Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

jacobbrazeal.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 342 posts

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

#141

Post by dreamer7 »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #128
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.

I've found Blitz to be an effective way to unwind. It's sort of like playing GTA Vice City or Counter Strike and unleashing some mayhem on the board. There's not much time to think too long and get exhausted but enough time to feel deserving of the victory or defeat

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

#142

Post by XCSme »

sandworm101 wrote: post #138

Online chess is currently facing a wave of cheating. Kids, stuck at home by covid, are playing chess at grandmaster levels. They are using software to suggest moves. Detecting it has become an interesting big data/machine learning problem. So i wouldn't get to obsessed with soecific rank-based rating schemes. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-e... https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/16…

I don't think this a real issue in online chess, cheaters get banned pretty fast, very easy to detect. There are cheaters as in any other game, but from my experience there are percentual a lot fewer cheaters in chess than in Counter Strike for example.

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

#143

Post by Sherwoodcs »

fakedang wrote: post #80
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree and also feel like I've learned valuable lessons from SC2. It sucks to give a game up though :/.

I play Starcraft for the story only, and I loved it. Still play the campaign from time to time. I feel like a savage amongst civilized men on this thread.

Please don't feel like "a savage among civilized men". Video games are made to have fun with.

I experienced both sides. First trying to become a professional CS:GO player, and after just having fun playing the Starcraft 2 story.

Some of my friends still deeply enjoy the competitive aspect. Sometimes I just want to see big stonking robots blow up aliens :)

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

#144

Post by matsemann »

emerongi wrote: post #136
Trufa wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is your puzzle rating? As a novice player (1300 rating), the puzzles are plenty hard for me personally.

For me (1700) the problem is that they often aren't real tactics. One can get a puzzle where there's really no obvious tactical move, only strategic ones. It's mostly okay, but there's a big difference between puzzles extracted by an algorithm from games, and from hand-picket/crafted tactic puzzles.

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

#145

Post by PartiallyTyped »

westwing wrote: post #140

Here's a theory on why nerds get bullied: Bullies instinctively realize that there's an unusually smart person in their tribe who is wasting their gift on fruitless endeavors, thus reducing the survival chances of the tribe. Of course, our modern society can afford to have smart people play chess. However, there is no evidence that chess skill transfers to other areas. Therefore, until proven otherwise, developing ch…

You are giving them too much credit. Humans only observe really local information and are, in most cases, unable to grasp the actual dynamics of the society, let alone 'what is beneficial' for it.

Chess can be used as a means of showing that any skill can be learned [1].

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grand...

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

#146

Post by matsemann »

sandworm101 wrote: post #138

Online chess is currently facing a wave of cheating. Kids, stuck at home by covid, are playing chess at grandmaster levels. They are using software to suggest moves. Detecting it has become an interesting big data/machine learning problem. So i wouldn't get to obsessed with soecific rank-based rating schemes. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-e... https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/16…

Maybe in tournaments, and in lower rated categories someone will use an engine once in a while to eek out a win. But it's not a rampant problem at all when it comes to casual online chess.

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

#147

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by matsemann »

matsemann wrote: post #60
rlayton2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of new players that join up, drop their ELO points into the "bag" and then leave (or if online, sign up new accounts). ELO "points" aren't a finite resource.

That would quickly lead to hyperinflation of ratings. The rating lost by a new player is not won by an old player. If you join and is assigned a rating of 1900, but loose your 5 first games, you probably loose a 100 rating points each game. However, the player beating you at 1000 rating doesn't get 100 points, just a few points.

The first "1900" was meant to be "1000" as well. Cannot longer edit.

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

#149

Post by sandworm101 »

XCSme wrote: post #142
sandworm101 wrote: post #138

Online chess is currently facing a wave of cheating. Kids, stuck at home by covid, are playing chess at grandmaster levels. They are using software to suggest moves. Detecting it has become an interesting big data/machine learning problem. So i wouldn't get to obsessed with soecific rank-based rating schemes. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-e... https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/16…

I don't think this a real issue in online chess, cheaters get banned pretty fast, very easy to detect. There are cheaters as in any other game, but from my experience there are percentual a lot fewer cheaters in chess than in Counter Strike for example.

>> Such controversies have been replicated even in the lower-stakes world of junior play. Sarah Longson, a former British ladies’ champion who runs the Delancey UK Schools’ Chess Challenge, said at least 100 of 2,000 online participants cheated.

I would say 5% is pretty bad. Assuming there is an advantage to cheating, the higher up the ranks you get the greater the likelihood that you will face an undetected cheat.

Post reply on HN