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Learning Chess at 40

nautil.us

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Re: Learning Chess at 40

#31

Post by thruflo22 »

dragontamer wrote: post #21

Children are definitely quicker, and in my experience with Chess... tactics are king. And tactics favor the quicker minds. Strategic chess can be taught with words, and adults will naturally lean towards the strategic parts. We respect our predecessors, we seek knowledge that has already been discovered. Alas, heuristics and such aren't worth very much to a Chess beginner, who will regularly make "simple blunders" (l…

In my experience this is very true. I was a better chess player aged 11 than I am now.

Think like a Grandmaster is a great book that illustrates how tactical chess analysis is -- all about iteration and composition of simple value judgements.

However, I have found books about chess strategy to be a very useful way to practise tactical thinking. For example, following the thematic sections in Think like a Grandmaster, or something like Bobby Fischer's analysis of his most memorable games (which both cover strategic concepts like two bishops or a strong centre) requires tactical analysis -- you're visualising moves and combinations in your head and making value judgements about positions just to follow along.

So strategy is a great way for an older player to keep tactical practice interesting!

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#32

Post by [deleted] »

vijayr wrote: post #17
keiferski wrote: post #11

Probably the most interesting example of someone pursuing chess later in life is that of Marcel Duchamp, the famous Cubist artist. He grew up playing chess for fun, but at age 36 he basically stopped making art and started pursuing chess full-time. "I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art—and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position." "The chess pi…

During this period his fascination with chess so distressed his first wife that she glued his pieces to the board.

[deleted]

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#33

Post by platz »

yolesaber wrote: post #30
keiferski wrote: post #11

Probably the most interesting example of someone pursuing chess later in life is that of Marcel Duchamp, the famous Cubist artist. He grew up playing chess for fun, but at age 36 he basically stopped making art and started pursuing chess full-time. "I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art—and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position." "The chess pi…

It's fascinating that people say Duchamp stopped being a practicing artist when he turned his obsessions to chess. I would say he just changed his medium. He wasn't one for retinal works anyway.

This mag (mentioning Duchamp) called it "chess sickness":

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.”

["Chess-Playing Excitement” in 1859 - comments] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9786486

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#34

Post by danielvf »

wslh wrote: post #28
danielvf wrote: post #2

I'm learning the game of Go at near fourty. But I'm not having any of the problems he describes. A great thing about learning and playing online is that you can find an opponent at your same skill level within minutes. Unlike learning in a local club, where every person you will ever play beats you every time, I win slightly more than half my games. I also get this nice increasing graph of my skill level. This is a l…

I tried to learn Go, obviously beyond understanding the rules, and found it very difficult comparing to Chess. I wonder how you dealt with the huge exploration space of just putting one stone in the beginning of the game. In Chess, every movement is very constrained.

The first move is actually pretty constrained - there's only four normal choices, of which only two are usual. You are trying to grab a corner, and trading off between a certainty of controlling a corner (4-3), or more influence on the rest of the board (4-4 on the corner dot).

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#35

Post by ryandrake »

I see the learning curve of chess to be similar to that of poker: Learning the basic moves is as easy as learning what hand beats what. You can memorize each in an afternoon. Then, you learn a few basic tactics and work on your ability to enumerate your opponents next possible moves. Similar to the basics in poker like betting strategies, calculating odds, etc. At this stage, you're still not going to go out and start winning. Finally, there's this huge learning cliff for both where, in order to even start winning even a little, you need to invest an enormous amount of time, read a lot of literature, and practice, practice, practice.

I'd like to get into chess, but the time commitment needed to get even moderately competent is daunting.

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#36

Post by jnbiche »

EliRivers wrote: post #7
pitchka wrote: post #3

The research on young and successful isn't really showing any causation. Maybe being young and concentrating on a single thing makes you more obsessed about it? So you end up spending a lot of time on just it. Maybe the older you get the less obsessed you can be, having the interest spread around on family, work, and other thoughts? Maybe accumulated knowledge makes you slower at learning and playing because you're m…

"As I've got older I felt I learned stuff much more quickly than when I started college." Drifting into a personal monologue, I know I am a lot better at learning now than I was 15 years ago. Learning advanced mathematics now is much easier than it was then (measured in the rather subjective unit of "amount learned / time taken"). Languages also are much easier. The only difference is the amount of time I put in now…

At around 40, I'm now learning things like math quicker, but then I forget them a year later, whereas the things I learned in college I still remember now.

Is this normal, I wonder?

You might say, well, if you're forgetting them a year later then you didn't really learn them, but I disagree. I feel more complete mastery of a subject matter more now than I did in my teens. No, I forget things I learn much more quickly now, and the only way to not forget them is to practice them at least each week, and that rapidly becomes a time sink.

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#37

Post by chongli »

ryandrake wrote: post #35

I see the learning curve of chess to be similar to that of poker: Learning the basic moves is as easy as learning what hand beats what. You can memorize each in an afternoon. Then, you learn a few basic tactics and work on your ability to enumerate your opponents next possible moves. Similar to the basics in poker like betting strategies, calculating odds, etc. At this stage, you're still not going to go out and star…

I wouldn't say that's the case. If you play online as a complete beginner your rating will drop like a stone at first and then you'll be matched against other people of your level. At that point, the system will take care of you, generally keeping you at a 50% win rate as you progress along.

There's only a huge cliff if you expect to be able to win against 1500 rated players as a complete beginner, a totally unreasonable expectation.

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#38

Post by braythwayt »

spdegabrielle wrote: post #25
lordnacho wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish physical sports were like this. Anything online is blessed with this mechanic where you can keep it challenging for everyone other than the people at the top or bottom (based on my experience in CoD where I'm pretty sure I'm bottom). With sports like soccer it's quite noticeable that some people are way better than everyone else, or way worse. And there's no way to improve since you can't just rearrange thousa…

I started playing soccer at 40 - the best way to learn is to play with and against people who are much better than you. BUT is is a dangerous game - you can get hurt playing against 20year olds!

For a modest value of “much.”

My experience is that you need to play against people who will challenge you, but within an appropriate level of attainment. I am a keeper, so I will speak of keeper skills.

One important skill to learn early is to get off the line and cut off the angles. If you stay on the line when you are just learning, the net is too big and you have no chance to make saves.

Thus, you never learn to make saves because you have no real feedback on what you do. You always lose.

Now if you come out a bit, you start making some saves, and you get better at it. This would lead you to a place where you make nearly all the saves, and you would stop learning, unless your opponents are good enough to use passing and make you keep track of multiple strikers at once.

But if they are so good (or your defenders are so bad) that they are always swarming the net in threes and fours, you would get stick on the line and never learn anything.

So, the best way to learn is for your opponents to be better than you, but not so much better that they discourage good play on your part. And as you get better, they must get better as well, so that you must continue to get better.

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#39

Post by chongli »

ktRolster wrote: post #22
chongli wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all GMs decline immediately after 35. Anand is 46 and still right at the top. His peak rating came at age 41 and he held on to his world champion title until age 43 (when he lost to Carlsen).

Viktor Korchnoi gave his expert opinion that most chess grandmasters hit their peak around age 40, maybe a little after. He also tried to analyze what gave various people the drive to work hard enough to become a grandmaster. Also, Anand would arguably be world champion right now if he had the stamina. His knowledge of the game is probably the deepest of anyone, but he runs out of energy as th game progresses.

That's a fascinating insight about Anand. I wonder if he'd improve by hiring a personal trainer to increase his physical fitness?

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#40

Post by mjklin »

My favorite quote on chess:

Why shall I not judge Alexander at table, talking and drinking to excess, or when he is fingering the chess-men? What chord of his mind is not touched and kept employed by this silly and puerile game? I hate it and avoid it because it is not play enough, and because it is too serious as an amusement, being ashamed to give it the attention which would suffice for some good thing. He was never more busy in directing his glorious expedition to the Indies; nor is this other man in unravelling a passage on which depends the salvation of the human race. See how our mind swells and magnifies this ridiculous amusement; how it strains all its nerves over it! How fully does this game enable every one to know and form a right opinion of himself! In no other situation do I see and test myself more thoroughly than in this. What passion is not stirred up by this game: anger [the clock-banger!] spite [the spite check!], impatience [the hasty move!], and a vehement ambition to win in a thing in which an ambition to be beaten would be more excusable! For a rare pre-eminence, above the common, in a frivolous matter, is unbefitting a man of honour. What I say in this example may be said in all others. Every particle, every occupation of a man betrays him and shows him up as well as any other.

- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Chapter 50, tr. Trechmann, p. 295

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