This is a lot of time to devote to chess "as an adult". I've got children, who take up a lot of my time. I would love to learn how to play chess, but for "fun" not as some kind of competition. Is it worth while to learn chess for this reason, or is it only rewarding if you are beating somebody?
On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
261–270 of 342 posts
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's funny because I found the opposite to be true if it's a single bishop / knight endgame. No matter what you found, it has been statistically proved that a Bishop (against a Knight), and especially a Bishop pair is stronger than a Knight/Knight or Knight/Bishop .
Wow, I didn't know that! Thanks so much. Bishop pair is clear, of course, but I literally would look for a single knight/bishop ending (where I would have the knight), thinking it gave me the advantage. Maybe it was a placebo effect. Ha! Thanks again!
You can see here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value
Also Kaspy confirming here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3uvvA7dyoI (:30 in the video)
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#263You 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 have found that lichess has a more intuitive interface but the lessons and puzzles on chess.com are far superior. The explanations are clearer in the lessons, and I think the puzzles are less confusing on chess.com.
To each their own, though.
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#264You 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!
Lichess is a god-tier piece of software. Nearly every time I use it I'm surprised by some new, incredibly well-implemented feature. For example, I recently discovered that if you hover over someone's username, and they're playing a public match, a little box (an iFrame? I haven't inspected yet) appears next to your pointer with their game, updating in realtime.
I really need to take a look at the source code, I'm sure I would learn a lot.
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the nature of competition and it's the same with physical sports. Lots of effort to gain minor benefits over the others. Browser games tend to respect your time more by making you login every day but limit how much you can do. You won't see players who play the game 24/7 because the game tells you to stop after you ran out of action points or scheduled your base, etc.
Actually no, most physical sports are not like that because the human body has limits and exceeding them is counter-productive because it leads to injuries. Most professional soccer players spend about 1-2 hours per day on training. Off-season they will spend slightly more but that's only for about 3-4 weeks. Doing anything more leads to injuries.
1-2 hours of training per day is incredibly low for a professional athlete. Professional cyclists are on the bike for over half the day, and there is even more work to be done on active recovery and strength training. Even runners, who are more limited by their body than nearly any other sport, spend 15+ hours a week just on running. It's a full time job.
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand your point, I guess I'm not one to feel that 'realistic' in the sense you described is a very important metric when critiquing media. For example, would anyone say that the musical Hamilton is 'realistic'? Probably not, but that hasn't decreased its massive popularity. As a tournament player myself (of course, a rather shoddy amateur) I felt the series got the details of tournament play right. The fact t…
That's fair. Do you know whose story would have been awesome, the Polgar sister's, specially Judit. Their story demonstrates 2 things. Within an specific limited discipline, "genius" can be manufactured if specialized long training and time is invested since childhood. Individual variability still matters a lot. Out of all the 3 sisters, Judit was the only who went to become a truly world-class player.
I've always found the Polgar story a bit weird, despite the way their father obviously characterised it. Was their chess education really that different from any other resulting chess pro?
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#2671750 is pretty good. But with chess you can get so many games per day, it's much easier than other games with the same ELO ranking system. It's the sheer number of valid games which are possible online. You can also easily cheat online.
An analogy: I started with 52 as regional table tennis player. In Saxony. I started with 1150 or so, and am now at 1300. We cannot play that many games, around 4 per month, so we cannot raise our points that much as in chess. But other countries do have a trick, and therefore have much higher ELO points. They added their self organized games in so-called "-pokal" leagues, which can be played daily around the district. You can easily organize your oiíwn tournament with the Swiss system, which guarantees time-bounded end times. You are sure that the tournament is finished by 10pm. And most countries honor these tournaments points, so you can easily raise up your ranking.
But my country saxony doesn't like this idea because there are folks who would cheat the system. They would loose on purpose in such tournaments to be able to stay in the official lower ranked leagues, where they will win more easily against lower ranked players. They would abuse the system. I'm pretty sure professional chess players in the lower ranks would also like to play for his club in much lower leagues, so that wins are easier. Only to get into international tournaments or the highest leagues you need the points. Many are also loosing on purpose at the end of the season to be able stay in the lower ranks, if the remaining games are not important anymore.
Eg when I played in the US I would beat the 1600 players. In Saxony no chance at all.
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey there fellow AoE II player! Cool, to hear from some decent player. What time did you play? Around 2002? Since I was a 2k player at the time, let me assure you, that the top dudes at the time (Koven, Sheriff for example) were already so called pro gamers who got payed/sponsored and they were exceptionally good. The true story is, that many folks above 2k+ did what was called "points trading" back then. Koven once…
Played and followed the AoE scene many times: 2002-2004, 2013-2014, and now playing again on AOE 2: DE. The new training scenarios in DE are quite helpful and I'd recommend them to new or returning players. DE has led to a massive resurgence of interest and a 3rd generation of players. First gen was AoE2 (CD), 2nd gen was the forgotten empires continuing things, 3rd is DE. Some players have spanned all 3. My current…
Is DE (or AoE in general) available on Mac and/or Linux?
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#269Earlier 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.
It's generally understood that online chess ratings are inflated over what the FIDE/table rating is.
Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I agree that poker teaches many useful lessons about probability and weighing your decisions, but it's not just a moral panic to say that's it's maybe not the most appropriate game for kids. Poker is genuinely very harmful for a non-trivial number of it's players, and it can be a destructive force in a way that (say) chess is not. I've had more than one friend lose tremendous sums of money and had to go cold turkey o…
Started looking at backgammon after reading your comment. I find it fascinating. I'm probably going to go ahead and invest some time learning it. Thanks.
I found this section on the Backgammon Wikipedia page relevant to this discussion: