51–60 of 228 posts
Avoid blundering? To do that, you need to learn opening strategy, endgame strategy, tactics, etc. This isn't helpful
In amatuer tennis, he would say that indeed you need to learn how to play. But you just play and return the ball. You don't need anything fancy to make you win. You just keep playing until your opponent makes a mistake.
A better way to read this is "80% of a not losing strategy". The author agrees with this but buries the lede at the very end of the piece: "Is this a fail-safe path? Of course not. Even in chess. The rest of the game does matter." I also think his framing is somewhat misleading, since the default mindset (Despite his hedging) is that you will win (Or have higher chances) if you don't blunder. The problem is that winn…
Maybe you could compare it to playing chess against a much higher rated player. In that sense, minimizing your weaknesses is still useful. And looking at the "blunders" the author lists we can definitely say that making these errors is worse than not making them.
One place where this analogy breaks down is that chess is a zero-sum perfect information game. Business is neither zero-sum (competition can encourage innovation and better products) nor perfect information. In chess, we can calculate for each of the candidate moves and have theoretically perfect knowledge of the future state of the board. In business and many other situations, this kind of thing isn't possible. The upshot is that several of the "blunders" the author lists may only turn out to be blunders after the fact.
Based on the last thing I read from this guy, I’m surprised he didn’t include having a spouse, kids or friends on his list of avoidable blunders.
link please
A famous Super Smash Bros player, when asked for advice, would always respond with "Don't get hit". Seems this principle of not blundering has wide-reaching applications!
I don't even bother attacking. It annoys everyone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Creating code is the lowest level of programming. Deleting code is much more refined. Preventing code is sublime.
This leads to analysis paralysis. Building things helps you think clearer.
There are 2 kinds of games: those that punish mistakes very badly, and those that reward exploited opportunities very richly.
I was never good at games like chess because of this exact same reason: I don't cover all my bases and lose from a stupid oversight. However, I'm pretty good at poker, because I know how to exploit an opportunity when it arrives.
So in the end, you have to know which game you are currently playing. Some things require "the devil is in the details", and other things you can just fix problems when they arrive (because those problems won't kill your overall progress)
I would argue that startups are more playing the 'exploit opportunities' game and not the 'cover all your bases' game.
For example, a startup shouldn't cover all legal aspects or risks. In the end, when you are generating enough revenue, you can deal with earlier legal mistakes. There are plenty of examples.
When your startup is not exploiting opportunities, no "cover all legal aspects" is going to save it.
In some sense this is almost tautological. While finding an exact definition for a chess blunder isn't straightforward, here is one example from the Lichess UI:
https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/b527746b179cdde6438...
Basically, if you make a move which decreases your winning probability more than 14% over the best move, that's a blunder. But winning probability is a nonlinear function of stockfish centipawns. A drop in 100 centipawns when you're up 15 points isn't a blunder. When the game was equal, it is.
Point is, by the time you know it's a blunder you already know something about the outcome of that move, that it swung the winning probability by more than 14%. So the analysis is kind of just measuring some function of winning probability and saying that it is highly correlated with winning probability.
I think this is very true, I've found the same thing in e.g: - Simracing: getting faster doesn't make you win races. Getting more consistent does. - Squash: getting stronger and faster doesn't make you win games, getting less exhausted does, because you make less mistakes. These are surely not true when you're at a high level, but for most people it's the right focus. The corresponding insight for building software i…
"These are surely not true when you're at a high level" I don't know what you mean by high level, but I suspect that avoiding mistakes continues to be very important regardless of level in most things. I play Marvel Snap in the top 1000 and at that level most of the games comes down to whoever makes a mistake first loses.
Ok differs from wimbeldon where guys play Hamlet while playing in the final (Kyrios, Becker, McEnroe, etc. etc.) and can win doing it with outrageous aggression and magic winners, but the French Open is certainly "High Level" Rafa at the French? How many matches was his longest winning streak? 36 matches, 5 titles in 6 years? Unfathomable sustained excellence.
> the player who committed more blunders lost 86% of the time In some sense this is almost tautological. While finding an exact definition for a chess blunder isn't straightforward, here is one example from the Lichess UI: https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/b527746b179cdde6438... Basically, if you make a move which decreases your winning probability more than 14% over the best move, that's a blunder. But winnin…