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Notes on Puzzles

nabeelqu.substack.com

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Re: Notes on Puzzles

#11

Post by vintageplayer »

anoy8888 wrote: post #4

i am quite confused . It started saying good chess players are more careful and spent more time falsifying ideas but then he later gave startup examples which is the opposite ( not so careful with falsifying. Just jump into the water with conviction and figure things out on the way ) . Startup game is more like poker . It is very different from chess . Somehow the author drew the wrong conclusions. Very confusing

I don't think startup game is more like Poker. It's a lot of experimentation and learning. True, you gotta protect your bank roll, but the type of strategy initiatives to take are something like that of a chess.

PS: I'm an early stage founder, who has finally some traction with my current B2B data infra SaaS. I've had a failed company in the past which had 4 major pivots, where we decided to return most of the funding to learn few things again.

Re: Notes on Puzzles

#13

Post by blastro »

yeahwhatever10 wrote: post #5
Thoeu388 wrote: post #3

Interesting observations, I would add my own: - during long game, chess grand masters have physiology comparable to marathon runner, while he runs. Deep thinking for several hours, takes huge load on body. All the logic and critical thinking, is not going to save you, if you are not fit, and your brain does not work correctly. - real life is not about solving puzzles. Real life is a rigged game where rules are not en…

I disdain this pessimism that is all over the internet.

[flagged]

Re: Notes on Puzzles

#15

Post by bluepod4 »

doopdoopsoup wrote: post #10
yeahwhatever10 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disdain this pessimism that is all over the internet.

I'm curious what strikes you as pessimistic in this comment versus just being realistic about the current social structures implicit to the US (I cant speak for the rest of the world)?

Probably because GGP’s comment reflects a narrow, unfavorable, and extreme view of reality

> Real life is a rigged game where rules are not enforced

Even in the United States, there are plenty of stupid and non-stupid rules that people are forced to follow in order to “play the game”. There are also plenty of rules that only apply to certain groups. There are also plenty of people who don’t play the game at all.

Maybe if GGP weren’t so extreme and negatively one-sided with his view, then it’d come off as less pessimistic and more critical.

Re: Notes on Puzzles

#16

Post by respondo2134 »

doopdoopsoup wrote: post #10
yeahwhatever10 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disdain this pessimism that is all over the internet.

I'm curious what strikes you as pessimistic in this comment versus just being realistic about the current social structures implicit to the US (I cant speak for the rest of the world)?

pessimistic and realistic are not mutually exclusive (unfortunately). You can understand reality without accepting it.

Re: Notes on Puzzles

#17

Post by jvanderbot »

The article is fine, inspirational, interesting, and all that, but one quibble: reporting ratios is potentially misleading. If grandmasters spend 4 minutes falsifying for every minute ideating, and amateurs spend .5 / 1, that's great. But what if amateurs spend 30 minutes coming up with a move vs 1 for masters? Could be the grandmaster is faster at ideation by a larger fraction than he is faster at falsification. That also makes sense in a "just so" sense, because maybe falsification is brute force with a large depth of search, and ideation is more like a lookup table - just see where your pieces can move.

I thought maybe I could find some primary sources, but the [1] notation is just footnotes.

Re: Notes on Puzzles

#19

Post by natrys »

Apparently I try too hard to falsify the falsification. I became convinced that h4/g3 pawns could be used as a trap while I march the b-pawn. Bd5 Bxh4 b5 Bxg3 Qxf7 Qxf7 Bxf7 Kxf7 b6! and the pawn can't be stopped.

Except it doesn't work, I needed to falsify the falsification of the falsification 4 move down the line to see why :)

Re: Notes on Puzzles

#20

Post by blueyes »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #7
anoy8888 wrote: post #4

i am quite confused . It started saying good chess players are more careful and spent more time falsifying ideas but then he later gave startup examples which is the opposite ( not so careful with falsifying. Just jump into the water with conviction and figure things out on the way ) . Startup game is more like poker . It is very different from chess . Somehow the author drew the wrong conclusions. Very confusing

> Startup game is more like poker . It is very different from chess . That’s the point of the article. It contrasts the thinking styles of ‘founder-types’ and ‘scientist-types’. As a (in the terms of the article) ‘scientist-type’ who regularly gets lost in the weeds of the details, I found it a pretty interesting commentary.

This is not quite true, because poker is fundamentally adversarial, while startups are mostly not adversarial, at least not directly.

Startups are a beauty contest where each player focuses on maximizing the things about them that appeal most to a panel of judges (customers). Similar to the scramble competition that Benenson cites here, rather than an arm-wrestling contest.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31400660/

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