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Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

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Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#21

Post by throwawaychess2 »

mellosouls wrote: post #19
throwawaychess2 wrote: post #9

Wrong. Source: played chess up to 2100 FIDE in my early teens, can't concentrate for shit 15 years later.

The author is a ~2500 GM. I do think it depends on the kind of chess though, bullet is rather different to classical in mental requirements.

Yeah when I was competitive blitz ratings weren't a thing and bullet was ridiculed as 'not chess', 'serious' players were all in on classical. This was before the puniest computer would utterly rout the best human, people weren't complaining about draws so much, streaming wasn't a thing...mentalities about fast-paced chess have evolved a lot since then.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#22

Post by wcoenen »

pmoriarty wrote: post #5
segmondy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how you do concentrate on things that are not chess and games which you find boring?

I think part of the answer is that you have to have a clear long-term goal that is very important to you, and keeping that goal in mind when are tempted to quit. If you don't know yourself well enough to know what goal is truly important to you, you risk abandoning your task when the going gets tough. So self-knowledge is also important. I think that's part of the reason why so many young people don't do that well in…

> From some of them, I remember learning to focus on the present, on putting one foot in front of the other, in a kind of hyperfocus on exactly and only the very smallest thing you need to do right now, then doing it again, and again, and again, and again.

This one really resonates with me. During a difficult period when I was struggling with burnout and feeling "scatterbrained", I developed a habit of writing down the next task I needed to do. If I couldn't bring myself to make any progress on it, I would then break it down and write down the first subtask, etc. (I would not write down a big list of subtasks as this would only discourage me, it was just about the next one or two things.) On a bad day this might recurse down to extremely simple things like "connect to the VPN" or "open the visual studio project", but I'd write it down and checkmark it nonetheless to force myself to make minimal progress. For each top level task, I would end up with a OneNote page with multiple screenfuls of deeply indented notes and ctrl+1 checkboxes everywhere.

Additional benefits of this approach include the ability to continue quickly after interruptions or distractions, and to easily switch between tasks when waiting is involved. It also helps to dig deeper into tasks (e.g. really understand each change in a code review instead of glossing over big chunks in the diff). So I've continued this habit ever since.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#23

Post by dmos62 »

wooolfgang wrote: post #7
segmondy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how you do concentrate on things that are not chess and games which you find boring?

I think people try too much to concentrate on things that they do not actually like. As Bukowski wrote, “Don’t Try.”

I'd interpret Bukowski's famous "don't try" not as "don't do what you don't want to", but rather as "don't foster conflicts". To try is to do something when you half-believe that you can do it and half-believe that you can't. It's half-commitment. Bukowski is instructing, I believe (wink wink), to drop all that believing and just do things, without mental baggage.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#24

Post by jacquesm »

I got out of chess before it consumed my life and I never regretted it. It's a game, not something to spend your life on. Doing anything well is a lesson in concentration, so from that point of view you could replace 'Playing chess' with a very large variety of other skills and it would all send the exact same message.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#25

Post by srge »

jacquesm wrote: post #24

I got out of chess before it consumed my life and I never regretted it. It's a game, not something to spend your life on. Doing anything well is a lesson in concentration, so from that point of view you could replace 'Playing chess' with a very large variety of other skills and it would all send the exact same message.

I understand your point. It's a very addictive game. But I feel that the point of the author is that it's a game that requires skills that are useful in life. I kind of agree. Also it's easier to concentrate on something fun, challenging and in the case of blitz or bullet, fast and intense.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#27

Post by dmos62 »

I remember playing some speed chess with someone my level (I'm not an experienced chess player). It's a really different experience from the regular long-contemplation chess. What really stood out to me was how dramatic the effect of deep deliberate breathing was. My ability to make quick and good decisions would improve immediately. Similarly in tennis (I've played like 3 times), or badminton, concentrating on the ball would have a huge effect on being able to return it well.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#28

Post by Yaggo »

I recently introduced chess to my kids (6 & 11 years old). They both immediately got hooked and we have been playing several games every night.

It's high-quality time for you & kids (no screens!), and also teaches the kids to think complex sequences (or combinations of the future) in their mind, and patience in general.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#29

Post by ddxxdd »

This reminds me of a question posed by an online user of a message board I frequent: Will the likes of Deep Blue and Alpha Zero kill competitive chess?

My initial thoughts were, "No, of course not! Cars and trains didn't kill track-and-field competitions!".

But now that I think about it, I really do feel a slight aversion towards getting back into chess.

Although practiced concentration is a side-benefit of playing chess regularly, the fact of the matter is that nowadays, it is impossible to play in a manner that hasn't already been thoroughly examined by some AI.

There's no new ground to discover; no interesting techniques or thought-processes that an amateur or a world champion can invent; there is no more sense of human innovation in the game.

If I picked up a chessboard for the first time in a decade, there would always be a chance that I can come to defeat Gary Kasparov someday; that is not the case with AlphaZero or DeepBlue.

Say what you want about the benefits of forced concentration or the social benefits, but that desire to play chess has been extinguished for me, and I'm sure for many others, once AlphaZero and DeepBlue hit the scene.

Re: Playing chess is a life lesson in concentration

#30

Post by shard »

dmos62 wrote: post #23
wooolfgang wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people try too much to concentrate on things that they do not actually like. As Bukowski wrote, “Don’t Try.”

I'd interpret Bukowski's famous "don't try" not as "don't do what you don't want to", but rather as "don't foster conflicts". To try is to do something when you half-believe that you can do it and half-believe that you can't. It's half-commitment. Bukowski is instructing, I believe (wink wink), to drop all that believing and just do things, without mental baggage.

So in other words this is the forefather of Yoda's "Do or do not, there is no try"?
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