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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)

#221

Post by bjornlouser »

kqr wrote: post #124
mseidl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

TFA mentions that their openings preparation didn't help much, and mentions next steps as learning "Basic Endgames".

The minute you stop blundering pieces you find yourself in a nearly even endgame.

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

#222

Post by itslennysfault »

robotresearcher wrote: post #76
anonyfox wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will never be anymore. AI simply outperforms humans at increasing rates. When in doubt, for a specific game a narrow AI can be trained up. For the current 1-2 years you can have a shot at physical/sports games, since robots are lagging behind AI capabilities, quite a lot.

Robots can’t even carry enough energy to play a physical/sports game, even if their AI was perfect and cost zero energy itself. There’s no imminent tech that will change this. We have many years. I’d love to be wrong about that, but I’m probably not. Check out Robocup for superhuman speed miniature soccer games. But the games are small and short. The humanoid games are much less well developed.

I feel like it is possible, but just not anything we will pursue. Nuclear reactors? Inductive charging in the floor? some kind of overhead electric like we use to power trains? I'm sure it's "possible", but probably not safe for humans to be around.

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

#223

Post by chongli »

Oreb wrote: post #152
zelphirkalt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s pretty much the opposite of how I feel. I can win against much stronger players over the board than online. It’s so hard to summon the same focus and energy in an online game.

It’s just a fact that online ratings are inflated. Hikaru Nakamura is rated 3231 (at the moment I write this) in blitz on chess.com but 2874 in blitz over the board, according to FIDE. That’s a difference of 357 rating points!

Of course, Hikaru has admitted that he deliberately works to inflate his online rating and has talked about the differences in the rules/mechanics online. For him, the lack of an increment in his online games (FIDE over the board blitz has an increment) and his well-practiced mouse skills help him a lot. Hikaru can flag a lot of people from a losing position, so he gets many more wins than he would have over the board. He also says he deliberately “farms” lower rated players to boost his rating by a small amount, and avoids games against dangerous opponents who are underrated (due to a lack of online play).

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

#224

Post by cyrialize »

The way I got into chess was by doing a couple of lessons using the Chess.com app.

Once I learned the basic opening principles, a basic opening for white (Italian) and black (Two Knights), and the phases of the game - the game opened up much more for me.

Just knowing to do E4/E5, take center, mobilizing pieces, trying to move pieces once in the opening, etc. improved my game so much.

I was making so many bad moves without knowing these and having a terrible time. Knowing all this didn't help me win at all, but it made my experience much better.

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

#225

Post by e40 »

cyrialize wrote: post #224

The way I got into chess was by doing a couple of lessons using the Chess.com app. Once I learned the basic opening principles, a basic opening for white (Italian) and black (Two Knights), and the phases of the game - the game opened up much more for me. Just knowing to do E4/E5, take center, mobilizing pieces, trying to move pieces once in the opening, etc. improved my game so much. I was making so many bad moves wi…

What got me was how much chess.com spammed me after signing up. I used a throwaway email address specific to them, so I know it's them. I unsubscribed but they continue to spam me.

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

#226

Post by sjducb »

erfgh wrote: post #182
sjducb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have to be very good at football/boxing to make a living off it. A subpar 3rd division football player is a better athlete than anyone you have ever met in your day-to-day life. Chess supports maybe 30 full time competitors, whereas football supports a few thousand. However millions more people try to be footballers. Your odds of success are probably better with chess. All three of those sports destroy yo…

Football is very different because you don't have to spend as much time. Professional players train for 1-3 hours per day and that's it. The remaining time of the day they do nothing at all because there's no point to physically exert yourself more, you'll just get injured for no benefit. Also, you have to be 100% rested when game time comes which means that 2-3 days prior to the game you take it very easy during tra…

This is true. With physical sports you have a limit on the time you can spend training. That’s different to chess and other e sports.

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

#227

Post by EduardoBautista »

e40 wrote: post #225
cyrialize wrote: post #224

The way I got into chess was by doing a couple of lessons using the Chess.com app. Once I learned the basic opening principles, a basic opening for white (Italian) and black (Two Knights), and the phases of the game - the game opened up much more for me. Just knowing to do E4/E5, take center, mobilizing pieces, trying to move pieces once in the opening, etc. improved my game so much. I was making so many bad moves wi…

What got me was how much chess.com spammed me after signing up. I used a throwaway email address specific to them, so I know it's them. I unsubscribed but they continue to spam me.

What exactly are they spamming? I haven't noticed anything.

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

#228

Post by globular-toast »

grzaks wrote: post #92

My biggest frustration with chess online is the huge number of cheaters on platforms like chess.com and lichess. It really takes the whole fun away. I never really understood WHY people are cheating in online chess games. There is no fame, no money in it. This is puzzling for me. My frustration is that chess.com and lichess are extremely week at finding and banning cheaters. Sometimes is sooo obvious, when for exampl…

> I never really understood WHY people are cheating in online chess games.

It seems that for some quite high proportion of the population someone else losing is necessary and sufficient for them to feel like they have won. Basically for those people winning just means "the other person lost".

This goes way beyond chess and explains a lot about society.

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

#230

Post by prometheus76 »

pmontra wrote: post #148
hinkley wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve known this guy off and on for years. When we first met 15+ years he was slightly better at Go than me, which was middling amateur. All the Go books say if you want to be a pro you have to start as a child. But he studied, and studied, and last I knew he was 3 dan, which is about the point you can entertain the idea of becoming a pro (if I just worked harder). Kids have a lot more free time to sink into a singula…

A friend of mine devised an empirical rule to predict the highest Go ranking that a player will reach: the ranking after the first 4 years of play plus 4. You can check that on https://europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/ and pick some players at random. They have a nice date/rank graph and all those graphs start with an almost vertical growth which slows down and flattens. Some players play less often and get weaker but that'…

I think this might be related to the pareto distribution of productivity in my line of work (steel fabrication). Our most productive employees are literally 10 times more productive than the least productive. And it's always the same people at the top of the list, and always the same people at the bottom. If you pair them together, the productive employee loses 10-20% of productivity while they're together, and the less productive employee improves by 5-10%, but as soon as you separate them, they go back to where they were before.
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