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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)

#281

Post by bongodongobob »

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…

I don't believe this for a second, sorry. 2000 is very highly rated and you're not getting there by pulling your queen out right away.

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

#282

Post by bongodongobob »

vjerancrnjak wrote: post #156
pedrekz wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who’s higher rated than 500 can see that you’re lying, I don’t know why you insist. Yes, you’re not immediately losing the game if you play the right moves, but it stops being a “trick” waaaay before you’re 2000, even in blitz. You don’t need any “prep”. Edit: you’re not the same person from the comment above, my bad

edit: what the other responder says I'm not saying I'm mating people in 3 moves. There are many unique mating opportunities in queen openings and many ways to create immense pressure on the king's side if the player does not defend well. Try it yourself and you'll quickly see that -2000 rated players (online) struggle with it. Similarly, you're not sacrificing development and you castle at the same moment (sometimes…

No one is saying you won in 3 moves. You didn't accidentally get to 2000 by playing trash openings, period.

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

#283

Post by bongodongobob »

cjonas wrote: post #190
johngossman wrote: post #181

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…

Interesting you put "eat" here as your first item. I don't care much about my rating (I play chess to escape stress; not create more of it), but over the last couple years since I started playing, my lichess rating (fluctuating between 1200-1400) appears to have a very strong correlation with my mental health. Of course it's obvious if you think about it, but it's very odd to have this accurate of an indicator with h…

I can see big life events in my rating history. (Went on vacation, new relationship, breakup, big project at work, etc). So I actually use it as a barometer. If my rating starts to drop for days on end I know I need to reflect on what's going on in my life.

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

#285

Post by cyrillaw »

erfgh wrote: post #171
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…

Some people just want to have fun and that's what blitz is for. Why are people so preoccupied with improving when it comes to chess? If any other game is mentioned the discussion will not be so centered on improvement as it is with chess. Maybe it is because chess has this air of a "thinking man's game" which does not really deserve. It's just a game like any other.

Once a certain acumen is reached, chess becomes a much better spectator sport.

Older games become interesting to watch, mate in 6-8 puzzles become tenable, chess books about specific openings make more sense. Once a player knows how to finish basic endgames and accord himself properly in the middle game, they have the tools to grasp opening theory. From there on, there is a huge body of information about opening theory, playing styles, control and leverage of center, etc etc.

Much of the ink spilled about this game is a bit impenetrable without some acumen. But with enough appreciation to the past and present trends, one can fine tune one's playing style and really make the game your own.

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

#286

Post by pelasaco »

Misha_Bilous wrote: post #248
pelasaco wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s actually wrong. Short-term patterns will improve your chess short-term but you’ll hit the plateau pretty fast What you wrote, is exactly in-line with what the OT said: "Especially at lower levels, chess is a game of short term patterns, not long term strategy." You are beginner, you need some opening, some little patterns to move out from the beginner level, and then you reach a new plateau, but you understa…

Not having a long-term plan and focusing on short-term patterns is fundamentally wrong. You won't only hit the plateau but will be stuck there unless you relearn chess the right bias-free way.

> Not having a long-term plan and focusing on short-term patterns is fundamentally wrong.

There is nothing wrong in just wanting to learn to play chess, have some tricks under your belt and having fun.. focusing on short-term patterns, as adult, maybe not having a lot of time to learn "the right bias-free way" is the easiest way to start having some fun.

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

#287

Post by Misha_Bilous »

pelasaco wrote: post #286
Misha_Bilous wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having a long-term plan and focusing on short-term patterns is fundamentally wrong. You won't only hit the plateau but will be stuck there unless you relearn chess the right bias-free way.

> Not having a long-term plan and focusing on short-term patterns is fundamentally wrong. There is nothing wrong in just wanting to learn to play chess, have some tricks under your belt and having fun.. focusing on short-term patterns, as adult, maybe not having a lot of time to learn "the right bias-free way" is the easiest way to start having some fun.

That's right! If you want to spend on chess only a couple of months or beat your friends, then short-term patterns and gambits would be the best choice :)

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

#288

Post by vjerancrnjak »

bongodongobob wrote: post #282
vjerancrnjak wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit: what the other responder says I'm not saying I'm mating people in 3 moves. There are many unique mating opportunities in queen openings and many ways to create immense pressure on the king's side if the player does not defend well. Try it yourself and you'll quickly see that -2000 rated players (online) struggle with it. Similarly, you're not sacrificing development and you castle at the same moment (sometimes…

No one is saying you won in 3 moves. You didn't accidentally get to 2000 by playing trash openings, period.

Of course, it was by consistent 6-12 hour daily chess activities where most of the play was 2+1/3 blitz and 80%+ of the openings used queen very early. I played for fun without any particular goal outside of short term winning. I relied on my own learning progression and accepted it was inefficient. I'm pretty sure after 1-2 years, others could have achieved much more with the time I put in.

I am not claiming it was the fastest way to progress, that it's a way to progress forever, that it doesn't have any flaws.

Chess has a very big space of patterns that you can learn that have nothing to do with openings and in my experience they count much more early on.

I shared my experience out of curiosity. Are there others who experienced something similar?

From my experience, to progress when learning anything it's enough to be consistent. The brain does its thing during sleep. When a roadblock is reached, you have to be able to identify it and make a plan to improve. Would it be more efficient to have a tested plan or a tutor? In most cases, yes.

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

#289

Post by Shugarl »

Misha_Bilous wrote: post #243

>Especially at lower levels, chess is a game of short term patterns, not long term strategy. That’s actually wrong. Short-term patterns will improve your chess short-term but you’ll hit the plateau pretty fast. They don’t teach you to play better at chess. It’s like copypasting some code from the Internet without fully understanding how it works. In chess, it’s absolutely necessary to have a long-term plan: especiall…

I've tried learning strategies rather than tactics, but it's significantly harder both to learn and to use. I've learned a lot about imbalances for example, but all of this knowledge goes out of the window whenever I start playing.

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

#290

Post by plank »

JoeDaDude wrote: post #202
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.

A handful of games have been invented with the purpose of giving humans an edge over AI. They may have had a chance when the best AI was alpha-beta search, but against modern reinforcement methods, I don't believe they have a chance. The games invented were Octi [1] and Arimaa [2]. [1]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/450/octi [2]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4616/arimaa A casual search shows some discuss…

And of course the famous Calvinball.
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