Ask HN: Do you play Chess? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#11

Post by valarauca1 » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

Yes and No.

Chess is a lot of memorization once you understand the game. End Game/Open Game have to both be played prefectly at high end, or your opponenet will literally know how to defeat you.

I find Go translates more to programming since it forces you think about more abstract concepts like influence, when to/to not act. There aren't as many hard and fast rules in the meta-game like chess which allow more creativity and self expression.

---

The idea a programmer has to play Chess/Go is lot like the idea a programmer has to study advanced math. Really you are just learning logical problem solving, and rational ways of analyzing the state of a system.

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#12

Post by dsr_ » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

Directly? No.

Indirectly? Yes. Learning to think through the steps of an operation in terms of available and unavailable options is probably highly correlated to thinking about code flow. The major difference between a competent programmer and a non-programmer is that the programmer is used to specifying what is going on in a restrictive, typo-sensitive written language.

Would I advocate learning chess as a specific method to learn programming skills? No, not particularly.

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#13

Post by Yenrabbit » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

I occasionally play, and I'd like to play more. I don't think it specifically helps programming, but it does get me to concentrate on one thing only for an extended period of time (or lose!). Plus, you never know when you'll need to beat someone at chess to prove that you're the alpha nerd :P

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#14

Post by internic555d » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

The most interesting I've gotten out of chess is to learn that analysis creates its own vocabulary: flight square, pivot square, backward pawn, dark-squared weaknesses, etc.

I think the best programmers get more enjoyment from programming than playing chess.

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#15

Post by javanix » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:05 PM UTC

I'd consider myself a good programmer but an absolutely terrible chess player, so no, I don't think they really have much bearing.

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#16

Post by Kenji » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

Only when I implement the n-queens problem in Haskell ;)

That being said, I would probably be around 1000 elo (that is, absolutely terrible) but I am a halfway decent programmer so I think there's barely any correlation, if any at all.

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#17

Post by platz » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

No.

https://medium.com/message/why-chess-will-destroy-your-mind-...

Nice piece about "chess sickness" and Duchamp (and he created less art and became more consumed with Chess) that echoes this post: http://thepointmag.com/2014/examined-life/exiles-game “Much of an exile’s life is taken up with compensating for disorienting loss by creating a new world to rule,” wrote Edward Said. “It is not surprising that so many exiles seem to be novelists [and] chess players.”

Additionally, I don't see the connection to programming.

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#18

Post by kohanz » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

Translatable skills? No.

Improved brain function? Yes, I believe so.

It has been shown in various studies that learning and excelling at chess changes the way that your brain is wired in a way that improves your analytical thinking and problem solving abilities [0].

Kids who learn chess at an early age, do better at math, for example. Personally, I played competitive chess at a young age (achieved Master level at age 17, which is good but not spectacular, before quitting to focus on engineering studies) and I do believe that my above-average analytical thinking skills to this day can partially be credited to the changes in my brain from those years in my youth spent studying and playing chess for hours.

[0] http://mic.com/articles/119332/how-chess-players-brains-are-...

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#19

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Do you play Chess?

#20

Post by stephengillie » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

I stopped playing chess years ago. It's an interesting game but newer games are more interesting. It's essentially an ancient form of the "Tactics" game type.

Other games, like Robo Rally, translate to computer programming much more directly. Create a set of instructions to do what you want, sure. Then watch as chaos from others causes those instructions to do something totally unexpected. Then you have to figure out how to recover from it.

Or the Collectible Card Game model created by Magic: The Gathering. Each player takes turns having their instructions loaded and processed. And each player puts instructions on the stack, which are processed in order and can be interrupted.