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

Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

mbuffett.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 207 posts

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#31

Post by marcusbuffett »

anandoza wrote: post #27
kthejoker2 wrote: post #15

Pedantry alert: As ELO ratings follow a logarithmic curve, "gaining 600 points" is a dimensionless metric. These are good tips for beginner to intermediate growth. The things that definitely help the most are: * Pattern recognition - the best courses for this level are things like "Common traps in ", applied with Woodpecker method. Once you've memorized all the mistakes in the Scandi or London system, you can really…

Doesn't gaining 600 points mean that you are able to beat the "old you" (or more precisely, people who you used to be even with) with 99% probability? (Or perhaps more meaningfully, you can now beat someone who could beat someone who could beat someone who could beat someone who can beat the old you, all with 80% probability?) (I made up the exact numbers, but the idea is there.) That seems like a meaningful interpre…

Yeah this is exactly right, as far as my understanding of elo goes.

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#32

Post by marcusbuffett »

Townsendin wrote: post #29

Not every meaningless achievement needs a retrospective blog post. The article starts out: "For some background: I played chess briefly with my friends in high school," No one knows who you are or cares. What kind of person has the time to read that?

Not every meaningless achievement with an unnecessary retrospective blog post needs a derisive comment about its existence, and yet here we are. Some people are interested in the content, you’re obviously not, just ignore it.

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#33

Post by greenail »

I think the author is underappreciating end game. Understanding how drive winning pawn promotions informs much of the other strategy. This sort of thing informs when to make a trade or a sacrifice. If you don't understand it you aren't likely making good trades. The other simple idea is control of the center and evaluating your play to ask yourself how much control did you have?

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

marcusbuffett wrote: post #30
kthejoker2 wrote: post #15

Pedantry alert: As ELO ratings follow a logarithmic curve, "gaining 600 points" is a dimensionless metric. These are good tips for beginner to intermediate growth. The things that definitely help the most are: * Pattern recognition - the best courses for this level are things like "Common traps in ", applied with Woodpecker method. Once you've memorized all the mistakes in the Scandi or London system, you can really…

Extra pedantry: you’re of course right that 600 points is somewhat meaningless, given that it’s harder to improve in the higher ratings, but there’s nothing logarithmic about elo. A 1500 playing a 500 has the same odds as winning as a 2500 playing a 1500, mathematically. You earn the same # of points at higher elo too.

> there’s nothing logarithmic about elo. A 1500 playing a 500 has the same odds as winning as a 2500 playing a 1500, mathematically.

Odds ratios being constant with difference is what you’d expect with a logarithmic scale, with a linear scale you’d expect odds ratios to be constant with the ratio of the ratings.

So, you’ve just explained the way in which elo is logarithmic as your evidence that it is not.

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#36

Post by msluyter »

kthejoker2 wrote: post #15

Pedantry alert: As ELO ratings follow a logarithmic curve, "gaining 600 points" is a dimensionless metric. These are good tips for beginner to intermediate growth. The things that definitely help the most are: * Pattern recognition - the best courses for this level are things like "Common traps in ", applied with Woodpecker method. Once you've memorized all the mistakes in the Scandi or London system, you can really…

By "Woodpecker method" do you mean this:

https://www.amazon.com/Woodpecker-Method-Axel-Smith-Tikkanen...

?

This is why HN is great -- appears to be an amazing book.

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#37

Post by marcusbuffett »

dragonwriter wrote: post #35
marcusbuffett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extra pedantry: you’re of course right that 600 points is somewhat meaningless, given that it’s harder to improve in the higher ratings, but there’s nothing logarithmic about elo. A 1500 playing a 500 has the same odds as winning as a 2500 playing a 1500, mathematically. You earn the same # of points at higher elo too.

> there’s nothing logarithmic about elo. A 1500 playing a 500 has the same odds as winning as a 2500 playing a 1500, mathematically. Odds ratios being constant with difference is what you’d expect with a logarithmic scale, with a linear scale you’d expect odds ratios to be constant with the ratio of the ratings. So, you’ve just explained the way in which elo is logarithmic as your evidence that it is not .

Hm you know what that makes some sense, my bad

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#38

Post by eterm »

I'm surprised how smooth the curve is, the author never has streaks where he loses a few hundred rating points. In fact I'm struggling to see he ever dips more than 50.

I've been on a similar journey over the past year, where I'm now around 1500 rapid on chess.com but in that time I've had streaks where I've been down 250 rating from my peak.

I don't know if I tilt super hard or if the author is remarkably resilient to tilt. It might also be a difference in how the different sites do match-making or adjust ratings and k-values.

I'd echo the benefit in learning some basic opening theory. It's not worth rote learning theory but it is worth having a consistent approach to games so you learn from the same patterns and can avoid opening traps.

If you play the same opening moves then over time you build up a memory of moves that you like in those positions and which will get deeper as you get more experience.

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#39

Post by gnarcoregrizz »

Mizza wrote: post #9

"The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." - Paul Morphy. I started playing anonymous games on LiChess, and playing without ELO anxiety is way, way more fun. It's a game, this is all I need out of it.

Agree it's more fun without the elo anxiety. Personally 3+0 blitz hits the spot for me, everyone sucks so dropping a piece isnt a big deal. The popular advice is that blitz won't improve your game, but I don't buy it.

Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months

#40

Post by ThomasCM »

Shameless plug: In case you want to track your chess progress and see more statistics on your openings (win rates, etc.), I'm developing a website where you can link your accounts to view stats for all of your games. It's free and currently in Beta: https://www.chessmonitor.com/

Here is an example for the current world champion: https://www.chessmonitor.com/u/kcc58R9eeGY09ey5Rmoj

Post reply on HN