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How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

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Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#121

Post by drexlspivey »

vjerancrnjak wrote: post #104
washmyelbows wrote: post #18

"Only about 10% of players ever gain more than 100 points, and only about 1% of players gain more than 200 rating points given years." This seems like a wild claim. On chess.com I've gone from 500 to ~1050 in a handful of months without any real study, just some light YouTube watching. 500->800 felt like all it took was learning a few openings and not blundering pieces. 800-1050 felt like it came mostly from getting…

I mostly played blitz with openings where queen is moved in the first 3 moves and got to ~2000 (no proof, sorry). I didn't study chess at all outside of playing it intensely for 1-2 years. Of course, my end game was also very bad. It was such a frustrating fun I had to stop. There are of course players that know how to fully exploit mistakes in the bad openings, but when you're rated so low, openings rarely matter, e…

> but when you're rated so low, openings rarely matte

No way you get to 2000 by cheesing, maybe 1000 max. 2000 rating is not low, it’s top 0.3% on chess.com

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#122

Post by krisoft »

yread wrote: post #79
DeathArrow wrote: post #17

Is there a well known strategy game where AI doesn't have better chances to win than a human? Is there possibly, math wise, that such games exist? I kind of dislike not having a chance when playing against bots.

World of Warships has lots of strategy to it (and the bots suck at it). Good players don't shoot where the ship would be if it kept going straight but take into account the map, other ships positions and psychology to guess evasive maneuvers.

> and the bots suck at it

It is important to distinguish two thing: "Computers can't solve this problem" vs "the currently existing bots suck". One is when the best programers trying their darndest can't make a bot good, while the other is when nobody even really tried.

(For example I can reliably run faster than Usain Bolt when he is not made aware that we are racing. :P )

This case sounds very much the second kind. There can be many reason for this, the simplest is that the makers of the game don't win more players by absolutely crushing them. It is a case where after a certain level of advancement you don't earn more money by making better bots. In fact you might start earning less if you take away the fun of the game. And of course anti-cheating measures will hamper 3rd party bots if they are not explicitly invited, and why would they be?

Simply saying estimating which way someone will evade / evading randomly doesn't sound like the kind of thing a computer would be bad nowadays. If someone tries that is.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#123

Post by stephen_g »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #99
INTPenis wrote: post #86

My dad was a master chess player in my country when I was growing up so I know all the moves but I never had the interest to go further than that. So what I really need to study are the famous openings and the responses to various openings. Seems like a memory game. Computer games were always more fun.

This is why I've been avoiding chess. Anything that feels too memory intensive just doesn't seem fun to me. It's not creative strategy it's just rote memorization. Same goes for Rubik's cubes.

I’ve always felt the same way - perhaps it’s because I get to work on interesting and hard problems at work so when I get home I’d rather veg out. I’d much rather swim for an hour than do something mentally taxing and memory intensive.

If I did something more manual I think I would perhaps crave that kind of outlet so I can kind of see the appeal. At least playing good chess does involve some improvisation and creativity.

Cubing on the other hand has not appealed to me at all since I learnt it was mostly just memorising some patterns and executing them. It just feels like a trick - it is impressive the speed some people can do it but I’ve never really been impressed by people being able to solve them.

Perhaps those are unpopular opinions though!

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#124

Post by kqr »

mseidl wrote: post #62
washmyelbows wrote: post #18

"Only about 10% of players ever gain more than 100 points, and only about 1% of players gain more than 200 rating points given years." This seems like a wild claim. On chess.com I've gone from 500 to ~1050 in a handful of months without any real study, just some light YouTube watching. 500->800 felt like all it took was learning a few openings and not blundering pieces. 800-1050 felt like it came mostly from getting…

I've been playing chess since I was 6, and I'm 7 now. You should learn endgame and tactics, the basics of opening and maybe a few openings. endgame will teach chess. openings teaches you openings. especially when you're a beginner people will make moves that don't make sense. Plus aren't there like over 4 or 5 quadrillion possible moves just within the first 10 moves?

Is this advice not going in the exact opposite direction to what looks like a well-researched TFA with an n=1 experiment to back it up? Why do you think your opinion differs?

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#125

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #56
chongli wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you follow the link to the data analysis [1] you’ll see that the argument is based on higher rated players. Low rated players have much higher variance in their rating and can improve by quite a lot, just by learning to stop blundering. That’s basically the situation you’re in. Getting to 2000 rating is going to be quite a mountain to climb for you, unless you’re very young. [1] https://github.com/jcw024/lichess_d…

And not to forget to avoid disappointment: An online 2000 is maybe an offline 1800 or so. Online ratings are in general higher than what people actually have offline.

I am not sure if that is generally true. It’s true for lichess and chess.com (compared to ELO) It really has only to do with the formula they use. They have different formulas. I think e.g. lichess has a formula so that the median is centered around 1500. This is different from how ELO is calculated. I would assume if they all had the same way to calculate the rating, it should be somewhat close.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#126

Post by ShoneRL »

sjducb wrote: post #116
ShoneRL wrote: post #60

A bit of an unhinged, unpopular opinion take: Chess is a very overrated game that's overglorified to the limit and it's an unhealthy addiction for a lot of people and I think modern media needs to stop flaunting Chess as something of a high-horse type of thing. To put simply, I believe Chess is good as something of a brain exercise for when you're younger or if you are a parent and want to develop your child's logica…

This argument generalises to all sport. If you want to become the best in the world at something then you have to give it 100%. It will be everything in your life. Most people who try to be the best don’t make it. If you’re nearly the best then your life sucks. You’ve spent all of your energy trying for something that’s not going to give you any returns personally.

I suppose it does to a certain extent but most of my experiences were with Chess, Football and Boxing. People say Chess is a sport but it's not really physically-exerting like some other sports or even healthy at all.

In terms of other sports, I think football (soccer) is a sport you don't really have to be 100% at, since that sport is somehow globally recognized and profitable so even subpar players can live well off it and it also seems much healthier than Chess and then there's the whole team aspect of it.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#127

Post by smatija »

drexlspivey wrote: post #121
vjerancrnjak wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly played blitz with openings where queen is moved in the first 3 moves and got to ~2000 (no proof, sorry). I didn't study chess at all outside of playing it intensely for 1-2 years. Of course, my end game was also very bad. It was such a frustrating fun I had to stop. There are of course players that know how to fully exploit mistakes in the bad openings, but when you're rated so low, openings rarely matter, e…

> but when you're rated so low, openings rarely matte No way you get to 2000 by cheesing, maybe 1000 max. 2000 rating is not low, it’s top 0.3% on chess.com

It's possible, if unlikely - wayward queen is not as bad as it looks (black has maybe a tiny bit more than equality), most players don't face it often (so probably don't have a lot of prep memorized) and in blitz time controls it's hard to find optimal punishment for subpar opening play. And 2000 is not that high again - top 0.3% on chess com is maybe top 50% of tournament players.

Online chess has a lot of begineers, since its more approachable.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#128

Post by kdamica »

This is a less interactive site than those mentioned in the article, but i found www.chesstactics.org incredibly helpful when i was starting out.

I eventually realized that i enjoy chess puzzles much more than playing actual games of chess due to the lower time commitment and lower stress. I do puzzles every day but almost never play a full game.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#129

Post by kqr »

mgaunard wrote: post #77

I like casual chess; as soon as it gets into blitz and studying openings and patterns I tend to lose interest, that sounds like work, not fun. It's like studying the meta instead of actually playing.

I have the exact same opinion, and this is what drove me to play go. I can't really explain it, but go feels more suitable to casual games.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#130

Post by thomasfromcdnjs »

mgaunard wrote: post #77

I like casual chess; as soon as it gets into blitz and studying openings and patterns I tend to lose interest, that sounds like work, not fun. It's like studying the meta instead of actually playing.

I love playing Scrabble (with people I know), still competitive, but try to play words you know and share the meanings after the game so it's fun and you learn.

(Scrabble champions just memorize the spelling not the meaning) (They probably also know a lot of the meanings but my point still stands)

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