Life advice from NYC chess hustlers • Hacker News Board

Re: Life advice from NYC chess hustlers

#91

Post by pdevr » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 8:22 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #78

syspec wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were they cheating? Moving pieces when you were not looking? Adding more time to their clock?

What I have seen are: - Illegal moves, particularly with knights. - Adjusting pieces onto squares they are not on: edging a rook towards another square slowly, then "adjusting" it onto that square to essentially get a free move. - Dropping pieces and putting them on new squares. - Double capturing: picking up your piece as though they are going to take it with theirs, then moving one of their pieces to take a differe…

This summarizes it well. Two more (in fact, the most frequent ones I saw) are:

(1) He moves a piece, accidentally another piece tumbles down on the board, he adjusts it, and meanwhile, one of the opponent's crucial pawns magically disappear.

(2) Same as above, with opponent's pawn (or his pawn) magically moving to a better location for him.

Re: Life advice from NYC chess hustlers

#92

Post by pdevr » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 8:31 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #86

pdevr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this, since I have seen this in action. They cheat a lot, and argue with you when they lose. However: >But stealing, robbing, lying—if you eliminate that from your program, you’ll be 99% better as a person. Biblical references apart, this is the key point. The choice they made is a much better choice for most of them, and for the society around them. Playing chess helps many of them to focus on something…

Cheating at a game when there is money on the line is no less of a grift than robbing convenience stores, and there's plenty of lying involved. That's why they are called "hustlers," not because they do it for money. Tax evasion (which one of these guys admitted to in the article) is the icing on the cake.

Those are crimes, for sure! I was comparing the former (cheating) with the potential of the same person for committing worse crimes which impact more people more forcefully. Not absolving them of their crimes.

Re: Life advice from NYC chess hustlers

#93

Post by toss1 » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 3:12 AM UTC

blindmute wrote: post #90

toss1 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

aaannnd . . . . Whoosh!! It isn't about how good you are; in fact it is the opposite. My grandfather was an engineer and focused on building actual things - being a productive member of society. He was also pretty alert about avoiding addictive things. His point was that the gifted minds — who can get and ARE very good at chess — tend to get addicted and squander years or decades just chasing the next tournament, the…

Why is learning physics and chemistry a better use of time than learning chess?

Because I can leverage that knowledge of physics and chemistry to build something useful - and actually do so in my job. I use that knowledge to produce good things for customers, feel the satisfaction of that connection between my study and what I can offer people, and now that I'm writing about it, have a thought that I haven't had in a long time that my grandfather would indeed approve (so double thanks for the question!).

Chess may be more satisfying, but as a career, it's pretty self-satisfying, and only the very top competitors even really provide entertainment for others. That said, chess can teach you a lot about strategy, your own mind, managing your own emotions and skills, etc., and all of those are useful skills to apply to life in general (as long as you don't fall to the addictive risk and make a burnout career out of it...).

Re: Life advice from NYC chess hustlers

#94

Post by yonig » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 5:59 AM UTC

INTPenis wrote: post #34

every wrote: post #28

I had a chess phase. I used to play a guy with some national ranking. He wiped the floor with me. He told me my game pretty much sucked but he enjoyed playing me because I was always seeing and doing things that would have never occurred to him. And that was the apex of my chess career...

Heh that sounds just like my story with my dad. He was national champ in the 80s. I never had enough interest in the game to get good, would rather play Doom on his DOS computer than chess. But whenever we did play I'd make brainless moves and he'd get this puzzled look on his face and start thinking. He once told me the same thing, that I make unusual moves that forces him to rethink his strategy.

In jest, I had a teacher say something along the lines of “Nobel Prize winners are experts at the end of their careers or the novices at the beginning.” Thinking outside the box can be made so much easier when you don’t know where it begins and ends