let me go down the lines I knew well. I'd just
| flummox later on. The game below a certain point is really just
| "don't blunder as much as the opponent"
| thomasz wrote:
| Have you tried mixing up games with daily moves with rapid and
| blitz? Mixing "do it right" with "do it fast" training is more
| effective than doing only one of both.
| rtpg wrote:
| One thing a friend of mine mentioned about studying, is that
| you can get in a weird cycle where you end up reinforcing
| answering incorrectly to a thing over and over.
|
| I think that blitz reinforces my bad habits of approximate
| pattern matching and ultimately makes me play worse in my
| other games. If I want to "do it fast" I can just open my
| dailies and play them fast! But this is a me problem, I
| routinely play board games etc too quickly, and lose because
| of it. I do not need help with "do it fast".
| ycombinete wrote:
| Sounds good to me! Ratings are a treadmill. As you get better
| so do your opponents. You'll always have a ~50% winrate.
|
| I'd rather have a stable rating over time, at a level I can
| maintain comfortably, than have to expend ever increasing
| levels of energy to maintain a higher level; and probably end
| up having less fun. (maybe it's more like treading water. You
| can get more of your body out of the water, but each inch
| requires exponentially more effort to maintain)
|
| That said, I started doing a lot of puzzles a while ago, as
| well as doing the basic mating pattern practice on Lichess. My
| rating jumped up a few hundred rating points. Turns out that I
| was missing a bunch of the basics.
|
| Now I hover around average on the server for Blitz (~1500), and
| slightly above for Rapid (~1700) and that's awesome.
| rtpg wrote:
| I've accepted that I'm worse at chess than other people in
| some innate sense, but puzzles have been nice. I really enjoy
| the chess.com lessons as well, and listening to someone
| explain stuff is always pleasant. I might not absorb much,
| but it's better than nothing.
| valval wrote:
| Your analogue is probably true to a certain extent, but in
| reality maintaining your current form in any domain of
| expertise is easier than achieving that form in the first
| place.
|
| I only really have video games as an easily quantifiable
| example, but playing in top 1% of League of Legends doesn't
| really require anything more than a couple games a week to
| maintain that level. I have the knowledge, I know what to do,
| and I can execute on that. Perhaps this would be harder in a
| domain that leans more on physical or mental condition which
| tend to decrease over time, but probably not so much in Chess
| and the like.
| matsemann wrote:
| It's not brain poison, if you're at the level you're at.
| Pattern matching is incredibly important, and dishing out many
| games to learn those and avoiding blunders would probably help
| you a lot.
| sandreas wrote:
| One of the best "beginner chess" videos I have ever seen was made
| by one of the persons, I would have least expected making a good
| tutorial video, because she is hardly ever too serious in her
| other videos: Andrea Botez
|
| It's only 10 mins, stuffed with good information and explained
| very beginner friendly:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aavP_NnrXS8
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Capablanca 's famous adage "I see only one move ahead, but
| always the best move" turns out to be true_
|
| I know there is a tendency to frame human intelligence in terms
| of the age's breakthrough technology. But _man_ if that isn't
| reminiscent of token prediction.
| pella wrote:
| My practice:
|
| watching https://www.youtube.com/@agadmator chanel.
| mathematicaster wrote:
| Yeah, I, too, practice my bball skills watching Curry's
| highlights ;)
|
| Jokes aside, it's a fun channel. Makes me feel like I know
| what's going on in those games.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Is there a well known strategy game where AI doesn't have better
| chances to win than a human? Is there possibly, math wise, that
| such games exist?
|
| I kind of dislike not having a chance when playing against bots.
| yreg wrote:
| Civilization V? Warcraft 3?
|
| But any answer will be such only because no one tried hard
| enough to make a supreme AI.
| zeusk wrote:
| OpenAI's dota2 bots were pretty impressive, they even had an
| open public lobby for people to play against.
| Jensson wrote:
| They didn't dominate against human pros, neither did
| alphastar. So Humans still have a chance there.
| huytersd wrote:
| I would say any game that includes a lot of uncertainty,
| subjectivity and random chance would mean that an AI would not
| usually have an edge over a human. Maybe games like diplomacy,
| magic the gathering, pandemic, Gloomhaven, maybe poker (?),
| backgammon (?) etc.
|
| On a sidenote, I think it's interesting that we're a point
| where it's starting to get hard to come up with games that
| humans can beat AI at.
| kdwikzncba wrote:
| I would like to hear your reasoning as to why you think that
| a human is especially good at dealing with uncertainty. My
| experience is the opposite.
| huytersd wrote:
| I'm not saying a human would be better than an AI. Just
| saying it would be a more equal playing field, since
| neither would have a significant advantage.
| yreg wrote:
| I think this depends on whether the human has a chance in
| a particular run (yes) or on average of many runs
| (probably no because the AI will calculate the
| probabilities better).
|
| But in the extreme case of a random game (like rolling
| the highest number on a die) they are equal (obviously).
| netfortius wrote:
| True randomness doesn't drive better results for humans,
| due to some intrinsic humane qualities, but rather
| eliminates the advantage of large volume data access and
| processing of AI. Basically true randomness levels the
| playing field. Backgammon is a perfect example.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| You want a game where searching large amounts of data,
| computing moves and calculating probabilities fast
| doesn't help.
|
| Maybe some randomness will help, but might not be enough.
|
| My ideea is that bots can't win in the real world
| economy, no fund driven solely by algorithms can win more
| than funds driven by humans.
|
| So if we can find a game modeled like the economy, where
| nothing is random but many things are uncertain, then it
| might be harder for the software to win.
| jabl wrote:
| I would imagine in many games randomness (e.g. through
| throwing dice, or pulling cards from a randomized pack)
| add noise, but the underlying strategy (including
| processing data, calculating probabilities etc.) still
| help. In such a game even though an AI might be superior,
| the randomness might mean that occasionally the human
| wins. Or for an extreme example, if nothing you do in the
| game really matters, it's all just down to random chance,
| then the AI:human win rate should approach 50%. But such
| a game would probably not be particularly enjoying to
| play.
|
| But yes, I think you're right that you'd need a game
| where crunching a lot of numbers really fast doesn't give
| you an advantage. For instance, if the state space of the
| game is so big that number crunching is useless, and
| other approaches like AI style pattern matching (used
| IIRC by Alpha-Go?) don't work either.
|
| Though ultimately, what is the uniquely human trait that
| would allow a human to beat an AI? Can you make a game
| that depends on that? Is there even such a thing?
| necovek wrote:
| > if nothing you do in the game really matters, it's all
| just down to random chance... But such a game would
| probably not be particularly enjoying to play.
|
| I guess all the slot machine players tend to differ in
| opinion there :)
|
| Sure, slot machine operators adjust winning chances so
| players keep on playing, but to a player, it's not
| influenced by anything they do, other than "just one more
| time and I'll win".
| necovek wrote:
| TBH, "real world economy" does allow humans to rewrite
| the rules, and they've done so: issuing more bonds,
| deflating the currency, printing more money, bailing out
| broke banks, hiding facts and selling before downturn
| goes public, pure and simple fraud...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >I would like to hear your reasoning as to why you think
| that a human is especially good at dealing with
| uncertainty.
|
| We can ask any successful CEO. Fortune 500 companies would
| use bots if that was possible.
|
| Uncertainty doesn't equal randomness. Randomness is
| flipping a coin and asking you the result. Uncertainty is
| hiding the coin behind my back and asking you in which hand
| is it.
| hackerlight wrote:
| That's disanalogous to board games. We're comparing board
| games with uncertainty to board games without
| uncertainty. In either of these categories, the thing
| that makes AI competent is unlimited training data due to
| self-play.
| mingusrude wrote:
| Scaringly enough, Diplomacy seems to work well for AI too.
| https://ai.meta.com/blog/cicero-ai-negotiates-persuades-
| and-...
| nanofortnight wrote:
| Computers are better than humans at poker (DeepStack) and
| backgammon (eXtreme Gammon). XG for example is commonly used
| by expert backgammon players to analyse play, much like how
| engines are used in chess.
|
| There is no reason why computers wouldn't eventually beat a
| human in the others, if someone writes a narrow AI for them.
| Consider for example, AlphaStar for StarCraft.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >I would say any game that includes a lot of uncertainty,
| subjectivity and random chance
|
| I would thought the same haven't I been reading articles on
| how bots won against humans at poker.
|
| I am not sure about something like backgammon or monopoly.
| pavlov wrote:
| _> "I kind of dislike not having a chance when playing against
| bots."_
|
| Conjures an image of the astronaut with a gun meme...
| - Wait, playing games to win is a waste of time now?
| - It always was.
| deadbeeves wrote:
| There's a difference between playing to win and being
| frustrated because your opponent can consistently steamroll
| you effortlessly without even giving you a chance to set your
| game up.
| pavlov wrote:
| Is there some shame in asking the AI to play worse?
|
| It's a machine, it won't feel smug about knowing it could
| beat me if it wanted to.
|
| I've never really understood people who are competitive
| about board games and similar inside-the-box scenarios.
| (There's a certain "Dwight Schrute" aspect to that
| mentality that's hard to watch.) I like losing in games
| because there's no real-world cost to trying out some idiot
| strategy.
| vasco wrote:
| You can adjust bot difficulty. If that doesn't work for you
| nothing will because with humans you also can never ever beat
| the best player in the world.
| anonymoushn wrote:
| Most board games don't have any superhuman AI. You could play
| race for the galaxy for example. There are bots, but you can
| achieve very high win rates against them.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Play a high variance game of chance like cards or Magic the
| Gathering. Then when you win it's because of your skill and
| when you lose its because of chance. :)
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Can I suggest you consider why you're playing?
|
| We are taught from a young age that winning is the objective of
| playing a game, but what if it wasn't?
|
| What if it was to learn some hidden truth, or to explore your
| own tendencies to over-react, to become too rash, to become
| overly-defensive or to be disappointed when things didn't
| always go your way? What if you took each game as a learning
| opportunity?
|
| If you take a different perspective, bots and AI can help you a
| great deal - they aren't going to feel smug about beating you,
| or remind you of it over a family dinner, or brag about it on
| social media. They can help you improve your gameplay and
| yourself.
|
| I'm reminded of this when I think of recent AI advances in Go.
| The moves and strategies that emerged have left that community
| in awe, because they were open to learning from what AI
| produced, not just obsessed with trying to win.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| That does not quite seem to be the point. There is a huge
| difference between "better" and "crushing".
|
| > We are taught from a young age that winning is the
| objective of playing a game, but what if it wasn't?
|
| No, we aren't. The are multiple players in a game. So you win
| some, they win some and sure, you are taught to try to win
| more than 50%. But if you win 90+% of the time, you are
| wasting both players' time.
| anonyfox wrote:
| There will never be anymore. AI simply outperforms humans at
| increasing rates. When in doubt, for a specific game a narrow
| AI can be trained up.
|
| For the current 1-2 years you can have a shot at
| physical/sports games, since robots are lagging behind AI
| capabilities, quite a lot.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Robots can't even carry enough energy to play a
| physical/sports game, even if their AI was perfect and cost
| zero energy itself. There's no imminent tech that will change
| this. We have many years.
|
| I'd love to be wrong about that, but I'm probably not.
|
| Check out Robocup for superhuman speed miniature soccer
| games. But the games are small and short. The humanoid games
| are much less well developed.
| anonyfox wrote:
| Probably we differ here on the timespans, thats okay :-)
|
| Personally I explicitly do not expect robots to actually
| have human-like shape but rather be optimized for the thing
| they do, which can change the energy requirements or
| otherwise things that might look "unfair" to humans.
| Usually this is one of the key reasons where different
| timelines come from in discussions, where people assume
| that a humanoid robot needs to be build that does the same
| movements like humans but somehow better/faster/... while I
| differ on that point.
| necovek wrote:
| That's moving the goalposts (pun intended :)): having a
| wheeled robot with an enclosed (ball protection!)
| basketball holder slide around the basketball court and
| extend the basketball holder up to the rim would
| certainly allow it to beat humans, but it wouldn't really
| be "playing basketball".
|
| We engage in sports because they are fun and explore the
| limits of our physical and mental abilities (or well, go
| above our limits, as all the kinesio-tapes and
| supplements in pro sports indicate). Involving robots can
| only continue to be fun if robots work with roughly the
| same restrictions.
|
| If we want to measure AIs against our mental abilities,
| it's only fair to pit them with controlling as much
| "machinery" and suboptimal movements as humans do in a
| particular sport: that versatility is what makes our
| intelligence so amazing and, well, "general".
| anonyfox wrote:
| but thats the same as in Chess, Go or even StarCraft: the
| AI is absolutly impossible to beat for human players
| unless it has explicit flaws built-in.
|
| The general point I want to make is that it doesn't make
| sense trying to compare humans with AI (and somewhat
| soon) robots, because the _will_ outperform everyone.
| Handycapping them is not a solution either. The "amazing
| versatility" of humans also will not persist for too long
| anymore I'd say, therefore the only way to have a real
| and fair comparison/pit is against other humans in the
| future.
| necovek wrote:
| Well, let's agree to disagree about versatility: I don't
| see non-specialized AI outperforming humans in a number
| of years (a human will easily beat chess AI at Go).
|
| While I am somewhat impressed by the conversational
| acumen of recent LLMs, the fact they can produce outright
| garbage tells me we are as far away from synthesising
| multiple types of intelligences as ever: humans simply
| need far smaller input data set to start recognizing
| patterns and rules (as witnessed by kids learning to
| speak).
|
| I am not yet convinced we'll live to see something like
| actual self-driving cars with as much capability as an
| average human driver: I believe augmented environments
| are needed (communicating roads, signals and cars) to get
| to self-driving cars.
|
| The one thing they've got going for them is consistent
| focus, whereas practical ability in humans significantly
| depends on the mood, tiredness, level of multitasking...
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > the will outperform everyone
|
| I'll try to make the same point land a bit harder:
|
| Robots will not compete any time 'somewhat soon' in
| many/most physical tasks, because their energy storage
| capability, motor efficiency, strength to weight ratio,
| and many other mechanical and sensing properties are not
| good _at all_ compared with humans and other animals, and
| can 't be fixed by software. Everyday intuition
| underestimates how large this gap is.
|
| Brains are only part of the requirement for competence in
| the real world.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| I feel like it is possible, but just not anything we will
| pursue. Nuclear reactors? Inductive charging in the floor?
| some kind of overhead electric like we use to power trains?
| I'm sure it's "possible", but probably not safe for humans
| to be around.
| rtpg wrote:
| I've found playing against weaker bots you lose on the sort of
| human nature of weaker players. In particular humans tend to
| have a bit of an internal narrative, but weaker chess bots tend
| to just throw in shitty moves.
|
| It's pretty well known that bots resort to cheating to win at
| stuff like Civ. I'm sure there's a patch out there that removes
| the cheating, and you can stomp on computers there.
| isolli wrote:
| Civ evo [0] applies the same rules to AI and human players.
| It is supposed to have a very strong AI. Also, AI does not
| have a personality (friendly, aggressive, etc.); it just
| wants to win. Unfortunately, I could never bring myself to
| learn this new variant.
|
| [0] http://c-evo.org/
| WJW wrote:
| The problem with video game bots in games like Civ is that
| "playing well" is not actually the core goal of the devs.
| Rather, it has to be enjoyable to play against and easy
| enough to build and debug in the limited time available until
| release. Given those constraints, most game devs just give
| the bot free resources and call it a day.
|
| If somebody would bother to put in the time to make it, a
| well-crafted Civ bot could probably roflstomp every human out
| there just by virtue of perfectly micromanaging its
| production in every city on every turn without effort.
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| come join us at Beyond All Reason :)
|
| https://www.beyondallreason.info/
|
| or if you're an AI maker come join us also and make a better
| bit for us to play against :)
| concordDance wrote:
| _cough_ https://zero-k.info/ _cough_
| yread wrote:
| World of Warships has lots of strategy to it (and the bots suck
| at it). Good players don't shoot where the ship would be if it
| kept going straight but take into account the map, other ships
| positions and psychology to guess evasive maneuvers.
| krisoft wrote:
| > and the bots suck at it
|
| It is important to distinguish two thing: "Computers can't
| solve this problem" vs "the currently existing bots suck".
| One is when the best programers trying their darndest can't
| make a bot good, while the other is when nobody even really
| tried.
|
| (For example I can reliably run faster than Usain Bolt when
| he is not made aware that we are racing. :P )
|
| This case sounds very much the second kind. There can be many
| reason for this, the simplest is that the makers of the game
| don't win more players by absolutely crushing them. It is a
| case where after a certain level of advancement you don't
| earn more money by making better bots. In fact you might
| start earning less if you take away the fun of the game. And
| of course anti-cheating measures will hamper 3rd party bots
| if they are not explicitly invited, and why would they be?
|
| Simply saying estimating which way someone will evade /
| evading randomly doesn't sound like the kind of thing a
| computer would be bad nowadays. If someone tries that is.
| petercooper wrote:
| Yes. Risk. There's a large online community around it now and
| lots of YouTube videos of people playing it to a high strategic
| level. There's all sorts of signalling going on between players
| and bots are easy to counter even at the highest settings.
| WJW wrote:
| Don't play against bots then. There's plenty of people online
| to play against at any moment of the day.
|
| Maybe I read the wrong forums but this particular hangup
| ("machines can do it better so what is even the point?") seems
| to be quite unique to chess as a hobby. I've never seen someone
| on an athletics tournament complaining that the sport is no
| longer fun because a cannon could throw the spear much farther
| than even the best athletes, or that they no longer enjoy going
| to the gym because a construction crane can lift much more than
| they will ever be able to. Chess is at its core a game of
| rigidly applying rules, pattern matching, and applying a depth-
| first search on as deep a search tree as you can manage. It
| should hardly be a surprise that computers can do that
| extremely well.
| NickC25 wrote:
| starcraft broodwar is one such game, although the AI bot has to
| be handicapped to have the same visual and APM constraints as a
| human player.
|
| If the bot gets to have APM in the 400-500 range and has full
| map vision, even the top pros will get smoked no contest.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| A handful of games have been invented with the purpose of
| giving humans an edge over AI. They may have had a chance when
| the best AI was alpha-beta search, but against modern
| reinforcement methods, I don't believe they have a chance.
|
| The games invented were Octi [1] and Arimaa [2].
|
| [1]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/450/octi
|
| [2]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4616/arimaa
|
| A casual search shows some discussion of AI-resistant board
| games here:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/eaept6/tell_me_...
| washmyelbows wrote:
| "Only about 10% of players ever gain more than 100 points, and
| only about 1% of players gain more than 200 rating points given
| years."
|
| This seems like a wild claim. On chess.com I've gone from 500 to
| ~1050 in a handful of months without any real study, just some
| light YouTube watching. 500->800 felt like all it took was
| learning a few openings and not blundering pieces. 800-1050 felt
| like it came mostly from getting familiar with the common
| patterns from those openings that led to
| advantages/disadvantages. Most of my learning here came from
| reviewing my own games and trying to understand why my mistakes
| were mistakes.
|
| I don't understand how people learn from slamming blitz/bullet
| games. The time constraints are too rushed to really think about
| what makes a move good or bad. I assumed it was a young person's
| thing, but the author said he plays these quick formats too.
| kqr wrote:
| The author says specifically blitz/bullet is suboptimal for
| learning, for precisely the reasons you mention. The author
| plays these types of games to kill boredom.
| vasco wrote:
| I love quick games, 3min blitz being my favorite and I suck at
| chess. It makes it almost a different game to me. I stopped
| playing for years because my memory of chess was slow boring
| waiting. Blitz is just full on, all the time.
| chongli wrote:
| If you follow the link to the data analysis [1] you'll see that
| the argument is based on higher rated players. Low rated
| players have much higher variance in their rating and can
| improve by quite a lot, just by learning to stop blundering.
| That's basically the situation you're in.
|
| Getting to 2000 rating is going to be quite a mountain to climb
| for you, unless you're very young.
|
| [1]
| https://github.com/jcw024/lichess_database_ETL/blob/main/REA...
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| And not to forget to avoid disappointment: An online 2000 is
| maybe an offline 1800 or so. Online ratings are in general
| higher than what people actually have offline.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| I am not sure if that is generally true. It's true for
| lichess and chess.com (compared to ELO) It really has only
| to do with the formula they use. They have different
| formulas. I think e.g. lichess has a formula so that the
| median is centered around 1500. This is different from how
| ELO is calculated. I would assume if they all had the same
| way to calculate the rating, it should be somewhat close.
| smatija wrote:
| Yes and no - they use different systems, but even if they
| used same system ratings would be different.
|
| This is since ratings only measure player's performance
| relative to other players in the same poll. A lot more
| people (and a lot more begineers) play online than in
| FIDE rated tournaments. So playing poll in tournaments is
| stronger than online playing poll, so even if we assume
| same rating system in all cases, players will have lower
| ratings in tournament play than online.
|
| What complicates matters further is that playing polls
| aren't totally unified - in FIDE Elo ratings it's
| possible to see regional differences (indians for example
| are in general underrated), since playing poll is
| segmented by distance (due to travel costs not a lot of
| players play internationally). Additionally COVID19 made
| a total mess of ratings, since there was not enough
| events last few years, so majority of younglings are
| underrated due to not playing enough rated games, while
| improving as fast as the previous generation.
|
| FIDE is currently deciding on rating reform, which will
| be implemented in january, trying to handle this
| situation.
|
| What complicates matters even more is that FIDE Elo
| algorithm is not optimized for accuracy, but for
| calculations by hand (try calculating glicko2 rating
| change without computer!), so glicko2 more accurately
| predicts player performance.
|
| And finally, time controls differ a lot between online
| and tournament play. Online even 5minutes feels slow,
| while in tournaments 90min+30sec/move is one of shorter
| time controls. Performance between slow and fast play is
| in general correlated, but this correlation is weaker at
| higher ratings (since both sides of the game have some
| non-transferable skills, so blitz specialists for example
| exists).
| Oreb wrote:
| That's pretty much the opposite of how I feel. I can win
| against much stronger players over the board than online.
| It's so hard to summon the same focus and energy in an
| online game.
| chongli wrote:
| It's just a fact that online ratings are inflated. Hikaru
| Nakamura is rated 3231 (at the moment I write this) in
| blitz on chess.com but 2874 in blitz over the board,
| according to FIDE. That's a difference of 357 rating
| points!
|
| Of course, Hikaru has admitted that he deliberately works
| to inflate his online rating and has talked about the
| differences in the rules/mechanics online. For him, the
| lack of an increment in his online games (FIDE over the
| board blitz has an increment) and his well-practiced
| mouse skills help him a lot. Hikaru can flag a lot of
| people from a losing position, so he gets many more wins
| than he would have over the board. He also says he
| deliberately "farms" lower rated players to boost his
| rating by a small amount, and avoids games against
| dangerous opponents who are underrated (due to a lack of
| online play).
| Someone wrote:
| But that's not surprising at all if you assume every player
| has a 'ceiling' performance they can attain, isn't it?
|
| Higher rated players tend to be closer to their potential
| than lower rated ones, leaving less room for improvement, in
| any sport. They also will be more likely to get worse over
| time because, the nearer to the top, the more roads lead you
| downwards.
|
| You'd have to pick a very peculiar metric to measure
| performance to compensate for that.
| Zyst wrote:
| I play competitive games in tournaments. I would disagree
| with your characterization.
|
| Yes, people have a skill ceiling. However, it's not
| something you're ever going to get to by just playing most
| games.
|
| People naturally improve at games when they start playing.
| Some factors being more familiarity with the game, and
| making less mistakes. However, people will stall out at
| different ratings at that point.
|
| However, if you do deliberate practice in the game you will
| absolutely continue to get better. If you're practicing
| specific scenarios, have focused areas of improvement,
| coaching, analyze your own replays, record your practice,
| and watch it: You will improve.
|
| Yes, abstractly a "skill ceiling" out there exists for you,
| but you're extremely unlikely to ever reach it in a game of
| skill unless you're trying to go pro in it.
|
| If putting time in were all that were required to reach
| your skill ceiling, we would have way more League of
| Legends Grandmasters. Unless you assume the people that go
| pro are all just more talented, and that their practice
| doesn't make a difference.
| esrauch wrote:
| I'm not sure about Leagues rating system but I would
| definitely believe that the top echelon in most serious
| sports/games is reserved for people who are _both_ more
| talented and also hardcore practice.
|
| I play chess and the GM level is above the skill cap of
| some talented people who have put in dedicated practice
| since a child and are a full time professional dedicated
| player as an adult. The median talent at full time
| dedication for their whole life wouldn't reach that
| level, and no one who only started the game at age 20 has
| ever reached that level regardless of natural talent.
| Some of the most famous players never attain that level,
| including some full time professional players that are
| known figures today (like Eric Rosen) and historical
| chess theory leaders (like Jeremy Silman).
|
| And in practice "just" GM level isn't even good enough to
| be a top tier player: the top 100 players can trounce the
| lowest GMs.
|
| I would assume the same applies to any other game/sport
| that has the cache for people to train at it from
| childhood like Tennis, Basketball, etc.
| Someone wrote:
| > However, if you do deliberate practice in the game you
| will absolutely continue to get better
|
| I strongly disagree. I think that, for a given amount of
| effort (hours and study intensity) you're willing to
| spend, everybody has a ceiling that they can reach. If
| what you say is true, why hasn't Magnus Carlsen reached
| ELO 2900? Lack of deliberate practice? ELO deflation
| requiring players to get better to keep the same rating?
|
| Ignoring that, the discussion isn't whether you'll
| continue getting better, but whether you'll keep
| improving at the same rate.
|
| > Unless you assume the people that go pro are all just
| more talented, and that their practice doesn't make a
| difference.
|
| I don't see how that follows. I think the top is both
| extremely talented, extremely motivated, and physically
| strong enough to do the hours of concentrated practice.
|
| I think it's easier to see in physical sports. If you're
| 2m tall and have enough motor skills to run and catch a
| ball, you'll likely be 'good' at basketball in high
| school, even if you don't practice much or well. To make
| it in the NBA, you have to be 2m tall _and_ have above
| average motor skills _and_ be above average robust, so
| that you can play x games a year without getting injured,
| _and_ be more willing to exercise than mossy to get
| stronger and more agile _and_ be above average good at
| reading the game.
| jyscao wrote:
| >I think that, for a given amount of effort (hours and
| study intensity) you're willing to spend, everybody has a
| ceiling that they can reach.
|
| I disagree with your disagreement, because simply
| controlling for total studying time and intensity is too
| reductionist. Different players have different sticking
| points when it comes to chess, e.g. weak strategic
| planning, weak tactics, poor positional understanding,
| bad endgames, etc. Your implicit assumption is that most
| players at some playing strength, are at that playing
| strength in all aspects of their game. In practice,
| that's simply not the case for many.
|
| To give a concrete example, my classical rating on
| lichess hovers around 1800, but if you look at my tactics
| puzzle rating it's well above 2000, suggesting it's the
| positional and strategic aspects of the game that I'm
| weak at, which anecdotally feels true based on how I both
| win and lose most of my games. If I were to get a coach
| or deliberately work on those weaker aspects of my game
| myself (something I have not done), so that they're no
| longer the bottleneck of my performance, I could very
| well break this rating plateau I've been stuck in for the
| past half decade or so, and shoot up another 100 or even
| 200 points. I also have a friend of similar strength
| level, who has the opposite profile as me: strong
| positional and strategic understanding, weak tactics. And
| despite more or less an even record, whenever we play
| against each other, his wins are almost always grinds,
| while my wins are usually some tactical shot he missed or
| blundered into.
|
| The bottom line is, at my strength level, and I'd
| hypothesize even up to the low to mid-2000s rating
| levels, these unbalanced types of players are probably
| more common than balanced players with similar ratings in
| all aspects of their game to their overall rating. The
| latter kind, you might be able to argue, have reached
| their natural ceiling; but even here I'd be surprised if
| they cannot improve more by deliberately strengthening
| aspects of their game. Conversely, based on my experience
| of 10+ years playing chess regularly, the vast majority
| of players simply don't have a good understanding of
| their own weaknesses. Many unbalanced players like
| myself, with the correct type of training and practice,
| even if total time isn't too much, can absolutely make
| significant improvements to their overall performance.
|
| >If what you say is true, why hasn't Magnus Carlsen
| reached ELO 2900? Lack of deliberate practice? ELO
| deflation requiring players to get better to keep the
| same rating?
|
| In the case of top-level IMs, GMs, and certainly super
| GMs, who don't have glaring weaknesses in any aspects of
| their game, it's likely the case that they indeed did
| reach their ceiling. But these are the only people I'd be
| at all confident in making such claims.
| imjonse wrote:
| You may learn up to a stage, when a complete beginner, by
| quickly and repeatedly being exposed to basic mistakes without
| having to think much. Afterwards it is probably detrimental
| indeed.
| mseidl wrote:
| I've been playing chess since I was 6, and I'm 7 now.
|
| You should learn endgame and tactics, the basics of opening and
| maybe a few openings. endgame will teach chess. openings
| teaches you openings. especially when you're a beginner people
| will make moves that don't make sense. Plus aren't there like
| over 4 or 5 quadrillion possible moves just within the first 10
| moves?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Are you able to confirm there isn't a typo here? You're 7?
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| with comments back past 2018 i think it's safe to say its a
| typo xD
| antaviana wrote:
| Maybe they started to procrastinate in HN when they were
| 2.
| psychlops wrote:
| Exactly, the ageism here at HN is outrageous.
| mseidl wrote:
| It wasn't a typo. I was making a joke.
| kqr wrote:
| Is this advice not going in the exact opposite direction to
| what looks like a well-researched TFA with an n=1 experiment
| to back it up? Why do you think your opinion differs?
| bjornlouser wrote:
| TFA mentions that their openings preparation didn't help
| much, and mentions next steps as learning "Basic Endgames".
|
| The minute you stop blundering pieces you find yourself in
| a nearly even endgame.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| It doesn't necessarily matter that there are quadrillions of
| possible openings. Studying traps that occur often in the
| openings you play is definitely helpful.
|
| For example, if you're an 1. e4 e5 player you'll want to
| learn how to counter the Fried Liver attack, as it's one of
| the most popular lines at the beginner to intermediate level.
|
| You don't need to know many lines 7 moves deep either, just a
| couple of moves is already very helpful.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| As someone who is at 1000 and also one of those people who only
| slam blitzes, I can confirm that one benefits from it only to a
| point, mostly developing skill in quickly reading the board and
| identifying the low-hanging-fruit moves.
| matsemann wrote:
| Yup, starting to play 2+1 increased my 5+3 rating by 200 up
| to 1800 (lichess). But continuing to play 2+1 with no
| analysis or thought hasn't increased my rating further.
|
| I do only play for fun / to kill time, though. So a few games
| a day on a metro or whatever. So with no aspirations to
| actually improve I think I'm at the peak of my natural
| ability.
| narag wrote:
| _This seems like a wild claim. On chess.com I 've gone from 500
| to ~1050 in a handful of months without any real study,_
|
| Is rating on chess.com similar to rating in lichess? The
| article mentions 1%, but you _start_ with 1500 in lichess??? If
| you lose often, you quickly go down. But if you keep an even
| record, you stay in 1500.
|
| _I don 't understand how people learn from slamming
| blitz/bullet games._
|
| As in the article, speed training helps recognizing patterns
| and dealing with them. At first it seems impossible to play
| significant moves with so little time, but you can try to just
| doing it. You'll adapt very soon.
|
| I recommend starting with blitz 3+2 and later bullet 2+1. There
| are tournaments of 1+0... or even less time. 30 seconds is
| really crazy.
| smatija wrote:
| Rating on chesscom is wildly different than on lichess in
| lower rating ranges.
|
| 300 cc should be similiar to around 800 lichess. Around
| 2000-2200 ratings even out on both sites and on higher
| ratings lichess ratings tend to be lower than on cc.
|
| For improving longer time controls are better. The old adage,
| that if you want to play blitz better you should play rapid
| and that if you want to improve rapid you should play
| classical is still valid today. Blitz is beneficial only at
| higher rating ranges (2000+) to allow practising openings,
| and even that only in moderation. Players who don't play
| classical time controls (90min+30sec/move at least) tend to
| plateau around 2000-2200 online.
|
| This ofc doesn't mean that blitz isn't fun - vast majority of
| my games are in blitz time controls.
| VonGallifrey wrote:
| > If you lose often, you quickly go down. But if you keep an
| even record, you stay in 1500.
|
| Is that actually true? You start at a 1500 in lichess, but
| that is a provisional rating and the outcome of your first
| few games are going to cause BIG swings in your rating. After
| your rating is no longer a provisional rating then that is
| going to slow down.
|
| Losing a few games at the start might take a lot more wins to
| "even out" in rating. Just keeping an even record might not
| be enough to stay 1500.
| hinkley wrote:
| I've known this guy off and on for years. When we first met 15+
| years he was slightly better at Go than me, which was middling
| amateur. All the Go books say if you want to be a pro you have
| to start as a child.
|
| But he studied, and studied, and last I knew he was 3 dan,
| which is about the point you can entertain the idea of becoming
| a pro (if I just worked harder).
|
| Kids have a lot more free time to sink into a singular concern.
| Warnings about how something are out of the reach of adults
| aren't actually hard rules, they're just really good rules of
| thumb. But if you can make the time, it's not impossible.
|
| I don't think chess is any different there. Small improvements
| may set reasonable expectations, but there are people who can
| blow right past them.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| You're right I think. Most adults really don't improve at
| chess very often. They do when it's a new hobby, but then
| they plateau. And it's not that they couldn't improve
| further, it's just that they're not able or willing to do the
| things necessary, which is usually a lot of exercise and
| study. It's just a hobby for most people at the end of the
| day, and they'd rather spend an hour at the club discussing
| and blitzing some silly openings with friends than spend an
| hour solving puzzles or studying endgames. We still all carry
| the illusion of some prospect of improvement, that's the
| human condition. But most people don't take it very seriously
| and are more in it for social reasons.
| hinkley wrote:
| It clearly aggravated some of the people at the Go club
| that I was not improving past hobbyist. But the thing I
| didn't share with them is that all through my childhood, I
| would try new things and if I wasn't instantly mediocre or
| better at it I would decide this was no fun and drop it. If
| you are good at enough things you can fill your weeks with
| activities and ignore the things you aren't good at.
|
| Being bad at Go and still playing anyway was an exercise in
| personal growth.
| pmontra wrote:
| A friend of mine devised an empirical rule to predict the
| highest Go ranking that a player will reach: the ranking
| after the first 4 years of play plus 4.
|
| You can check that on https://europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/ and
| pick some players at random.
|
| They have a nice date/rank graph and all those graphs start
| with an almost vertical growth which slows down and flattens.
| Some players play less often and get weaker but that's not
| the point.
|
| I have no idea if it applies to chess too, possibly with
| different parameters, but why not? They are both games played
| with the brain by humans.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| I think this might be related to the pareto distribution of
| productivity in my line of work (steel fabrication). Our
| most productive employees are literally 10 times more
| productive than the least productive. And it's always the
| same people at the top of the list, and always the same
| people at the bottom. If you pair them together, the
| productive employee loses 10-20% of productivity while
| they're together, and the less productive employee improves
| by 5-10%, but as soon as you separate them, they go back to
| where they were before.
| nebulous1 wrote:
| > but there are people who can blow right past them
|
| Ultimately, I think this is what's often downplayed in these
| conversations. Just because your friend was able to excel at
| Go in those 15 years, doesn't imply that any other specific
| person would be able to do the same, even with the same
| study. You'll find many people who attempted this but simply
| couldn't get past a lower plateau.
|
| So, when you say "if you can make the time, it's not
| impossible", I'm not sure that that's true. My suspicion
| would be that for a significant portion of the population, it
| would in fact be literally impossible. (edit: I was reading a
| different thread where somebody was asking about becoming a
| FIDE CM, that's what I was referencing here as being
| impossible for many, I don't know anything about Go ranks).
| hinkley wrote:
| I've known too many people who get into their own heads
| about certain topics. They lock up and become impervious to
| new information.
|
| There are certainly people who need new genes. And there
| are people who need a new teacher. But boy oh boy are there
| a lot of people who would get better at difficult tasks if
| they got therapy.
| vjerancrnjak wrote:
| I mostly played blitz with openings where queen is moved in the
| first 3 moves and got to ~2000 (no proof, sorry). I didn't
| study chess at all outside of playing it intensely for 1-2
| years. Of course, my end game was also very bad. It was such a
| frustrating fun I had to stop.
|
| There are of course players that know how to fully exploit
| mistakes in the bad openings, but when you're rated so low,
| openings rarely matter, especially if the opponent has to
| exploit a weird opening you have.
|
| There's many more patterns related to pinning, tempo, that are
| worth much more for quick rating progress.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| > but when you're rated so low, openings rarely matte
|
| No way you get to 2000 by cheesing, maybe 1000 max. 2000
| rating is not low, it's top 0.3% on chess.com
| smatija wrote:
| It's possible, if unlikely - wayward queen is not as bad as
| it looks (black has maybe a tiny bit more than equality),
| most players don't face it often (so probably don't have a
| lot of prep memorized) and in blitz time controls it's hard
| to find optimal punishment for subpar opening play. And
| 2000 is not that high again - top 0.3% on chess com is
| maybe top 50% of tournament players.
|
| Online chess has a lot of begineers, since its more
| approachable.
| pedrekz wrote:
| Everyone who's higher rated than 500 can see that you're
| lying, I don't know why you insist. Yes, you're not
| immediately losing the game if you play the right moves,
| but it stops being a "trick" waaaay before you're 2000,
| even in blitz. You don't need any "prep".
|
| Edit: you're not the same person from the comment above,
| my bad
| smatija wrote:
| 2000 rated players of course won't get mated in 3 moves,
| but position after 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3
| is not unplayable for White - Black is equal or maybe
| just a little bit better.
|
| In lichess Blitz database for 2200+ rated players there
| are 13883 games with this position. White won 50%, drew
| 7% and lost 43%.
|
| Of course this position is nothing to write home about,
| but for online Blitz it's good enough.
| vjerancrnjak wrote:
| edit: what the other responder says
|
| I'm not saying I'm mating people in 3 moves. There are
| many unique mating opportunities in queen openings and
| many ways to create immense pressure on the king's side
| if the player does not defend well. Try it yourself and
| you'll quickly see that -2000 rated players (online)
| struggle with it. Similarly, you're not sacrificing
| development and you castle at the same moment (sometimes
| after black).
|
| For example, many games I would get my queen attacked on
| F3 and then I would lose my rook. But this 3 move knight
| play on the opponents side gives you a lot of moves to
| create pressure, in one case you can have 3 pieces
| developed, while opponent has 0 (excluding the knight
| stuck in the corner). With the queen on king's side, you
| have a lot of options to equalize. If opponent is focused
| on saving the knight, the moves are just bad.
|
| In 2+1 and 3 min blitz it's unlikely you'll get someone
| that won't make the position almost even after 10 moves.
|
| The biggest hurdle to progress was my endgame and in
| blitz I found that being a piece down is rarely an
| indicator of loss at that level. + I did win a lot on
| time.
|
| I was playing 200-250 blitz games a day and would analyze
| many, but I never bothered with openings. I quit because
| it was obviously too much.
| shric wrote:
| > I don't understand how people learn from slamming
| blitz/bullet games. The time constraints are too rushed to
| really think about what makes a move good or bad. I assumed it
| was a young person's thing, but the author said he plays these
| quick formats too.
|
| I'm 47 and started playing around 5 years ago. I only play
| Blitz and Bullet because I find it fun. In the first two years
| I went from around 1000 on lichess to around 1700. I've been
| "stuck" at 1700 plus or minus 100 since then.
|
| I know I could improve with puzzles and classical time controls
| and study and analysis but I have no interest in that. I play
| games for fun. If I improve then great. If not no problem. It's
| the same as breaking out a game of Tetris or something for 5
| minutes to me.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| If you analyse the blitz games after playing them, that can
| bridge some of the gap.
| shric wrote:
| Yes, but I have no patience for that. As soon as one game
| is done I've either had enough of chess for now or want the
| dopamine hit of the next game immediately.
| erfgh wrote:
| Some people just want to have fun and that's what blitz is for.
| Why are people so preoccupied with improving when it comes to
| chess? If any other game is mentioned the discussion will not
| be so centered on improvement as it is with chess. Maybe it is
| because chess has this air of a "thinking man's game" which
| does not really deserve. It's just a game like any other.
| nicky0 wrote:
| Because learning and improving is part of the pleasure of
| chess. It's a game you can enjoy to play, but also enjoy to
| study. As you improve, there's a tangible sense of
| progression which is rewarding. And the scope for progression
| goes very very deep.
|
| Not all other games have this feature. If I play Catan with
| my friends, it's fun, but then the game is over. I'm not
| going to analyse my game and discover new tactics or
| strategies, like I will with chess.
| mathgeek wrote:
| > Because learning and improving is part of the pleasure of
| chess.
|
| Important to remember this is not a universal truth for all
| people.
|
| > If I play Catan with my friends, it's fun...
|
| Interestingly, you and I seem to be opposites here. I only
| play chess for fun and never care if I improve, but spent
| thousands of hours in my college years analyzing and
| improving at Catan. I wonder if this is simply a matter of
| whether one prefers deterministic or stochastic games for
| optimization.
| david927 wrote:
| I can only speak from my experience but blitz worked for me. I
| would make occasional, furtive attempts to learn but nothing
| ever worked. Then one day I started playing a single five
| minute lichess game with coffee in the morning at work. And
| when I would make a mistake, I would do a takeback to see what
| I did wrong and how I should have played it. Sometimes I would
| play the puzzles.
|
| Doing this and nothing else, I went up about 100 points a year
| for five years, from 1200 to 1700. (And then I stopped but I
| also could tell that I would have to start approaching it
| differently to go further.)
| baal80spam wrote:
| > Like most people, late last year I watched the Queen's Gambit.
|
| That's a... bold statement.
| ta8903 wrote:
| Not the only bold statement in the article.
|
| >But I'm a smart guy (hi white male privilege)
|
| It's amusing to see someone go mask off and call non-whites low
| IQ like that.
| LargeTomato wrote:
| I don't think that's what they meant.
| qingdao99 wrote:
| What did they mean? Can't figure it out.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Educated. Access to good schools.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| What has that got to do with being good at chess?
| stavros wrote:
| The concept of privilege is that you have
| time/energy/resources to do things like play chess
| instead of looking for work. I'm not sure if you're
| questioning the concept of privilege (which is fine) or
| saying that it specifically doesn't have anything to do
| with chess.
| stavros wrote:
| Oof, when you try to be self-deprecating and acknowledge your
| privilege and it's still racist.
|
| You either believe there's white male privilege, and the
| author is correct, or you don't, and he... has a different
| opinion than you?
|
| I'm not going to go more into it because I dislike framing
| this clear class problem as a race problem, but I wanted to
| point out the erroneous reasoning.
| edent wrote:
| Do you understand the purpose of hyperbole in prose?
|
| When humans communicate, we don't use Backus-Naur form. We
| generally accept that people will be able to derive the meaning
| from context. Does the author literally believe that over 50%
| of the planet watched it? The claim is preposterous - and
| obviously so. But it is a convenient shorthand for referring to
| the impact on the cultural zeitgeist made by that show.
|
| Anyway, QG was astonishingly popular. See
| https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-queens-gambit-most-p...
| and https://adage.com/article/media/golden-globe-winner-
| queens-g...
| alberto_ol wrote:
| I briefly scanned the article. I am not that impressed by the
| result. I thought that an average smart person and particularly
| someone with a scientific background could reach that resalt in
| one or two months.
|
| My experience. I played chess when I was between 13 and 16, at
| that time I was a good player but not a child prodigy, let's say
| one of the best players in my school. I have no idea of my ELO
| then, there was no internet in the early '80s. I have not played
| for roughly 40 years. I few years ago I started playing on
| lichess and my ELO is now around 1700 (with a peak of 1900). I
| don't know if chess.com and lichess have different ratings.
| zpeti wrote:
| Lichess ratings are higher generally, although they even out
| with chess.com the higher you get.
|
| 1400 on lichess is more like 1200 on chess.com, but 1900 is
| probably 1900.
|
| Based on your post though, you definitely seem like you are
| very smart or have a natural affinity for chess. 1900 is
| extremely high, especially in a few months or even years.
|
| Normally people gain around 300 ELO points per year if they are
| learning and practicing actively.
| V-2 wrote:
| > 1400 on lichess is more like 1200 on chess.com, but 1900 is
| probably 1900.
|
| Not in my experience. I'm rated 1900+ on lichess and 1600+ on
| chess.com. That's after playing a significant number of games
| (nearly 500 on chess.com, thousands on lichess).
|
| The way I feel about it, a 1900 player on lichess is an
| intermediate beginner (like myself), whereas 1900 on
| chess.com already represents a decent club player level.
|
| For reference, "in real life" (Elo rating / FIDE) I'm rated
| below 1300 in classical chess, and about 1400 in rapid -
| although I've played only one rapid tournament, and I don't
| have a blitz rating at all, which makes comparisons a bit
| tricky.
|
| For what it's worth though, as far as I can tell, these
| proportions are about typical.
| thope wrote:
| yes, they use different rating systems (Glicko 1 and 2), see
| https://lichess.org/page/rating-systems
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| Never watched the Queen's Gambit )
| gwnywg wrote:
| I stopped watching movies and series altogether a few years ago
| feeling I'm wasting time. Now I still waste time, but on other
| things :)
| drivers99 wrote:
| I'm basically the same way these days, but Queen's Gambit is
| a miniseries and really really good. Good value for the time.
| sph wrote:
| Great article. I got into chess recently, and I can only
| recommend the _" Learn chess with Dr. Wolf"_ app.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-chess-with-dr-wolf/id135...
|
| It's got a beautiful UI, and it's a conversational chess tutor
| that goes over the basics, tactics, advanced strategy and with
| whom you can play and will point out mistakes and blunders for
| later review. Perhaps it is too basic for anybody that has a few
| hundred games of chess under their belt but if you know nothing
| about the game, it is a great way to get into it. As the author
| say, low level chess is about learning patterns and short-term
| strategy (what should I do the opening, how to checkmate with a
| rook, etc.) and this app teaches exactly that, in a gradual way.
|
| Not affiliated, just a happy and now paying user.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chess.ches...
| 4lun wrote:
| Ah this is great, just spent 30 mins playing this on the London
| underground as it works offline too
| sph wrote:
| Yeah it's great when you have a few minutes to spare. I do a
| little lesson and a quick game to practice it in my lunch
| break.
| mptest wrote:
| Can anyone recommend a similar app/site for learning go? That
| one feels so hard to learn, but it is so fun. the games really
| feel like a conversation
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Go is so wonderful as a social game. I took its philosophy on
| "teaching-games" (ie, every game is approached as an
| opportunity to learn/teach more than as a competition, and
| handicap structures are built-in to skill difference), and
| have applied them to chess as I start playing with my 7 yo
| son.
|
| We _both_ really enjoy playing the game at our absolute best
| when I start the game less one rook, knight, bishop, and two
| pawns. I 'm not a great chess player though.
|
| Anyway, more to your question, finding a way to play Go in
| person is such a game-changer, literally.
| hvs wrote:
| As low-DDK player, what has helped me most is
|
| 1) Playing lots of games (https://online-go.com and
| https://gokgs.com are good for this). I usually have a few
| correspondence games going and then try to play a normal
| speed game daily. Don't worry about winning and losing, just
| play. Begin to internalize how standard tactics reappear
| regularly on the board.
|
| 2) Do tsumego (life and death) a lot. But don't just try
| things and see what happens. Try to read out the entire
| sequence before looking at the answer. (SmartGo One is a good
| app). Cho Chikun's beginner ones are good [1]. Try to work on
| a subset of problems (<100) until you can just look at the
| formation for a few seconds and see the answer. Play out all
| sequences to really understand why they don't work. Getting
| the answer isn't really the point, it's that you internalize
| the tactics involved in all tsumego.
|
| 3) As someone who spent WAY too much time reading books about
| Go strategy and tactics before I could barely play the game:
| don't do that. Books become much more useful once you are a
| SDK (single digit kyu) player. Until then, just play and
| study life and death. Reading books isn't bad, it just isn't
| that helpful when you can get beat in a game because you
| don't have the basic tactics down.
|
| [1] https://tsumego.tasuki.org/
| commanderkeen08 wrote:
| > But don't just try things and see what happens
|
| But what if I don't know how to do anything else? I've
| learned the basic rules but struggle really hard even
| figuring out what's a legal move.
| nevinera wrote:
| I gained the most from gobase.org, just clicking through
| professional games. The tool you can review/replay games with
| lets you try to guess the next move - just let them play the
| first 10-15 moves and then start guessing. Don't spend a ton
| of time thinking, just _guess_. Guess over and over, and if
| you don't guess the move after 5-10 tries, have it tell you,
| try for a few seconds to understand why that might be a good
| move, and continue.
|
| You should totally do the tactics and puzzles that you can
| find (that same site has a bunch), but there's a lot more
| strategic recognition and pattern-matching in go than chess.
|
| I'm also interested to hear if there are better tools though
| in the last .. Christ, twenty years? I'm old now -.-
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Try Baduk Pop.
| mratsim wrote:
| 1. Play and have fun. You won't stick around if you don't. 2.
| Tsumegos, most important are the tesuji and life & death when
| beginning, opening/ending don't matter when a blunder kills
| half the board. See https://goproblems.com/
|
| If looking for a book. Cho Chikun's life & death corner
| problems progress in a systematic manner from beginner to dan
| level.
|
| Also https://senseis.xmp.net/?LoseYourFirst50GamesAsQuicklyAs
| Poss...
| __rito__ wrote:
| There are good suggestions on the sidebar of the go
| subreddit.
| mabeale wrote:
| It is a nice app but it had too many bugs for me to consider
| renewing my subscription with it. It would sometimes make
| suggested moves that were just completely wrong. I did provide
| feedback on some, which they agreed were bugs.
| ShoneRL wrote:
| A bit of an unhinged, unpopular opinion take: Chess is a very
| overrated game that's overglorified to the limit and it's an
| unhealthy addiction for a lot of people and I think modern media
| needs to stop flaunting Chess as something of a high-horse type
| of thing.
|
| To put simply, I believe Chess is good as something of a brain
| exercise for when you're younger or if you are a parent and want
| to develop your child's logical thinking and that's it, no more
| and no less.
|
| So what happens if you take Chess further?
|
| People don't know when to stop and I've seen with my eyes this
| happen because there was this kid at Chess tournaments who was a
| much better player than I am, however the kid just lived Chess,
| there was nothing else to the kid, he was socially very
| unintelligent & awkward, didn't really do much anything else
| since his parents shoved him to Chess when he was 6 and made it a
| daily routine thing for him to focus on Chess and his school
| studies. Gradually, Chess took over his entire identity and he's
| now a titled player and from people who see him on an everyday
| basis, they all still don't say much about this now-adult other
| than that he's still just focused on Chess. The general sentiment
| of everyone who knows this kid is just pity because it's just a
| very one-dimensional life. He achieved success but it sacrificed
| a lot of his childhood, and for what?
|
| Chess players, even titled ones don't really make a lot of money
| from tournaments and if you want to be good at it and play at
| tournaments, you have to dedicate basically all your time to it
| and have good discipline to keep at it, day after day. There's
| the coach hustle but that also requires you to be at least above
| average and also I haven't met a coach who's not just living
| Chess so it's about the same, you still get sucked into this
| lifestyle.
|
| Chess at a higher level is pretty draw-ish and ultimately a
| memorization contest. Most strong players will not slip up if
| given a slight advantage and they will be able to convert this
| slight advantage into at least a draw. Strong players already
| have a good grasp on tactical motifs and can spot opportunities
| easily but that's where Chess theory comes into play. There's
| many openings and every opening has variations, which have
| optimal moves and then of course inaccurate moves and blunders.
| Just Sicilian theory is enough for someone to spend years of
| their life memorizing moves and building a repertoire.
|
| Ultimately, Chess doesn't get more fun the stronger you get and
| that's counter-intuitive because people want to get better. I
| played Chess for a few years both casually and professionally, I
| won some tropheys and have some medals to show for it. I beat
| titled players (2300+ rated) but I quit all of it to focus on
| software engineering because Chess got boring. For me, Chess got
| to a point where further improvement depended on memorizing
| opening theory, middlegame theory and endgame theory. Just
| memorize and nothing more. I refused to do that so I often
| drawn/lost games in situations where I played less than ideal
| moves and my opponent knew the theory to punish my very slight
| inaccuracy. What I liked in Chess was the calculation, so
| something like Fischer Chess (Chess960) was fun but did you know
| people actually made theory even for that? So games got more and
| more boring, in casual games I would purposefully play bad moves
| to throw my opponent off their theory and to get into unknown
| territory in terms of tactics. I'd do that just to try to make
| the game fun again, but obviously I was burned out and there was
| no coming back from it.
|
| In my country I am friends with a lot of Chess people. I saw a
| lot of things, like titled players throwing games for .. $10-$20.
| They spent about 20-30 years of their life to get good at Chess
| and now they have to throw games for money. Do I want to be that
| guy? How does it feel to study and play something for 30-40 years
| then just have to throw games for $20? Probably awful.
|
| Also, general health-wise, most Chess players I know are
| sedentary, playing Chess isn't really healthy as you are sat in a
| chair for hours on end. It's very competitive, which can lead to
| stress and stress just leads to burnout often.
|
| To end this post, I want to say that I luckily didn't keep on
| this path. In my opinion, life needs variety and so I have done
| much more and I am happier than the years I spent on Chess.
| Studied hard, got a job as a software engineer, went on many
| vacations, enjoyed food & drinks everywhere, had friends/love
| come and go, played many games, read books and watched movies and
| I just lived a more fulfilling life than my past Chess lifestyle
| because it's frankly, a stark contrast between the two.
|
| TLDR: Trying to logically explain my distaste for Chess in modern
| times.
| sph wrote:
| Sounds like you have terrible experience with being forced to
| explore one's talent for the game, but I dont think that deep
| of an history with it can provide an objective assessment of
| the game: any hobby taken to the extreme, maniacal and
| methodical level stops becoming a hobby, and turns into work.
| There is this widespread notion that the deeper you go, the
| more enjoyable it is and it is utter nonsense. Even in gaming,
| the concept of minmaxing, which is antithetical to _enjoying_ a
| game, is encouraged, but all it does is turn a fun pastime into
| spreadsheets and hard effort for asymptotic gain.
|
| On the other hard I had ignored the game for all my adulthood
| because I felt, _in my ignorance_ , that it was a game too hard
| to get into. I'm starting to like it as I learn, but I have no
| chance nor desire to break the 2000+ ELO threshold, to compete,
| to leave my mark.
|
| I am learning Chess so that if one day I find an elderly
| gentleman at the park with a board, I can sit for a game and a
| chat.
| ShoneRL wrote:
| While I absolutely understand your point, I also feel like
| it's sometimes beyond someone's control to get sucked into
| something. I started playing with friends on school breaks
| and soon I was joining a Chess club with them and soon I was
| googling ways to get better and soon I was skimping out on
| social interaction because I felt it was better to stay home
| and play online chess because starting up a game was far
| easier than having to go somewhere physically and wonder if
| it's gonna be a good time and all.
|
| Chess is a bit weird. I enjoy playing it. It's just a game
| but we place intellectual superiority on people who play it
| (well) but that's not true, a great Chess player wouldn't
| necessarily be a great engineer or an architect. There's some
| point of prestige to playing Chess, even in your wording, why
| is the elderly person playing Chess at a park a "gentleman"?
| It's because they play Chess and playing Chess is just classy
| in pop culture.
|
| Anyways, my original comment was just an introspective on
| what Chess really is about on a higher level in my
| experiences, generally I see Chess as bit of a flawed game,
| since the better you get, the less interesting the game is
| and it just transitions in an overcomplicated memory game.
|
| There's no glory to Chess. Good players were just kids that
| got shoved into this Chess lifestyle and kept at it. Adult
| players can get better but if you haven't played Chess as a
| kid, your talent is very limited and your progression speed
| is much worse, it's not impossible per say but it's also not
| likely.
|
| "I am learning Chess so that if one day I find an elderly
| gentleman at the park with a board, I can sit for a game and
| a chat."
|
| Since I quit actively playing, this is exactly my thought, it
| doesn't hurt to know how to play but any effort towards
| improving isn't really important, nor should it be any sort
| of priority. Take it slow, enjoy the ride but don't get too
| entangled.
|
| A wise man once said, "The ability to play chess is the sign
| of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of
| a wasted life." and that just resonated with me, deeply,
| because it is really true on every and so many levels.
| sph wrote:
| Even if I dont completely agree with your negative take, I
| appreciate the point your making.
|
| _" The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman.
| The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted
| life."_ applies to a lot of things. How worth is it for me
| to spend my evenings honing my programming skills, instead
| of traveling, seeing the world, falling in love?
|
| At the end of the day, there is no preordained path, nor
| St. Peter at the gate or other God deciding our worth by
| weighing our heart. Do what is fun for _you_ , no one
| cares, not even God. The person that played chess all their
| life, and the person that did something _better_ end up in
| the same place, forgotten, waiting to be swallowed by our
| red giant sun.
|
| But if your parents wanted you to become a chess
| Grandmaster, and you just want to play ball, fuck them, go
| live your life.
| erfgh wrote:
| If you spend the same time studying programming that you
| need to spend to become a good chess player then you will
| likely become a professional programmer which means you
| will make a decent living in most countries of the world.
|
| Also, you can build interesting systems that actually
| improve peoples' lives whereas in chess you just sit on
| your ass calculating and memorizing stuff that affect
| nobody at all outside the game.
| ShoneRL wrote:
| If you say it that way, nothing is worth talking about in
| life and nothing is worth doing because we all just die
| and end up wherever as is per the usual nihilism
| doctrine. The quote I cited, indeed, potentially applies
| to a lot of things but hey, we are talking Chess.
|
| I appreciate this community since I can voice out things
| that people might be contemplative about and my
| negativity filled post was really just no false
| positivity comment about the reality of Chess in a random
| world country which I experienced time and time again.
|
| The OP is "How to learn chess as an adult" and as I saw
| it, my first question in my mind was "Why should you
| learn chess as an adult?" and then I saw the lengths this
| person went to improve and while I don't want to be a
| toxic or negative bub about it, I also feel like I can
| contribute to this discussion by sharing my own opinion
| since I directly have a lot of experience with Chess.
| Now, I don't say that in an elitist way, I don't claim to
| be an expert but I feel like this blog post and similar
| posts are quite misleading and might trap uninformed
| people into thinking that Chess is something really worth
| learning as an adult or just increase the bias that Chess
| is some unique sport when it's just really a overrated
| game, kinda like Monopoly or any other game.
|
| I spent a lot of time on Chess and I am glad to have
| provided some information on what it was like for me,
| because I think that it's really valuable for someone to
| read this and take away whatever they can from my
| experiences. I don't claim I have it all figured out, but
| generally, I suggest to keep Chess in moderation and no,
| you don't need to get better at it because it doesn't
| really get more fun.
|
| Have a nice day! Thanks for reading.
| tutfbhuf wrote:
| I think what you're describing is the crux of the issue for
| chess players who don't want to commit full-time to chess
| but also have problems just playing a game here and there
| casually because it draws them in. In other words, they're
| too good to be casual but not good or dedicated enough to
| be full-time professionals. These people are usually chess
| experts with 2000+ ratings but below international master
| (IM) level. I, for one, played chess when I was a kid, but
| decided not to devote too much time to it (1800 elo),
| although it was a lot of fun, because I wanted to spend
| time with friends and I didn't want to spend too much time
| on chess. Over the years, I adopted the approach of trying
| to be in the top 10% in many different things, just for fun
| and interest, instead of being just in the top 0.1% in one
| thing.
| sjducb wrote:
| This argument generalises to all sport.
|
| If you want to become the best in the world at something then
| you have to give it 100%. It will be everything in your life.
|
| Most people who try to be the best don't make it. If you're
| nearly the best then your life sucks. You've spent all of your
| energy trying for something that's not going to give you any
| returns personally.
| ShoneRL wrote:
| I suppose it does to a certain extent but most of my
| experiences were with Chess, Football and Boxing. People say
| Chess is a sport but it's not really physically-exerting like
| some other sports or even healthy at all.
|
| In terms of other sports, I think football (soccer) is a
| sport you don't really have to be 100% at, since that sport
| is somehow globally recognized and profitable so even subpar
| players can live well off it and it also seems much healthier
| than Chess and then there's the whole team aspect of it.
| sjducb wrote:
| I think you have to be very good at football/boxing to make
| a living off it.
|
| A subpar 3rd division football player is a better athlete
| than anyone you have ever met in your day-to-day life.
|
| Chess supports maybe 30 full time competitors, whereas
| football supports a few thousand. However millions more
| people try to be footballers. Your odds of success are
| probably better with chess.
|
| All three of those sports destroy your body. With chess
| it's the hours sitting still and being stressed. With
| boxing and football it's the concussions, tough training
| regimes and accumulated injuries that never fully heal.
|
| Elite sport is bad for you.
| ShoneRL wrote:
| Local football team has people who are mostly mediocre
| and they make decent money, since I know one of the
| players. I don't mean to belittle their efforts or the
| time invested but generally, it is a competitive sport
| but it's also at same time providing more opportunities
| overall.
|
| I suppose it depends on where you are and how competitive
| it is.
|
| You do have a point about elite sport though the argument
| extends to casual as well, where casual football, tennis
| or even basketball is just healthier than sitting over a
| chess board. Pardon me, I might be a bit biased here
| since I am maybe too conscious about sedentary chair-
| lifestyle since I work from an office and spend a lot of
| time in a chair and lately been trying to get more
| active.
| erfgh wrote:
| Football is very different because you don't have to
| spend as much time. Professional players train for 1-3
| hours per day and that's it. The remaining time of the
| day they do nothing at all because there's no point to
| physically exert yourself more, you'll just get injured
| for no benefit. Also, you have to be 100% rested when
| game time comes which means that 2-3 days prior to the
| game you take it very easy during training, or even don't
| train at all.
| sjducb wrote:
| This is true. With physical sports you have a limit on
| the time you can spend training. That's different to
| chess and other e sports.
| pookha wrote:
| American football is literally a chess match. It's an
| orchestarted sport where scheme's are major components of
| the game. bill belichick (coach for New England) invented a
| type of coverage (pattern-match) that took professional
| football coordinators 20 years to understand but once they
| did it altered how the game is played and took away
| sections of the field. Once you understand what they're
| doing Football is an incredibly complex sport compared to
| Basketball, Hockey and Soccer (pure sports).
| AntoniusBlock wrote:
| Chess at the highest levels is drawish, but we're talking 2500+
| FIDE. The vast majority of players aren't near 2500.
| Memorisation isn't even a problem for most people because most
| people won't ever be playing at the professional level and even
| then the amount of memorisation required isn't as much as
| you're making it out to be. For example: a close friend of mine
| is an FM and I saw his opening files. He has around 500 lines
| on the Benko, around 600 lines on the English (1. c4) and 700
| lines on the Sicilian Najdorf (including anti-Sicilians).
| That's his entire repertoire, which he has been building up for
| 10 years. That isn't a crazy amount. As for 960 theory, please
| show me. I've heard of 960 principles, like developing bishops
| before knights because bishops, but not actual opening theory.
|
| >Middlegame theory
|
| What do you mean by this? There are strategical principles, but
| I don't think I've ever heard of middlegame theory.
|
| >Endgame theory
|
| Endgame theory isn't too difficult up to around 2000 FIDE if
| you know the basic principles (taking opposition, key squares,
| square rule, philidor position, other rook endgame basics,
| knowing which pieces you can mate with, etc) which can be
| learnt in an evening. You said you love calculation. Well, to
| me, even if you don't know endgame theory you can still be a
| good endgame player if you're a good calculator.
|
| Anyway, I agree with your other points about there being no
| money in chess and chess leading to an unhealthy lifestyle.
| ShoneRL wrote:
| I remember I saw some website which allowed you to select
| some 960 position and it would show like some commentary on
| how to proceed as either side and what should be prioritized
| and showcase past games with the same position, this was like
| a year or two ago.
|
| By middlegame theory, I meant that there is a lot of
| resources on Chessable that go into middlegame theory of an
| opening if both sides played early opening by the book, so
| even middlegame is quite covered in terms of variants and the
| otherwise general strategy ideas are actually incorporated as
| part of the theory and studied as such.
|
| As for endgames, I don't think the theory is too difficult
| but it's also been a situation where people are guided
| towards books like Dvoretsky's endgame manual and 100
| endgames you must know and stuff like that which again is
| just thrown at you and told to go study it because a lot of
| the people read these books.
|
| Now, generally, I agree, you can play Chess by intuition to a
| really good level but I've had games where my opponents just
| told me my moves were sound, made sense and in a way they
| were "good" but they fell to a part of their preparation
| theory that was like 8-9 moves deep and honestly, I really
| didn't like that and I absolutely didn't want to join this
| "rat race" because I think for me it would be a unhealthy
| life to aimlessly keep studying Chess just so I can be
| competitive against other people who do this same exact thing
| of studying.
|
| Anyways, hope I clarified things and thanks for chipping in!
| AntoniusBlock wrote:
| > I remember I saw some website which allowed you to select
| some 960 position and it would show like some commentary on
| how to proceed as either side and what should be
| prioritized and showcase past games with the same position,
| this was like a year or two ago.
|
| Computer generated? If so, I wouldn't be worried. Besides,
| imagine this scenario: you search for a 960 game on Lichess
| right now, you or your opponent have 25 seconds to move. In
| 25 seconds, you can't input a 960 position into another
| site and learn theory for that very specific position. If
| you take longer than 25 seconds to make a move, Lichess
| aborts the game automatically. It's not possible. 960 is a
| completely feasible variant if you want to avoid opening
| theory. Also, a big 960 tournament will be played next
| year^, so things are getting exciting in the 960 world.
|
| >By middlegame theory, I meant that there is a lot of
| resources on Chessable that go into middlegame theory of an
| opening if both sides played early opening by the book, so
| even middlegame is quite covered in terms of variants and
| the otherwise general strategy ideas are actually
| incorporated as part of the theory and studied as such.
|
| I have two things to say to this: 1. you should know the
| plans and ideas for the middlegames you get because these
| middlegames arise from your opening repertoire, which you
| should have already studied (pawn structures, best piece
| placement, common sacrifices, pawn breaks, etc). 2. as you
| say the theory is influenced by strategy (and tactics), so
| if you have a solid strategical foundation (and tactical),
| you will be fine as long as you're not playing an extremely
| sharp opening, in which you must know concrete theory. A
| book I found extremely helpful for strategy was: Mastering
| Chess Strategy by GM Hellsten.
|
| >As for endgames, I don't think the theory is too difficult
| but it's also been a situation where people are guided
| towards books like Dvoretsky's endgame manual and 100
| endgames you must know and stuff like that which again is
| just thrown at you and told to go study it because a lot of
| the people read these books.
|
| Those books are not for beginners, especially Dvoretsky's
| Endgame Manual. I agree with you. If I were to recommend an
| endgame book to a beginner, I would recommend Silman's
| Endgame Course by IM Silman. You're a strong player,
| though, so I think you could get a lot out of Dvoretsky's
| Endgame Manual (at least the grey/blue sections, which
| Dvoretsky's notes as being the most essential parts).
|
| >Now, generally, I agree, you can play Chess by intuition
| to a really good level but I've had games where my
| opponents just told me my moves were sound, made sense and
| in a way they were "good" but they fell to a part of their
| preparation theory that was like 8-9 moves deep
|
| What was your opening repertoire?
|
| ^ = https://en.chessbase.com/post/freestyle-super-
| tournament-in-...*
| TrackerFF wrote:
| As the classic quote goes:
|
| "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The
| ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."
| erfgh wrote:
| Most of what you say about the highest level is true for most
| other pursuits.
|
| My view is that chess without memorization is not a very
| interesting game. What remains is just calculation which is
| uninteresting to 99+% of people. Since you reached a high level
| in the game I believe you have excellent calculation skills and
| part of the reason for that is that you, as you say, find
| calculation interesting.
|
| I find calculation pointless and thus I'm very bad at it; even
| after 30 years of playing I hang pieces on half my games and I
| rarely, if ever, calculate more than one move deep. I believe
| most people are like me in this regard and therefore most
| people will remain at a sub-1500 rating forever.
| NickC25 wrote:
| >* What I liked in Chess was the calculation, so something like
| Fischer Chess (Chess960) was fun but did you know people
| actually made theory even for that?*
|
| I'm sure there's been theory developed for Fisher Random (960)
| but memorizing that seems like a bigger PITA than for standard
| chess, because there's literally 960 starting positions to
| memorize the theory for, as opposed to one. Plus, if you play
| 960 online, you will not have a choice as to your starting
| position, it will be completely random. "Oh, I memorized a
| bunch of theory for starting position 521 and 859, but now I'm
| faced with position 157, so shit I'm out of luck" said nobody
| ever.
|
| I do love 960, I play Crazyhouse960 the most as it's very
| fluid, requires little opening prep as it's randomized, and
| there's no endgame to solve for. It's just pure tactics and in-
| the-moment thinking.
| teleforce wrote:
| I know it's a cliche but these are the wise words from the old
| master, "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.
| mgaunard wrote:
| I like casual chess; as soon as it gets into blitz and studying
| openings and patterns I tend to lose interest, that sounds like
| work, not fun.
|
| It's like studying the meta instead of actually playing.
| kqr wrote:
| I have the exact same opinion, and this is what drove me to
| play go. I can't really explain it, but go feels more suitable
| to casual games.
| thomasfromcdnjs wrote:
| I love playing Scrabble (with people I know), still
| competitive, but try to play words you know and share the
| meanings after the game so it's fun and you learn.
|
| (Scrabble champions just memorize the spelling not the meaning)
| (They probably also know a lot of the meanings but my point
| still stands)
| prometheus76 wrote:
| Qat
| bnralt wrote:
| This is how I feel as well. I did a little studying, but it not
| only felt like a treadmill, I actually felt like I was using
| less of my critical thinking skills the more I studied. Stuff
| like memorizing openings, memorizing the best move a chess
| engine would give you for certain situations, stuff like
| grandmasters memorizing entire games - this all seemed to be
| pretty common. I didn't see the point in putting in work only
| to enjoy the game less.
|
| Of course, plenty of people enjoy a much more memorization
| heavy game. But it feels like ruining the fun part of the game
| to me.
| NickC25 wrote:
| I'm 1700-1800ish lichess (Crazyhouse and King of the Hill). I
| agree with this, but with one caveat. I memorize a few
| openings just because games can get crazy sharp pretty
| quickly, and there are a few patterns or move orders in the
| opening to memorize just so you aren't mated quickly.
|
| I don't memorize games several moves deep, just 3-4 maybe 5
| depending on the opening, which especially in Crazyhouse as
| there are only probably 3-4 good openins.
| _cje wrote:
| I feel the same way, and it's what drove me to backgammon
| instead. Lots of fun, far less things to memorize to be
| competitive, and the dice make it exciting (and infuriating!).
| tslocum wrote:
| Speaking of, if you are looking for a FOSS option for playing
| backgammon online, check out https://bgammon.org (my project,
| launched a few weeks ago)
| kirse wrote:
| Bobby Fischer thought the same thing as well
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess
| kzrdude wrote:
| I don't like losing, I want to always win. That's why I don't
| play.
|
| I've been thinking recently that I should play anyway so that I
| could grow out of this condition. Any tips for that?
| twixfel wrote:
| I am the same, I'm so terrible at chess that it's just not
| enjoyable for me, and I don't have time to learn it properly,
| so I just don't play even though I find the game interesting
| and a bit addictive.
| grzaks wrote:
| Yeah. You have to realize that in chess there are two players
| and one of them is going to lose. Sometimes it's you, sometimes
| it's your opponent. To progress in chess you need to win more
| games than you lose. 50.5% win rate is enough in the long term.
|
| My suggestion based on my own emotions with chess is that you
| should start playing quick games like 3+2 or something. The
| time and emotional "investment" in those games is low enough
| that you might not care when you lose. Just start another game
| and try again. Losing classical game that you were playing for
| 2 weeks is a different beast.
| JR1427 wrote:
| I was the same. I can't easily describe what changed, but now I
| don't play to win or lose, I just decided to play for the sake
| of playing.
|
| If you lose a game, just stop playing for a bit, and don't give
| in to the feeling of wanting to play another to prove you can
| win. This will only result in frustration.
|
| If you lose, make yourself think "That was a fun game. I
| learned X, and will try and do Y next time."
| stavros wrote:
| I'm the same, but I haven't managed to grow out of it. I just
| get frustrated and keep playing in anger until I win, which
| sucks for my social life.
|
| Oddly, the only sport where I'm chill about losing is tennis,
| where I think "nice, they played really well". Everywhere else,
| including chess, it's "how could you do this to me".
|
| The only time I managed to be chill in chess was after I'd
| taken MDMA, and then when I'd lose I'd think "they played
| better, they deserve it". It went away after a few days,
| though, never to be repeated (presumably without more MDMA).
| modernerd wrote:
| Losing hurts, but:
|
| 1. Instead of thinking, "sheesh, I suck" after losing, start
| thinking, "well played" (even if your opponent was in a losing
| position and beat you on time or with a sneaky pre-move; they
| still won). This simple reframing makes it less about the gaps
| in your abilities and more about having found an opponent who
| outplayed you that game. Finding better opponents is a good
| thing; you will learn more.
|
| 2. Actively make loss about growth: review games you lost. Find
| (a) the losing move and (b) the reason you made that move
| (harder, but important). Use that info to change your thought
| process to reduce future mistakes. This can be as simple as,
| "it's 2am and I've been playing blitz for 3 hours, I'm too
| tired to play my best, I'll stop playing after midnight". Or "I
| keep missing mate threats. I will say "checks, captures,
| threats" in my head after my opponent makes a move to train
| myself to systematically seek dangerous intent, until that
| process is so internalised that it's natural. I will also solve
| mate-in-one[1] or mate-in-two[2] puzzles on Lichess for 10
| minutes a day until they feel obvious."
|
| 3. If you lose three games in a row, stop playing for a while
| (a few minutes/hours/days, whatever you need). If losses hugely
| affect your mood, a long string of them can make you feel
| really low. Pre-emptively break that cycle and do something
| else for a while.
|
| [1] https://lichess.org/training/mateIn1
|
| [2] https://lichess.org/training/mateIn2
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Make the win the rating, not the individual game?
| smatija wrote:
| I prefer losing actually - I always find myself a bit
| dissapointed after achieving victory.
|
| From every loss I learned something (either that my tactics
| need work, that I need to improve my understanding of this or
| that structure, that I need to add a line to my repertoire),
| from victories not so much.
|
| Also I find that going for a beer with opponent when they win
| is usually much better experience than when they lose - people
| tend to be more open and talkative after win than after loss.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Wins feel unearned (the opponent just played so bad) or
| accidental (he played good but made this one mistake, it
| could have gone either way).
|
| In case of the loses you feel way more in control somehow
| (ooh, I definitely shouldn't have done that) or are just
| funny (I can't do anything, they are wiping the floor with
| me, it's comical) where you set up your own small goals to
| achieve because you have no hopes of actually competing (yes!
| I got him this one time so it's 12-1 not 12-0).
| wccrawford wrote:
| I've been the same way for as long as I can remember. It
| applies to single player games, too.
|
| I've found that there are _some_ games that losing isn 't
| completely off-putting. But I think the real issue is that the
| fun I get from most games is in winning, not in playing. If I
| was playing for not reason (not to win, no goals, etc) I
| wouldn't play it, and would do something else instead. Winning
| makes it feel enough better than I want to play.
|
| I've been trying to "overcome" this, too, and having the right
| mindset is start. "I'm here to enjoy the game, not the win.",
| etc.
|
| Good luck. :)
| scotty79 wrote:
| Take up any online multiplayer game and then lose a lot. Lose
| till it wears you down, so you'll stop caring, about loses ...
| and wins. It will feel terrible at the beginning and you'll
| want to come back to single player games that are built in a
| way that lets you win, but after some time (years) you'll no
| longer care and will enjoy the game itself not the result.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I don't like losing, I want to always win. That's why I don't
| play.
|
| Successful people fail often. Failures fail only once.
|
| If you want success, make failure part of your DNA.
| ilc wrote:
| Honestly: Play a game where you are supposed to win.
|
| There is a reason why single player video games are still
| popular. It is fun to win!
|
| I play ARPGs, where, I mow down hordes of enemies with a mere
| mouse click with fun graphics and sound.
|
| Is this cotton candy compared to playing PvP games. Absolutely.
| I've done serious PvP before. But, after a day of work...
| sometimes, it is just fun to save the world, or make it burn.
| lacker wrote:
| Just play quick unrated blitz games. Then when you lose it
| doesn't matter for anything. After a while, you will start to
| think "hmm, it's more fun when I get an opponent who's close to
| an even match with me". And then you'll just naturally want to
| play rated games. And if not, that's fine too.
| INTPenis wrote:
| My dad was a master chess player in my country when I was growing
| up so I know all the moves but I never had the interest to go
| further than that.
|
| So what I really need to study are the famous openings and the
| responses to various openings. Seems like a memory game.
|
| Computer games were always more fun.
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| This is why I've been avoiding chess. Anything that feels too
| memory intensive just doesn't seem fun to me. It's not creative
| strategy it's just rote memorization. Same goes for Rubik's
| cubes.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Yeah I'll play the shit out of a Civilization game. That's
| like "3D chess" in a way because every unit has their own
| moves, you're restricted by the hexagonal board, you have to
| know which unit to use in which context.
| stephen_g wrote:
| I've always felt the same way - perhaps it's because I get to
| work on interesting and hard problems at work so when I get
| home I'd rather veg out. I'd much rather swim for an hour
| than do something mentally taxing and memory intensive.
|
| If I did something more manual I think I would perhaps crave
| that kind of outlet so I can kind of see the appeal. At least
| playing good chess does involve some improvisation and
| creativity.
|
| Cubing on the other hand has not appealed to me at all since
| I learnt it was mostly just memorising some patterns and
| executing them. It just feels like a trick - it is impressive
| the speed some people can do it but I've never really been
| impressed by people being able to solve them.
|
| Perhaps those are unpopular opinions though!
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| I don't find chess memory intensive, I almost never directly
| commit opening variations to memory. I play around with them,
| often against myself, until I get a feel for what works,
| what's speculative and what's bad.
|
| Preparing for a tourney or a big game is different obv. but
| usually you just play enough that openings and their values
| become a part of you
| erfgh wrote:
| Just play chess960. It is a better game.
| smatija wrote:
| To be fair it only gets memory intensive at higher levels (lets
| say 1800 fide, 2100 online) - before you can get by playing any
| not directly lossing line you want, since your opponents won't
| know how to punish it optimally.
| Double_a_92 wrote:
| It's still a systematic "issue"... If it is virtually
| impossible to find a great or optimal move (even given enough
| time) without having to memorize tons of specific situations
| first that's kinda annoying. It's a similar thing with
| competitive programming. At first the problems are solvable
| by thinking, but at some point you just need to memorize (or
| even copy paste) a solution that someone else figured out
| first... Boring.
| smatija wrote:
| You can say this about any human endeavour - to learn
| language, you need to learn idioms. To write, you need
| tropes, to program you need patterns, etc. Every sport has
| its plays.
|
| I think learning games of past masters in chess is akin to
| learning culture when studying language. Standing on the
| shoulders of the giants and all that jazz.
|
| Especially since learning openings is not pure memorization
| of moves - its about learning ideas, stories, patterns. For
| example:
|
| Najdorf variation of sicilian begins with 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3
| d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 [0]. Idea behind 5. ...
| a6 is that black wants to play e5+d5 to gain full center,
| but 5. ... e5 right now losses due to 6. Bb5+. So black
| prevents it with 5. ... a6.
|
| Now white has a lot of choices - 6. Bg5 is very concrete,
| you need some memorization, 6. Bc4 is sharp but a bit more
| rational, 6. Be3 is very popular today, ... All of them
| have some benefits and drawbacks.
|
| I play 6. Be2, since it gives white some pressure, while
| having very classical idea-based play and black players
| often lack preparation for it. Black can now play 6. ... e6
| (transposing to Scheveningen sicilian) or 6. ... e5,
| staying in the Najdorf waters. Lets look at 6. ... e5.
| White plays 7. Nb3, 7. Nf3?! is worse since white will soon
| want to play f4 or f3 and knight would block that pawn.
|
| Now is the interesting part: the only good move in this
| position is 7. ... Be7 and it's hard to see why. A lot of
| my online games are already decided in next few moves.
|
| Point is, that 7. ... Nbd7 (with idea of developing light
| squared bishop on b7) interferes with black control of d5,
| so white can gain bind on d5 via playing a4 (preventing b5)
| and then either Bc4 or Nd2-Nc4-Ne3 takes full control of
| d5. This is crucial, since if black is unable to achieve d5
| pawn break he has nothing to play for in these structures,
| so game is totally in white hands.
|
| Secondly 7. ... Be6 fails very concretely to 8. f4 Qc7 9.
| g4 exf4 10. g5!, which was pioneered by Julio Kaplan, a
| former junior chess world champion and software chess
| pioneer. We get to a very open position where black king is
| stuck in the center, so white gets a very pleasant attack
| for free.
|
| I hope this gives you a bit of a counterpoint towards why
| learning theory is not only annoying.
|
| [0] - in algebraic notation, for those interested in
| learning it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)
| gjm11 wrote:
| In that last "very concrete" line, the 'fish seems to
| think 8 ... Qc7 is a mistake, and after e.g. 8 ... Be7
| instead it puts W at just +0.2, which is perfectly
| respectable but not obviously better for W than after 7
| ... Be7. If you try the same g4; fg g5 idea, then it
| thinks B is actually slightly better after either ...
| Nfd7, or even better ... f3; Bxf3 Nfd7. I'm a patzer so
| don't claim to know what the key differences are, but one
| is that in the variation Stockfish prefers the white pawn
| on g5 is hanging so he has to either spend a move playing
| something like h4 or else sacrifice it.
| smatija wrote:
| There is another finesse: the point of f4 is that White
| is threatening f5, attacking the bishop. Black then has a
| choice between retreating (which losses time) or Bxb3
| (which gives White bishop pair).
|
| The point of Qc7 is that black can answer f5 with Bc4 -
| offering trade of bishops instead, which is a bit
| disappointing for White. This is why this resource with
| g4 is important.
|
| So if Black plays Qc7 White needs to know about this g4
| temporary pawn sac. If Black plays exf4 then White
| recaptures with Bxf4, gaining a nice advantage in
| development. Finally if Black plays anything else (like
| Be7) White gains comfortable advantage with f5.
| AntoniusBlock wrote:
| Rather than studying specific moves and move orders, you can
| get away with studying plans and ideas if you're under 2000
| FIDE. I got to around 2200 online with minimal opening
| memorisation, but with a lot of time dedicated to solving
| tactical puzzles (2-3 hours every day for around 3 years).
| V-2 wrote:
| > So what I really need to study are the famous openings and
| the responses to various openings. Seems like a memory game.
|
| That's a bit like saying that mathematics or physics are
| "memory games", because if you take them seriously, you can't
| avoid learning tons of equations and formulas instead of being
| creative (and reinventing the wheel by going from scratch) :)
|
| While memorization is certainly a part of chess:
|
| * Opening theory doesn't matter all that much up until a very
| high level. Below the master level chess is about 90% tactics.
| You can pretty much rely on general principles in the opening,
| and your opponents won't know enough opening theory anyway (so
| what's the point of eg. memorizing the theory on Sveshnikov
| Sicilian up until move 15 if you won't ever use it, because
| your opponents will be out of the book and play something non-
| theoretical long before).
|
| * Even when opening theory does matter, memorizing it blindly
| is not enough, and it would be very difficult when done that
| way. It has to be based on deeper understanding of themes,
| underlying structures, typical plans for both sides in
| resulting types of positions, crucial squares to control etc.
|
| I remember this scene in "Suits" (courtesy of YT recommendation
| algorithm - never watched the entire series, so I don't know
| the broader context). A guy without a degree walks into a law
| office, and the boss says "sorry, we only hire from Harvard",
| but he demands that the boss opens some law book on a random
| page, and he can quote the book perfectly like a savant.
| Needless to say, he's hired on the spot : )
|
| This is what people may imagine the work of a lawyer revolves
| around, but it's not really accurate.
| grzaks wrote:
| My biggest frustration with chess online is the huge number of
| cheaters on platforms like chess.com and lichess. It really takes
| the whole fun away.
|
| I never really understood WHY people are cheating in online chess
| games. There is no fame, no money in it. This is puzzling for me.
|
| My frustration is that chess.com and lichess are extremely week
| at finding and banning cheaters. Sometimes is sooo obvious, when
| for example somebody blunders a piece in first few moves and from
| this moment starts playing just perfect moves.
| gwnywg wrote:
| chess.com puts some effort in detecting cheaters. When I was
| active user I was receiving messages stating that such and such
| game was lost to cheater and my rating is updated to reflect
| that.
|
| Cheater detection sounds like very interesting problem
| V-2 wrote:
| Cheating detection can only be achieved statistically (it's
| kind of like proving a random number generator isn't random).
|
| It makes it easy to achieve great accuracy in the long run,
| but hard to be accurate in the short run, because you don't
| want false alarms. So 99.9% of cheaters may get banned after
| a few games, but since they keep on coming up (it's not hard
| to simply register another account, after all), the
| frustration they're causing is always going to be there.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > I never really understood WHY people are cheating in online
| chess games.
|
| It seems that for some quite high proportion of the population
| someone else losing is necessary and sufficient for them to
| feel like they have won. Basically for those people winning
| just means "the other person lost".
|
| This goes way beyond chess and explains a lot about society.
| isyuricunha wrote:
| oh, nice!
| thisisauserid wrote:
| I learned about the Woodpecker Method from HN, bought it through
| the Forward Chess app so I could plough (plow?) through it on my
| phone.
|
| You won't feel like you're getting better with this method but
| you will start to sense opportunities consistently (and then
| recognize them specifically).
|
| Yes, you still need to then go learn a couple openings.
| aronhegedus wrote:
| >get started and keep going.
|
| My personal opinion is that this is the most important. There's
| so many things you can focus on, sometimes we forget that we need
| to just spend more time actively focusing on chess to get better.
|
| I think actively focusing makes a huge difference. Playing a 2+1
| while watching netflix is completely different than 5+3, fully
| committing.
|
| Lastly, I think if you find the part of chess you like most then
| lean into that! I love endgames, so I spend 75% of my time
| studying those. I might not be the best off for it (~1675
| Lichess), but I like it, so there :)
|
| My workplace has a chess league which is really cool and useful
| to keep wanting to practice.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Fun to see GM Axel Smith mentioned, I used to be his student as a
| teenager, when he was still an IM. Great teacher and just a
| wonderful person overall. I can vouch for his methods, even if I
| was a teenager when I practiced them.
|
| This is a great article on how to improve chess as a beginner,
| from the perspective of a former beginner. Basic recognition of
| patterns is the bedrock of tactical calculation. And focusing on
| problems that can be solved quickly is a good strategy for
| building it.
|
| I do want to champion the cause of harder problems though,
| because there is more to calculation than pattern recognition.
| And this will become more and more important above the very
| impressive 1500 the author managed to reach.
|
| Calculation is a conscious mental process that needs training in
| its own right. It involves the ability to visualise board states,
| remember where you are in the game tree, enumerate
| candidate/forcing moves and threats, heuristics like the method
| of elimination. None of these can be trained purely through these
| simpler problems, only through slowly taking your time applying
| all these techniques. This is why blitz rarely leads to an
| improvement in your base ability. The only way to build out your
| ability beyond what you can immediately recognise is to really
| struggle with positions you can't solve in 8 seconds, or even 8
| minutes. This happens naturally if you play longer time
| controls(and actually spend your time). It's also tremendously
| helpful to join your local chess club and work through some
| problems with a stronger player to guide you. That's also a lot
| more fun to most people.
|
| Learning chess doesn't have to be just a lot of rote exercise.
| You can also read books on positional chess, pawn structures,
| endgames, and openings. No, they don't decide games as much as
| tactical mistakes but they certainly influence games profoundly
| whether the players are aware of them or not. And a more
| "holistic" approach can be more motivating.
| kqr wrote:
| The way I've heard it described for go is that beginners
| improve fastest by focusing on problems that require them to
| calculate 1-3 plies out of their comfort zone. These build
| strongly on pattern recognition (those are the comfortable
| bits) but also include some game tree walking (at least in go,
| 1-3 plies make up a pretty heavy game tree for a beginner.)
|
| The idea is that calculation practise is great, but it also
| takes a lot of time. In the time it takes a beginner to solve
| one very deep calculation problem, they could have finished 40
| pattern recognition problems and that would probably be more
| beneficial. So calculation and pattern recognition has to be
| balanced, and a few plies out of the comfort zone strikes that
| balance.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| I think the most important thing about learning chess is to not
| play blitz or bullet games until you are already at a high-enough
| level (1500+).
|
| Learning comes with analysis and deduction, both of which are
| pretty much impossible in a sub 10 minutes game for a beginner.
| kdamica wrote:
| This is a less interactive site than those mentioned in the
| article, but i found www.chesstactics.org incredibly helpful when
| i was starting out.
|
| I eventually realized that i enjoy chess puzzles much more than
| playing actual games of chess due to the lower time commitment
| and lower stress. I do puzzles every day but almost never play a
| full game.
| thrwyexecbrain wrote:
| Despite absolutely loving chess as a child, I never studied it
| professionally, and I did not even play a single game after
| primary school. A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a chess
| video recommendation here on Hacker News. It was the 27th entry
| of ChessNetwork's Beginner to Chess Master series and it
| rekindled my love for the game. I have been playing chess
| casually ever since. I cannot recommend ChessNetwork's videos
| enough: I found them to be insightful, well-made, and very
| respectful of both the game and the audience.
| codetrotter wrote:
| I preferred the original title:
|
| > How To Learn Chess As An Adult (or, how I went from 300 to 1500
| ELO in 9 months)
|
| Because it showed that the person writing this "how to learn" was
| speaking from personal experience.
|
| There are too many articles online that say how to learn
| something, but the author may never have actually tried it
| themselves and are instead writing based on other sources. Or
| worse yet, now in 2023 they may have asked ChatGPT how to learn
| something and just copy-pasted what it said.
|
| Changing the title to just:
|
| > How to learn chess as an adult
|
| Is a mistake IMO, and makes it easier to skip past this article.
| ZiiS wrote:
| For anyone less then 1,000 it is trivial to gain 100 points. Most
| could do it by playing games but anyone wanting to learn just
| needs to read some advice, study an opening and practice. 1400 >
| 1500 is much more impressive then 300>1200.
| mellosouls wrote:
| (2021)
|
| Some previous discussions on similar articles fwiw:
|
| _Learning chess at 40 (2016)_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31433914
|
| (69 comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20154285
|
| (82 comments)
|
| On Learning Chess as an Adult - From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
| (2020,338 comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25108800
|
| How to get good at chess fast (2013, 65 comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10695748
| scotty79 wrote:
| When I first encountered chess as a kid I thought it was a game
| about thinking because that's how we played it. I was good at it.
| Then in high school I've met a kid that wiped the floor with me
| because he actually was taught how to play chess. I played with
| him few times until I won once just because he was lulled by a
| streak of wins. That was enough for me so I stopped bothering him
| with myself. Later in some other context I played checkers with
| him which I used played (and loose terribly) with my grandma as a
| few years old child. It turned out that I'm wiping the floor with
| him in checkers. He didn't even won once. Then I formed a
| overgeneralized opinion that games are not using any universal
| matter of thinking. Any thinking you do for the purposes of games
| is narrowly tailored to the game itself. Being good at one means
| you are still terrible at others. I generalized this opinion even
| more, into all domains of human activity. So now when highly
| educated geologist claims something about climate or zoologist
| claims something about vaccines I know that they are beginner
| level wrong.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Chessable Pro is $12 per month, or $75 per year:
| https://www.chessable.com/pro/
| johngossman wrote:
| Good article. A lot of the comments here give bad advice though,
| which isn't surprising because they show a lot of common
| misperceptions about chess. Jeremy Silman has written a couple of
| books about what is actually important. Quickly, what worked for
| me when I started playing on chess.com at age 40 after not
| playing for over twenty years. My rating at age 17 was 1450.
| Restarted at 1200, and barely progressed at first. If your rating
| is different you may need different things. Again, Silman is good
| on this. What worked:
|
| 1) eat. I would start playing in the morning, do okay, then lose
| a bunch. Finally, realized my blood sugar level was a major
| contributor to my elo 2) study tactics. Chess Tempo is great.
| Lots of good tactics books. Especially study spotting threats 3)
| Study basics of positions: best places to post rooks, bishops,
| control of center. But tactics more important. 4) don't spend
| much time on openings. Learn the basics of a few common ones.
| Games will quickly diverge from openings. Because GM games so
| often depend on openings, amateurs (like me) tend to overpivot on
| this. 5) After playing, load your game into a chess engine and
| analyze what went wrong (if you played perfect, analyze what your
| opponent did wrong). Until about 2000, whomever makes the fewest
| mistakes usually wins.
| xrd wrote:
| How do you load your games into a chess engine? Where do you
| play that allows you to export games? And then are you loading
| into another site or using a local application on your laptop
| as the "chess engine?"
| johngossman wrote:
| They all have ways of saving a PGN file. I have Fritz and now
| I usually use playchess.com which automatically stores your
| games and has an easy way to launch analysis.
| I_complete_me wrote:
| > How do you load your games into a chess engine?
|
| > Where do you play that allows you to export games?
|
| > And then are you loading into another site or using a local
| application on your laptop as the "chess engine?"
|
| I assume that you are a beginner and the following is quite
| simplified but I believe will assist you in getting started.
|
| Most sites allow you to save your games as PGN (Portable Game
| Notation). On lichess, for example, you can go into your
| profile page an click on the download button to Export Games.
| This will save your games in PGN format. You need to download
| install a chess engine onto your computer / device. On a
| laptop or desktop it is relatively simplest to first install
| chess software with a Graphical User Interface - google that
| term - I will mention just one - no affiliation - just that
| it's relatively simple. Arena is a free graphical user
| interface for chess that helps you analyze and play games,
| plus test chess engines. After you run Arena chess you can
| import the games you exported in PGN format.
|
| There are very strong open source / free chess engines (eg
| Stockfish) and other chess software with or without
| commercial chess engines. Just remember these three things:
|
| - The format that chess games are saved in is PGN with a .pgn
| extension
|
| - There is chess software that replays these PGN with no
| chess engine and that's fine to review a game digitally
|
| - There are umpteen chess-engines that will analyze your
| games / moves - some free, some commercial
| cjonas wrote:
| Interesting you put "eat" here as your first item.
|
| I don't care much about my rating (I play chess to escape
| stress; not create more of it), but over the last couple years
| since I started playing, my lichess rating (fluctuating between
| 1200-1400) appears to have a very strong correlation with my
| mental health.
|
| Of course it's obvious if you think about it, but it's very odd
| to have this accurate of an indicator with historical data.
|
| Of course this only really works if you don't actively study to
| try and get better :)
| johngossman wrote:
| As you say, you can't usually "measure" your mental
| performance. After having this experience, it also explained
| why I was a more productive programmer in the afternoon
| (after lunch) and I started eating a light breakfast. My mom
| wasn't so dumb after all!
| jakupovic wrote:
| I have learned the same, my mental health strongly
| correlates with my chess performance. I'm not really good,
| think 1400 the most, but sometimes I just cruise to my high
| score and then sometimes I cannot win a game to save me.
| 3abiton wrote:
| The question is, is it worth it getting into chess as an adult?
| What is the appeal? And what additional value does it bring
| compared to other "productive"/mentally stimulating hobbies?
| johngossman wrote:
| For me, chess requires a level of focus and time management
| unlike anything else (Go is the same, but I learned chess).
| There are no motor skills required, unlike most video games
| or a musical instrument. As an adult learning the first time,
| it is frustrating because it is so much harder than for a
| kid. But then so is music and foreign language.
|
| From another angle, there is a huge amount of research on
| chess as a model of cognition. Because chess rating is quite
| objective, you can measure things like speed of learning,
| increase in skill with age, followed by decline of skill with
| age, the effects of alcohol and other drugs, diet, sleep.
| And, of course, it is a completely classic and ongoing topic
| of ai research and decision theory. If you are interested in
| those topics, having some insight into the game is also
| useful.
| jakupovic wrote:
| One person's take. I use chess to relax after hours of taxing
| mental work, think programming, meetings or even any stress.
| While I learned as a child, I didn't really play, as there
| wasn't anyone to do so, now with chess.com, or any other
| online service it's super accessible.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| No. Unless you enjoy it.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| One fairly unique thing is that you can play _against other
| humans_ of equal strength with zero friction over the web.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Sounds like you don't like chess very much. Sounds like you
| think everybody should have the same brain as you and are
| frustrated why this isn't the case.
| jerbearito wrote:
| Sounds like they're asking questions and you're making
| assumptions.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Fair, but questions posed in this manner are often
| statements.
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| I think it is better to approach chess as a game (not as a
| mental exercise). If you enjoy it, play it. Otherwise, don't.
| crashbunny wrote:
| I've been playing on lichess for about 10-15 years, started
| playing when I was over 30. I probably average one 5+0 game a
| day. I don't play in tournaments. Usually one game for a break
| and then get back to work.
|
| My philosophy is skill level and rating doesn't affect enjoyment.
|
| Whether I'm rated 700 or 2700, once my rating stabilizes, I win
| as many games as I lose.
|
| I have the capacity to improve a little with a lot of work, but,
| eventually my rating will stabilize and once again I'll have
| equal wins to loses.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| What does it even mean to learn chess? I suppose any adult can
| learn the rule in a few hours and start to have fun from there.
| Then is there a specific rating after which you can claim that
| you have learned chess? or will you get more fun once you reach a
| given level? it seems to be a very elusive target.
| johngossman wrote:
| What does it mean to learn piano? A foreign language?
| Programming? Tennis?
|
| As you get better, you make fewer mistakes and it is (usually)
| less of a struggle to perform well. You're right in the sense
| that you're never (as a human) going to master it like you can
| tic-tac-toe or rubik's cube. But that sort of mastery isn't fun
| either.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I guess a proficient piano player wouldn't say "I'm learning
| piano", even though they're still trying to improve.
|
| In the case of chess, you can learn the game very quickly. So
| I'm wondering at what stage a chess player consider they can
| play, and that they're now trying to improve rather than just
| learn.
| cyrialize wrote:
| The way I got into chess was by doing a couple of lessons using
| the Chess.com app.
|
| Once I learned the basic opening principles, a basic opening for
| white (Italian) and black (Two Knights), and the phases of the
| game - the game opened up much more for me.
|
| Just knowing to do E4/E5, take center, mobilizing pieces, trying
| to move pieces once in the opening, etc. improved my game so
| much.
|
| I was making so many bad moves without knowing these and having a
| terrible time. Knowing all this didn't help me win at all, but it
| made my experience much better.
| e40 wrote:
| What got me was how much chess.com spammed me after signing up.
| I used a throwaway email address specific to them, so I know
| it's them. I unsubscribed but they continue to spam me.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| What exactly are they spamming? I haven't noticed anything.
| e40 wrote:
| https://postimg.cc/yWFXJp7W
|
| I unsubscribed immediately after getting the first. And I
| deleted some without marking them spam, so I got about
| double.
| lacker wrote:
| Yes, in particular you need to learn to develop your pieces. If
| you don't develop your pieces then you won't have cool tactics
| to do. Once you learn a basic opening that helps you feel
| comfortable developing your minor pieces out, castling, and
| putting your rooks in reasonable places, tactics will start to
| appear.
| weregiraffe wrote:
| Why to learn chess as an adult?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| What works with most mind sports:
|
| Play few long games where you think your moves carefully, then
| review your games. Understand the key moves that defined the
| outcome of the game.
|
| Review your games when you win, review your games when you lose.
|
| Watch professional games, do problems, etc.
| blastro wrote:
| I was introduced to chess in adulthood by a friend who taught
| chess in schools. His advice: play 2000 games without worrying
| about game play or outcome. Worked great for me.
| mratsim wrote:
| We have the same advice in go. But it's lose your first 50
| games as fast as possible.
|
| https://senseis.xmp.net/?LoseYourFirst50GamesAsQuicklyAsPoss...
| Misha_Bilous wrote:
| >Especially at lower levels, chess is a game of short term
| patterns, not long term strategy.
|
| That's actually wrong. Short-term patterns will improve your
| chess short-term but you'll hit the plateau pretty fast. They
| don't teach you to play better at chess. It's like copypasting
| some code from the Internet without fully understanding how it
| works.
|
| In chess, it's absolutely necessary to have a long-term plan:
| especially at lower levels, your ultimate goal should be
| attacking the king most of the time.
|
| Use the engine smartly. Because it will tell you what move is
| objectively the best. It won't tell you what move is best at your
| level. At different levels the best moves are different.
|
| It's important to train tactics but not with puzzles. Puzzles
| model situations that are out of context. It's like training your
| swimming movements without hitting the water. It may be not
| harmful, but not particularly useful. Instead, you should get
| "puzzles" in your live games within the context, seeing the
| bigger picture.
|
| Of course, you should play games. How can you expect to get
| better at playing chess without actually playing chess? Moreover,
| playing games and getting feedback on them should be the bulk of
| your training. Learning happens by trial and error.
|
| Without dissecting this article any further, there is a battle-
| tested approach on how to get better at chess at any level and
| age:
|
| - Be a kid. Don't overthink it. It's just a game after all. Feel
| it.
|
| - Play as many games as possible. You can quickly get enough
| volume with bullet and blitz.
|
| - Get feedback. You're able to give yourself decent feedback most
| of the time. Quickly analyze your games yourself or check them
| with someone, who can tell you what mistakes you have made at
| your level. Only afterward compare your thoughts to engine
| suggestions. Pay attention to the moves that drop the evaluation
| by more than (1, 2, 3, 4) points, depending on your level.
|
| Of course, these are not hard and fast rules. But this is a solid
| foundation for the success.
|
| P.S. My FIDE rating is 2423.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > That's actually wrong. Short-term patterns will improve your
| chess short-term but you'll hit the plateau pretty fast
|
| What you wrote, is exactly in-line with what the OT said:
| "Especially at lower levels, chess is a game of short term
| patterns, not long term strategy."
|
| You are beginner, you need some opening, some little patterns
| to move out from the beginner level, and then you reach a new
| plateau, but you understand the basic, you have your "first
| stripe white belt" game and from there you should search for
| sure a way to move to the next plateau.
| Misha_Bilous wrote:
| Not having a long-term plan and focusing on short-term
| patterns is fundamentally wrong. You won't only hit the
| plateau but will be stuck there unless you relearn chess the
| right bias-free way.
| gaws wrote:
| Fixed formatting of the last part:
|
| > _- Be a kid. Don 't overthink it. It's just a game after all.
| Feel it._
|
| > _- Play as many games as possible. You can quickly get enough
| volume with bullet and blitz._
|
| > _- Get feedback. You 're able to give yourself decent
| feedback most of the time. Quickly analyze your games yourself
| or check them with someone, who can tell you what mistakes you
| have made at your level. Only afterward compare your thoughts
| to engine suggestions. Pay attention to the moves that drop the
| evaluation by more than (1, 2, 3, 4) points, depending on your
| level._
| Misha_Bilous wrote:
| Thanks, fixed!
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| I had been playing regularly for the past 30 years or so. After I
| watched "The Queen's Gambit", my rating went up about 100-200
| points on Lichess. I was hovering in the 1800-1900 range, and
| shortly after watching it, I broke 2000 for the first time.
|
| While the series did inspire me to study a little more, I'm
| pretty sure the result was due to an influx of weaker players who
| also watched the series, rather than my playing ability. But I
| still jokingly tell people it made my rating go up.
| leesec wrote:
| I just started playing after watching ChessNetwork channel on
| youtube a few years ago. I played a little as a kid but was about
| 1000 at bullet when I started as an adult. I've grinded my way up
| to 2220~ with no study or training at all.
|
| My point is: just go play for fun, you don't have to study or
| become a master at some opening.
| SadWebDeveloper wrote:
| Learned chess while young... elo around 1200~1500, pickup the
| game at 2023 because everyone has been talking about chess, maybe
| related to the netflix series but since i don't have netflix
| account and couldn't care to watch about a young-love drama
| series with chess around it, it wasn't the main motive.
|
| Anyway opened a chesscom account, i got completly destroyed by
| online people, elo 100 according to chesscom, move to bots could
| beat 1200 up to 1500 elo eaisly... decided to give a try to
| online matches again destroyed but then started to find the
| pattern...
|
| chesscom free account give me "three fair matches" that i could
| win to engage me in the platform, then it pairs me with either
| bots, 3-second chess engine cheaters or chess streamers playing
| with smurfs accounts, these pattern repeat almost every time
| sometimes is three, other times is four even five, if i play
| three games on 1 day the next day i would have another "three
| fair matches" and so on... so whats my point?
|
| Unless you are paying good money for the subcription you are
| pretty much "meat canon" for others, the same applies to
| lichess... if you play 3 games a day for at least 2 years months
| you could get the 1200 elo, if you pay-to-win or pay the premium
| you would likely reach that 1000 elo more eaisly because is
| convenient for them to no match you against known cheaters on the
| platform...
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Was that your FIDE Elo or are you just guessing? It sounds like
| you just need to practice. You're going to need to provide much
| more evidence if you think the two biggest chess platforms in
| existence are impossible and cheating you.
|
| Yes there are some bots, yes some people cheat, but what you're
| implying is just plainly false.
| SadWebDeveloper wrote:
| Thats what my chess teacher used to put me in their local
| chess club tournaments, in order to get a FIDE Elo, i would
| have need to go (on that time 1995~1999) to official
| tournaments and that was expensive for a rural area...
|
| M not saying m on the level of masters but definitely not a
| newbie... either way i don't need proof just go to chesscom,
| open a new free account and start grinding... you are gonna
| see fast the pattern on how the platform gets you engaged but
| you need to look careful, it entices you with free wins
| before going hard on you, having three to five games a day
| was the eureka moment to get good ratings... either go slow
| or pay premium to get an edge on the game and preferred match
| making.
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