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On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

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Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#121

Post by hahaiscjaaka »

blub wrote: post #115

I would recommend chess for kids/teens, because it's an interesting way to teach certain self-control and tactical/strategy concepts which can be applied in real life. As an adult, chess is a time sink with very little upside if you want to be at least decent, especially at longer time controls. I've been playing chess for more than a couple of decades, but recently decided to stop partly because of the pandemic, but…

Nah chess is fun. Let people play if they want. It’s a great way to pass time in a forest cabin :)

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#122

Post by matsemann »

Fumtumi wrote: post #95
matsemann wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The normal person is running behind or trying to 'just' learn the fast pre found and pre tested moves from a handfull of people who actually played/thought those moves through. Quite the opposite, amateur players play a few moves from a standard opening, and then deviate hugely from the book variations and go into uncharted territory really fast. And while pro's certainly spend an insane amount of time memorizing o…

Are they able to reproduce it and rememeber those experiences?

Here's a video of Magnus Carlsen being shown various board positions from another player, and then recalling which games they are from and the moves taken. [0]

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acVvkz4MsKc

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#123

Post by noir_lord »

thom wrote: post #83

It feels like a golden age to be learning chess right now. There's just infinite good content on YouTube (St Louis Chess Club, Atlanta Chess Club, Chess24 etc) and various apps (lichess, Chessable, Chess Tempo etc). Plus you can get a decent sized database (e.g. http://caissabase.co.uk/ ) and cutting edge engine for your own study for absolutely free. Really hoping when the pandemic is over this leads to a boost for…

Hey, That's my project (caissabase).

Small world, thanks for mentioning it :).

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#124

Post by hannofcart »

blub wrote: post #115

I would recommend chess for kids/teens, because it's an interesting way to teach certain self-control and tactical/strategy concepts which can be applied in real life. As an adult, chess is a time sink with very little upside if you want to be at least decent, especially at longer time controls. I've been playing chess for more than a couple of decades, but recently decided to stop partly because of the pandemic, but…

I advocate the same (teaching kids) Poker for the same reasons you mentioned (certain self-control and tactical/strategy concepts) but this is often greeted with controversy anytime I voice it.

Learning to weigh the odds, exercising patience, taking calculated risks in the face of incomplete information, making allowance for the vagaries/emotions of your opponent all seem like great skills that would help one in life.

However, people often voice indignation at teaching kids the "vice" of gambling.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#125

Post by prune2000 »

Trufa wrote: post #93
prune2000 wrote: post #10

You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by other players on opening theories, free analysis of your games, and all these statistics about your progress and more! Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Good luck!

I’m a huge fan of lichess for playing and analysis but I think for tactics, it’s the one place it’s lacking, it’s always too easy for me for some reason and I go to chesstempo instead. Does anyone else experience this? By the way, when I say easy it’s for me that I’m an average player.

I love chesstempo too and use it a lot also!

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#126

Post by noir_lord »

hackerNoose wrote: post #103
sedivy94 wrote: post #31

Highly, highly recommend "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix. Like wow.

It's not very realistic when it comes to the chess, except the actual games. I also found it frustrating that they obviously were inspired by Bobby Fischer whose real life would have made a great story, but decided he wasn't hollywood friendly.

There are parallels to Fischer but if you want that movie "Pawn Sacrifice" is a decent movie.

As for realism when it comes to chess, as a (former - covid bleh) competitive league player they absolutely nailed the "feel" of the Chess world for me, better than anything else I've seen - yes they compressed the games and showed players moving far too quickly but that was a necessary compromise - hard to show a 7 hour game in real time as a TV show.

The camaraderie and eccentricities of the Chess world where displayed really well.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#127

Post by johnnycerberus »

windowshopping wrote: post #28

I did something very similar with an old strategy game called Age of empires II. Over the course of two years I went from a 1300 rating to 1850. I don't play chess, so it's hard for me to compare the scales, but I will say the highest players were rated around 2600. I think being 1850 put me around 90-95th percentile for active players-- there were less than 50 players over 2300, and only a few hundred over 2000. My…

As a chess player I could never get into RTS games though my friends were playing them alot, especially Warcraft 3, but even then they switched to mods like Dota). Instead, I'm pretty good at turn-based games like Civilization V and VI. It feels very cumbersome to control all these units in real time. I could never get used to it and I played many games in that RTS genre: Rise of Nations, C&C: Generals, AOE 2 and 3.

Nowadays, I'm not a PC gamer anymore, I have Chess.com, Hearthstone and Civilization on my iPad, it is amazing how a tablet can be a very good medium for turn-based gaming.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#128

Post by hahamrfunnyguy »

blub wrote: post #115

I would recommend chess for kids/teens, because it's an interesting way to teach certain self-control and tactical/strategy concepts which can be applied in real life. As an adult, chess is a time sink with very little upside if you want to be at least decent, especially at longer time controls. I've been playing chess for more than a couple of decades, but recently decided to stop partly because of the pandemic, but…

I feel exactly the same way, chess and other complex strategy games are more work than they are fun for me. As someone spends a portion of the day thinking and solving problems as part of my job, I prefer to unwind with other hobbies.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#129

Post by watwut »

Trufa wrote: post #93
prune2000 wrote: post #10

You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by other players on opening theories, free analysis of your games, and all these statistics about your progress and more! Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Good luck!

I’m a huge fan of lichess for playing and analysis but I think for tactics, it’s the one place it’s lacking, it’s always too easy for me for some reason and I go to chesstempo instead. Does anyone else experience this? By the way, when I say easy it’s for me that I’m an average player.

For me it tend to be more of difficult, but doable. I am beginner.

Mostly it was not helping to improve at my level at all, they were sort of pointless exercises in my level. What helped were chess king exercises apps where you solve simple situations that are not even puzzles.

But they are common in game and made you start noticing opportunities and own mistakes in game. E.g. at super beginner level, you improve a lot.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#130

Post by lizardmancan »

Guthur wrote: post #116
nurettin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that is interesting. I used to be 2000+ rated for AOE1 on zone.com and 1400+ chess on Yahoo! games back in late 90s, and to me it is a point of contention that I often bring up because chess is not motivated by capital greed whereas microsoft and their game studios are. And the dissimilarity between two games is pretty obvious to anyone who plays above 700 ranks.

Sorry, what? What does MS market position have to do with the design of the game, it's not like it has any sort of monetization within the game mechanics at all. You are conflating so much BS that it shows a profound lack of understand of both game mechanics and dare i say market economics. It appears that you've rapped yourself up in some anti market bubble of cognitive disonance and can not longer think straight, I…

for example apm is such an inportant ingredient in many commercial games that any designer has to seriously consider including it. This is why for example starcraft 2 lacks mind blowing strategies, it has some but the value is much smaller than that of speed. it is only a strategy game amoung players of equal speed.
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