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The Expert in a Year Challenge

experttabletennis.com

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Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#61

Post by nopinsight »

I believe the number of hours required to become an expert depends on both the nature of the field and the competition in it.

Although there are a lot of table tennis players in Britain, probably not too many devote significant effort and time to master it. Thus, the effort required to be in the top echelon is not that great. The same cannot be said for, say, American Football in the US or soccer in many countries.

The 500 hours or so he spent on table tennis is woefully inadequate to master mathematics as well, but for a different reason. (Mastering math requires knowledge and skills on a huge amount of materials accumulated over centuries.)

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#62

Post by igonvalue »

One of the most interesting things I've read (or listened to) about expertise is a podcast interview with the author of The Sports Gene[0].

> So in my second chapter I sort of tell a story I call the 'Tale of Two High Jumpers,' in which I sort of profile two high jumpers, one named Stefan Holm, who over the course of 20 years--and by his estimate, 20,000 hours--made incremental progress every year, to the point where he became one of the best high jumpers in the world. And then in 2007 he travels to the World Championships, and is met by a total unknown, a Bahamian jumper by the name of Donald Thomas, who just recently had started high jumping, basically because he had found out he was good at it on a lunchtime bet at his college. And so, Donald Thomas is closer to 0 hours, and Stefan Holm is closer to 20,000 hours. So they average 10,000 hours. But Donald Thomas actually wins that competition. And so I thought it was a good story to explain the fact that not only is there huge variation, but different athletes can get to the same place with both different biology and different training programs.

[0] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/09/david_epstein_o.htm...

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#63

Post by rawnlq »

One public dataset that I think people should analyze is how competitive rating changes based on number of events you participated in.

For example, in programming competitions the history ratings of everybody is public: http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=AlgoRank.

One of the most well known competitive programmers is probably tourist: http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=222.... He started at a rating of about 1200 when he was 12yrs old but took him over 5 years to increase it by 2000 points. For everyone that kept at it for equally as long, you can see a similar trend in trajectory. The only difference is the slope at which their ratings increase.

(The ratings probably mean nothing to you, so for some calibration, people with a rating of about 1500 can easily pass a google interview, and I think a fresh CS grad with no practice will probably start at around 1000. Which probably gives hope to the average CS grad since even for the world's best, it took them about 10 years to get to where they are.)

I just thought this was a nice way to quantify growth vs practice.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#64

Post by visakanv »

There's a writer from Esquire who's basically made a living doing experiments like this. He's written things like The Year Of Living Biblically [1] (self-explanatory), The Know-It-All (he read all of Encyclopedia Britannica) [2], and other experiments.

There are a lot of others who have done similar things. Matt Cutts from Google does 30 day experiments. Karen X Cheng learned to dance in a year. There's something about contained experiments that are quite compelling.

I'm doing my own version of this, as a writer. I'm working on writing 1,000,000 words [3]. I'm doing this in 1,000 sets of 1,000. I'm currently at 240.

760 to go.

–

[1] http://ajjacobs.com/books/the-year-of-living-biblically/

[2] http://ajjacobs.com/books/the-know-it-all/

[3] http://visakanv.com/1000/

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#65

Post by rawnlq »

rawnlq wrote: post #63

One public dataset that I think people should analyze is how competitive rating changes based on number of events you participated in. For example, in programming competitions the history ratings of everybody is public: http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=AlgoRank . One of the most well known competitive programmers is probably tourist: http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=222... . He started…

Here's a few more members from the top 10: http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=198... http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=227... http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=226... http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=228... http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=227... http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MemberProfile&cr=227...

They all started at a "green" or "blue" rating (i.e., no prior training) and it took all of them a bit of time to hit "red", which is the arbitrary point you can start calling them an expert.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#66

Post by aidos »

soperj wrote: post #54
loumf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a better summary of the studies in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" From what I remember, the claim is that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice work best when: 1. You get immediate feedback on success and failure 2. The thing you are trying to master has a skill set that can be improved, and that improving that skill is sufficient. That #2 is tricky -- a counter example is stock picking. We have no evidence that th…

There is a skill that makes stock picking work, Warren Buffett & Benjamin Graham have written all about it.

Could you point to some articles? I've read a few Buffett articles and his suggestion seems to generally be - invest in an index fund and leave it alone.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#67

Post by rickdale »

3327 wrote: post #3

I have a tennis version of this. EVery day makes a huge difference.

You do? Can you share a little bit of your experience. I just did something similar with tennis last summer and measured my improvement using the babolat play stats. If you get the chance, check out Jeff Salzenstein. I improved and learned more watching his videos and courses than I did in the last 7 years. Just for example, from the play stats I was hitting 1 out of 4 forehands in the center of my racket before I knew about Jeff Salzenstein, and in less than 1 month I was at 8 out 10 in the center. Would like to hear about your experience though.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#68

Post by loumf »

aidos wrote: post #66
soperj wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a skill that makes stock picking work, Warren Buffett & Benjamin Graham have written all about it.

Could you point to some articles? I've read a few Buffett articles and his suggestion seems to generally be - invest in an index fund and leave it alone.

Warren Buffet's own letter to stockholders is the best source for what he thinks. It is not stock picking (he parks some money in stocks, but that's not the bulk of what he does). He calls what he does "capital allocation" not "stock-picking"

His basic strategy:

1. Write insurance: that gives you tons of cash up front. Get good at setting the price right so you can make money on the float (using money in near term, paying it back in the future)

2. Now with all of this cash, invest in things (like utilities) that need big cash investment, but then pay-back forever (basic rent collecting). He likes things with big barriers to entry (moats)

He does not care if his company stock goes up or down, all he cares about is intrinsic value: the cash generated (now and in the future) and time value of money. His benchmark is the S&P 500 -- he wants to beat their intrinsic value.

But, read the letters -- they are awesome: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#69

Post by aidos »

loumf wrote: post #68
aidos wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point to some articles? I've read a few Buffett articles and his suggestion seems to generally be - invest in an index fund and leave it alone.

Warren Buffet's own letter to stockholders is the best source for what he thinks. It is not stock picking (he parks some money in stocks, but that's not the bulk of what he does). He calls what he does "capital allocation" not "stock-picking" His basic strategy: 1. Write insurance: that gives you tons of cash up front. Get good at setting the price right so you can make money on the float (using money in near term, p…

Very interesting, thanks. Had a skim of the most recent one, will find some time to read them in more detail.
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