Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by joshuamorton » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #24

Moodles wrote: post #21

I think by far the biggest improvement newbies can make is just not hanging pieces and blundering, honestly. Literally the majority of games at I used to be quite good as a kid, winning championships and whatnot, and I'm actually glad my grandfather didn't teach me opening theory so much, so I could be trained to think more than memorize. Sadly at the highest level, you do just have to memorize the best opening lines…

So I don’t mean this is to be snarky , but aren’t all chess games decided by mistakes?

Inaccuracy, mistake, and blunder are in a sense technical terms related to the gravity of the screw up.

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

#72

Post by acoard » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #56

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…

That's too much work. All my kids play. I have been playing since I was a kid myself. It's just a game. Getting into memorization and deep analysis makes it less interesting for me. I've been in the 1800 to 2000 range for a while. Spending too much time getting great at chess is, in my opinion, time that could be better spent getting good at something far more useful in life. Exercise is such an example. My system is…

Where do you play puzzles?

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

#73

Post by xyzelement » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

A bit of an aside, I love chess because it forces you to think several moves ahead including game-theorizing what your opponent will do. I want to teach it to my kid for this reason.

I never got into timed chess but I can see it be valuable because it forces you to trade off between over-thinking and running out of time and under-thinking and making bad moves. This is also a real life skill.

But I know that my personal game will always stay amateur because once you're in the timed game space, you can't get too far without memorizing opening and to me that crosses the line from "fun and overall developmental" to "work."

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

#74

Post by Etheryte » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

eterm wrote: post #38

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…

Not getting into a downward spiral from tilt is fairly straightforward for me, when you lose two or three games in a row simply don't play more that day. In general, I play at most a few games a day and it helps a lot. If you want to just get practice with a specific opening or play out your frustration there's always computer games, too. When I practice with the computer I usually set the difficulty considerably higher than my own level, it helps me find weaknesses in my own play that I would usually get away with at my own rating level. I also don't mind losing to the computer. For some reason there's no emotion in losing to a computer whereas there is in losing to another human player.

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

#75

Post by mrbungie » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #73

A bit of an aside, I love chess because it forces you to think several moves ahead including game-theorizing what your opponent will do. I want to teach it to my kid for this reason. I never got into timed chess but I can see it be valuable because it forces you to trade off between over-thinking and running out of time and under-thinking and making bad moves. This is also a real life skill. But I know that my person…

Not to tell you how to raise your children, but please only teach your kid if you see he likes it.

Disclaimer: I was a kid that lived my mother's dreams/hopes for a time and now I dread every second of that period.

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

#76

Post by raptorraver » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Interesting article. Wish I had time to try even some of those. I'm nowadays quite casual but still serious player. Have been grinding in Lichess since 2019 but played consistently since highschool (so 15 years now!). I'm bit over 1800 in rapid and around 1700 in blitz. I don't care that much about my rating but it sure feels nice to break my records every now and then. I think my biggest problem is that my work (coding) exhausts my thinking energy and I'm quite tired most of times I play so I make stupid blunders which makes me lose many many winning positions. I don't know what would help here? Lately I've just played mostly 3 minute games. It's not so serious to lose a knight or bishop there because the time factor is there always. I'm dreaming of attending the local chess club once my kids are older but until them, see you on Lichess! Boy I love chess :)

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

#77

Post by nescioquid » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

dragon96 wrote: post #49

One piece of advice I hear a lot is "review your games", but how do you actually do that without a stronger player? I'd sometimes use an engine and it'll point out moves I hadn't considered before, but without understanding the plan or positional ideas behind them, I often find this pretty opaque.

I found that bit of advice similarly daunting. However, in trying to understand where things go wrong in a game, you might notice patterns emerging after you've analyzed several of your own games, which should give you something concrete to work on for improvement.

At my level, that basically amounted to identifying blind spots I'm a prey to (at one point it was discovered attacks along a particular diagonal). A master, expert, or higher level class player will be concerned with entirely different things when they review their games.

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

#78

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

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…

> Once you've memorized all the mistakes in the Scandi or London system

What's a good book for this?

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

#79

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

gpm wrote: post #42

greenail wrote: post #33

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?

I'm 1878 on lichess rapid, so slightly better than the author. At this level (at least with my play style) the end game rarely decides games, usually one side or the other will gain a decisive advantage earlier than that. It's obvious to me that there will become a point where I need to start really studying endgames if I want to improve forever, but it's not yet. Moreover my opponents also don't understand engames w…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by Kranar » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

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…

Someone who is just learning chess will likely be able to beat the old them with 99% probability after a few days of playing and learning.

Someone who is ranked at around 1200 and really commits to improving can likely beat the old them in a couple of months by memorizing a few common openings and practicing drills/working on fundamentals.

Someone who is a dedicated chess player and ranked above 1800 may never be able to beat the old them with 99% probability.

So if someone says they improved by 600 points, certainly that is meaningful to them as an individual and it means they can basically beat their old self, but it won't be very meaningful to me.