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How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

alexcrompton.com

261–270 of 320 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's moving the goalposts (pun intended :)): having a wheeled robot with an enclosed (ball protection!) basketball holder slide around the basketball court and extend the basketball holder up to the rim would certainly allow it to beat humans, but it wouldn't really be "playing basketball". We engage in sports because they are fun and explore the limits of our physical and mental abilities (or well, go above our li…

but thats the same as in Chess, Go or even StarCraft: the AI is absolutly impossible to beat for human players unless it has explicit flaws built-in. The general point I want to make is that it doesn't make sense trying to compare humans with AI (and somewhat soon) robots, because the will outperform everyone. Handycapping them is not a solution either. The "amazing versatility" of humans also will not persist for to…

> the will outperform everyone

I'll try to make the same point land a bit harder:

Robots will not compete any time 'somewhat soon' in many/most physical tasks, because their energy storage capability, motor efficiency, strength to weight ratio, and many other mechanical and sensing properties are not good at all compared with humans and other animals, and can't be fixed by software. Everyday intuition underestimates how large this gap is.

Brains are only part of the requirement for competence in the real world.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you don’t like chess very much. Sounds like you think everybody should have the same brain as you and are frustrated why this isn’t the case.

Sounds like they're asking questions and you're making assumptions.

Fair, but questions posed in this manner are often statements.

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

#263
I just started playing after watching ChessNetwork channel on youtube a few years ago. I played a little as a kid but was about 1000 at bullet when I started as an adult. I've grinded my way up to 2220~ with no study or training at all.

My point is: just go play for fun, you don't have to study or become a master at some opening.

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

#264
Learned chess while young... elo around 1200~1500, pickup the game at 2023 because everyone has been talking about chess, maybe related to the netflix series but since i don't have netflix account and couldn't care to watch about a young-love drama series with chess around it, it wasn't the main motive.

Anyway opened a chesscom account, i got completly destroyed by online people, elo 100 according to chesscom, move to bots could beat 1200 up to 1500 elo eaisly... decided to give a try to online matches again destroyed but then started to find the pattern...

chesscom free account give me "three fair matches" that i could win to engage me in the platform, then it pairs me with either bots, 3-second chess engine cheaters or chess streamers playing with smurfs accounts, these pattern repeat almost every time sometimes is three, other times is four even five, if i play three games on 1 day the next day i would have another "three fair matches" and so on... so whats my point?

Unless you are paying good money for the subcription you are pretty much "meat canon" for others, the same applies to lichess... if you play 3 games a day for at least 2 years months you could get the 1200 elo, if you pay-to-win or pay the premium you would likely reach that 1000 elo more eaisly because is convenient for them to no match you against known cheaters on the platform...

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

#265

Learned chess while young... elo around 1200~1500, pickup the game at 2023 because everyone has been talking about chess, maybe related to the netflix series but since i don't have netflix account and couldn't care to watch about a young-love drama series with chess around it, it wasn't the main motive. Anyway opened a chesscom account, i got completly destroyed by online people, elo 100 according to chesscom, move t…

Was that your FIDE Elo or are you just guessing? It sounds like you just need to practice. You're going to need to provide much more evidence if you think the two biggest chess platforms in existence are impossible and cheating you.

Yes there are some bots, yes some people cheat, but what you're implying is just plainly false.

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

#266
post #188

Good article. A lot of the comments here give bad advice though, which isn’t surprising because they show a lot of common misperceptions about chess. Jeremy Silman has written a couple of books about what is actually important. Quickly, what worked for me when I started playing on chess.com at age 40 after not playing for over twenty years. My rating at age 17 was 1450. Restarted at 1200, and barely progressed at fir…

How do you load your games into a chess engine? Where do you play that allows you to export games? And then are you loading into another site or using a local application on your laptop as the "chess engine?"

> How do you load your games into a chess engine?

> Where do you play that allows you to export games?

> And then are you loading into another site or using a local application on your laptop as the "chess engine?"

I assume that you are a beginner and the following is quite simplified but I believe will assist you in getting started.

Most sites allow you to save your games as PGN (Portable Game Notation). On lichess, for example, you can go into your profile page an click on the download button to Export Games. This will save your games in PGN format. You need to download install a chess engine onto your computer / device. On a laptop or desktop it is relatively simplest to first install chess software with a Graphical User Interface - google that term - I will mention just one - no affiliation - just that it's relatively simple. Arena is a free graphical user interface for chess that helps you analyze and play games, plus test chess engines. After you run Arena chess you can import the games you exported in PGN format.

There are very strong open source / free chess engines (eg Stockfish) and other chess software with or without commercial chess engines. Just remember these three things:

- The format that chess games are saved in is PGN with a .pgn extension

- There is chess software that replays these PGN with no chess engine and that's fine to review a game digitally

- There are umpteen chess-engines that will analyze your games / moves - some free, some commercial

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

#267
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://postimg.cc/yWFXJp7W

I unsubscribed immediately after getting the first. And I deleted some without marking them spam, so I got about double.

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

#268

Learned chess while young... elo around 1200~1500, pickup the game at 2023 because everyone has been talking about chess, maybe related to the netflix series but since i don't have netflix account and couldn't care to watch about a young-love drama series with chess around it, it wasn't the main motive. Anyway opened a chesscom account, i got completly destroyed by online people, elo 100 according to chesscom, move t…

Was that your FIDE Elo or are you just guessing? It sounds like you just need to practice. You're going to need to provide much more evidence if you think the two biggest chess platforms in existence are impossible and cheating you. Yes there are some bots, yes some people cheat, but what you're implying is just plainly false.

Thats what my chess teacher used to put me in their local chess club tournaments, in order to get a FIDE Elo, i would have need to go (on that time 1995~1999) to official tournaments and that was expensive for a rural area...

M not saying m on the level of masters but definitely not a newbie... either way i don't need proof just go to chesscom, open a new free account and start grinding... you are gonna see fast the pattern on how the platform gets you engaged but you need to look careful, it entices you with free wins before going hard on you, having three to five games a day was the eureka moment to get good ratings... either go slow or pay premium to get an edge on the game and preferred match making.

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

#269
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…

I know it's a cliche but these are the wise words from the old master, "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life" - Paul Morphy.

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

#270
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how people learn from slamming blitz/bullet games. The time constraints are too rushed to really think about what makes a move good or bad. I assumed it was a young person's thing, but the author said he plays these quick formats too. I'm 47 and started playing around 5 years ago. I only play Blitz and Bullet because I find it fun. In the first two years I went from around 1000 on lichess to arou…

If you analyse the blitz games after playing them, that can bridge some of the gap.

Yes, but I have no patience for that. As soon as one game is done I've either had enough of chess for now or want the dopamine hit of the next game immediately.
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