"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.
Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
181–190 of 207 posts
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#182I 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.
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#183I have a genuine question. My long time peeve has been that I suck at Chess and every time I play against anyone/anything, I just lose. It demoralizes me and then after sometime I try again, only to have the experience repeat. I have had decent grades, I code for a living and have been told that the quality of my work isn't bad so I guess I'll risk coming across as arrogant when I think that I'm not absolutely dumb.…
I'll reply, but probably not how you want. I've always been a smart guy at a lot of things, especially math, who never had to try that hard in school. I went to exactly one chess club meeting in high school, as I knew how to play and wanted to learn more. I was defeated in a few moves by a kid who not only laughed at me, but told his friends about whatever rush I just fell for and they all had a good laugh. As you ma…
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#184When I play online chess I load up a grandmaster AI and input my opponents moves
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd rank them best first: Gotham, John Bartholomew, Rosen, Hikaru, Agadmator, Hanging pawns, others. The st louis chess club lectures are also very good.
How is hikaru before agadmator - it’s pure entertainment. Watching a super gm intentionally blunder on first two moves for 3 hours probably hurts your chess more than improves it
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The full headline is 1200-1800 on lichess, which has a mean of 1500. So they started below average, trained up to something like 65 percentile on lichess. Its good improvement yes, but as someone at that rating, I'd be a mediocre club player at best (no more than 1600 FIDE, and probably less)
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah, and you can take an interactive course version of it on Chessable https://www.chessable.com/the-woodpecker-method/course/10582... And most of the Chessable courses can be "woodpeckered" through the interface.
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#188I have a genuine question. My long time peeve has been that I suck at Chess and every time I play against anyone/anything, I just lose. It demoralizes me and then after sometime I try again, only to have the experience repeat. I have had decent grades, I code for a living and have been told that the quality of my work isn't bad so I guess I'll risk coming across as arrogant when I think that I'm not absolutely dumb.…
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#189It's currently being developed, who wants to check out the free beta can sign up here:
Re: Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
#190I 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…
I'm a huge fan of Eric Rosen, who plays lots of gambits and aggressive games with highly instructive commentary.I'd highly recommend his content whenever you feel yourself starting to get tired of traditionally high-energy YouTubers -- Eric is lively and funny but also stays incredibly chill and calm 100% of the time. I've watched hundreds of hours of his videos and have never seen him lose his cool ever, it's impres…
On the same note I really appreciate Dan Naroditsky and Ben Finegold.