101–110 of 207 posts
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?
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?
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> That seems like a meaningful interpretation of "600 points" that applies to anyone It does apply to anyone, but it is more or less meaningful depending on where you start, so the meaningfulness isn't equivalent. It's as if you say you can double your money, but it only works once and with a value The idea that, say, Magnus could increase his chess playing abilities in 6 months (or even 6 years) to be able to beat t…
I often wonder if chess players have a natural "peak"/"optimal" age range in the way that professional athletes do. Being a thinking game that requires strong brain functionality combined with accumulated experience, I wonder if there is an age range that is best for most players. Trade offs may be something like in yours teens and early 20's your brain may have the most plasticity and ability to visualize (plan 10+…
While this doesn't answer your question, it's interesting to note Magnus's peak rating was actually 7 and a half years ago, when he was only 23.
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…
I love that HN hyper-focused on your 600 points observation. However, 600 points means you went from 1500 (the start) to at least 2100, which is almost universally recognized as "pro" or at least semi-pro for chess. So yes, logarithmic curve and dimensionless pedantry and all that, I'll grant you; but that's missing the trees for the squirrels in the forest, since 600 points means "I went from noob to pro." No one ex…
This is showing some pretty serious misunderstandings about ELO ratings. 1,500 is absolutely not the starting point. When you first learn Chess, your rating will be low hundreds (like under 500). It takes a decent bit of practice to work your way up to 1,500, at which point you are already decent. 1,500 is roughly average among people who play Chess competitively. You certainly don't start there. 1,800 means you're good enough to beat most players at an average low level local tournament.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I often wonder if chess players have a natural "peak"/"optimal" age range in the way that professional athletes do. Being a thinking game that requires strong brain functionality combined with accumulated experience, I wonder if there is an age range that is best for most players. Trade offs may be something like in yours teens and early 20's your brain may have the most plasticity and ability to visualize (plan 10+…
> I wonder when Magnus will stop being able to "beat" Magnus of 1 year ago. While this doesn't answer your question, it's interesting to note Magnus's peak rating was actually 7 and a half years ago, when he was only 23.
"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.
I gained 200 point when I started practicing blindfolded, also great visualization training! A good way to start this is have someone call out squares on the board and you respond with the color. Next start naming the diagonals. Then start moving around a knight, bishop, and then slowly build up your ability to hold a game in your head. Highly recommend! Thanks for this article. The woodpecker method seems like a nic…
I wonder if this would work for programming. Closing your eyes, then recording yourself describing an architecture or module.
* trade a piece (bishop for knight and vice versa) when it's being less effective than the opponent's piece
* block opponents bishops
* block opponents pawns
* don't give opponent's knights a perch (supported by a pawn) on your side of the board, especially near the middle
* try to promote edge pawns to the middle or clear the path out of the way of your pawns
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It is thought that if chess was played perfectly then it is probably a draw, but nobody knows. So if by "mistake" you mean "not exactly the best move to force a draw from move 1 to the final move", then yes. But in chess "mistake" usually means "large inaccuracy" rather than "not the best move". I just mean games at a higher elo are usually decided by pressing a smaller advantage, rather than someone hanging a queen…
Perhaps it's fair to say that a "mistake" in chess is a move that you realise is bad as soon as your opponent makes their replying move (or, in some cases, as soon as you take your hand off the piece you just moved).
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.
To do it yourself, the best explanation and framework I think is found in Yermolinsky’s “Road to Chess Improvement”. It’s very helpful in systemizing this and also has thorough explanations of his experience in analyzing his own games.