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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)

#291

Post by pmontra »

prometheus76 wrote: post #230
pmontra wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I'm curious about this.

One question is what happens if you pair two of the top performers or two of the bottom ones? My prediction is that nothing changes.

The second one is related to the point of my comment. Can you build a graph date/performance? That could show curves similar to the ones of the go players and show how long it takes to flatten the curve.

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

#292

Post by EduardoBautista »

e40 wrote: post #267
EduardoBautista wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see how using a throwaway email was the giveaway that it was Chess.com sending those emails, the emails are clearly from Chess.com.

The comment I replied to made it sound as though they sold your data to a third party for marketing purposes or had a data breach.

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

#293

Post by sjducb »

ShoneRL wrote: post #175
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…

Local football team has people who are mostly mediocre and they make decent money, since I know one of the players. I don't mean to belittle their efforts or the time invested but generally, it is a competitive sport but it's also at same time providing more opportunities overall. I suppose it depends on where you are and how competitive it is. You do have a point about elite sport though the argument extends to casu…

Mediocre compared to who?

I’m pretty sure the worst professional player in your local team could beat me and my whole five aside team by himself.

The skill gap between professional and good amateur is huge.

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

#294

Post by sjducb »

ShoneRL wrote: post #175
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…

Local football team has people who are mostly mediocre and they make decent money, since I know one of the players. I don't mean to belittle their efforts or the time invested but generally, it is a competitive sport but it's also at same time providing more opportunities overall. I suppose it depends on where you are and how competitive it is. You do have a point about elite sport though the argument extends to casu…

I agree all casual sport is good, and that physical sports are better than sedentary ones.

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

#295

Post by gjm11 »

smatija wrote: post #204
gjm11 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that last "very concrete" line, the 'fish seems to think 8 ... Qc7 is a mistake, and after e.g. 8 ... Be7 instead it puts W at just +0.2, which is perfectly respectable but not obviously better for W than after 7 ... Be7. If you try the same g4; fg g5 idea, then it thinks B is actually slightly better after either ... Nfd7, or even better ... f3; Bxf3 Nfd7. I'm a patzer so don't claim to know what the key differen…

There is another finesse: the point of f4 is that White is threatening f5, attacking the bishop. Black then has a choice between retreating (which losses time) or Bxb3 (which gives White bishop pair). The point of Qc7 is that black can answer f5 with Bc4 - offering trade of bishops instead, which is a bit disappointing for White. This is why this resource with g4 is important. So if Black plays Qc7 White needs to kno…

Stockfish isn't convinced that f4 Be7; f5 Bd7 does give W a comfortable advantage; it reckons +0.2, same as if B plays ... Be7 after Nb3 as you recommend. Again, I'm a patzer so if your intuition/calculation says W is much better I don't have any refutation other than "computer says no". W's position sure looks more fun to play, with prospects of a kingside attack, but that's often true in the Sicilian even when things are objectively fairly balanced.

If I let it sit for a while, it vacillates between wanting to play g4, a3, Be3, h4, etc., and a quieter approach with Bg5xf6, Qd3, Nd2. At depth 46 it prefers the latter but only gives it +0.1 even though its PV shows W winning the d-pawn. Aaaand at depth 48 it's switched back to Operation Pawn Storm, though it wants to prepare with a3 and Bf3 before playing g4 and h4. And back to the piece manoeuvres and winning the d-pawn at depth 50. Still only +0.1, though.

(But computers are awfully good defenders, and maybe this is one of those positions that's much better for the attacking side when humans rather than computers are playing.)

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

#296

Post by prometheus76 »

pmontra wrote: post #291
prometheus76 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I'm curious about this. One question is what happens if you pair two of the top performers or two of the bottom ones? My prediction is that nothing changes. The second one is related to the point of my comment. Can you build a graph date/performance? That could show curves similar to the ones of the go players and show how long it takes to flatten the curve.

If you pair two top performers, they get slowed down by 10-20% because they each have their own way of approaching the work, and there's usually conflict as they are each convinced of their own way. They work even faster, however, if you put them next to each other, but working separately. They watch each other and start tacitly competing. You'll get another 10% out of them generally.

As for pairing the two lowest producers, they'll sink even more as they are confused by what the other person is doing and it slows them down.

Changing someone's level of productivity is essentially untrainable in my experience. It's not a training issue. The people at the bottom know how to do the work, but any attempt to show them a more efficient way of doing it is overwhelming and confusing to them, and they shut down.

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

#297

Post by getoffmycase »

narag wrote: post #87
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…

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, Is rating on chess.com similar to rating in lichess? The article mentions 1%, but you start with 1500 in lichess??? If you lose often, you quickly go down. But if you keep an even record, you stay in 1500. I don't understand how people learn from slamming blitz/bullet games. As in the article, speed t…

I am currently in a run playing rapid 5|5 because I found myself consistently running out of time in longer time controls. To me, improving at rapid is making significant progress in my overall chess abilities. I developed a better understanding of end games and openings , so that I can spend more time being careful in the middle game. Recently I noticed that I don’t run out of time in Rapid, and that’s progress to me, regardless of my ELO

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

#298

Post by hvs »

commanderkeen08 wrote: post #271
hvs wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As low-DDK player, what has helped me most is 1) Playing lots of games ( https://online-go.com and https://gokgs.com are good for this). I usually have a few correspondence games going and then try to play a normal speed game daily. Don't worry about winning and losing, just play. Begin to internalize how standard tactics reappear regularly on the board. 2) Do tsumego (life and death) a lot. But don't just try things…

> But don't just try things and see what happens But what if I don’t know how to do anything else? I’ve learned the basic rules but struggle really hard even figuring out what’s a legal move.

"GO: A Complete Introduction to the Game" by Cho Chikun is a good place to start. Then just start playing games. You can be auto-matched on online-go.com with players of close to your strength (and you can request a handicap in the settings as well. You are what is known as 30 kyu player (think "white belt" in karate). The great thing about go is that the handicap system allows you to play people of greatly varying skill and have a chance at beating them. Right now you could probably play up to a 21 kyu player with a 9 handicap (19x19 board) and still be on equal footing [1].

I can't stress enough the need to just play games. Have fun. If you don't enjoy it you won't keep doing it, so don't stress out about "doing the right thing." Just try stuff and see if it works. If it doesn't, oh well. Don't do that next time. I know I said "don't just try things" above, but that was specifically in learning to read life-and-death problems. At your level you should just be having fun playing games right now. Life-and-death problems can be boring (but necessary) for a lot of players so the important thing right now is that you enjoy playing. The other stuff will come along naturally as you develop the desire to get better.

Oh, and don't play against AI (even weak ones). They don't play like normal humans and will just confuse you more than help. At much higher levels, AI has been very helpful in finding new tactics and strategies that more optimal, but at your level, playing other humans will get you better much faster.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_ranks_and_ratings

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

#299

Post by smatija »

gjm11 wrote: post #295
smatija wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another finesse: the point of f4 is that White is threatening f5, attacking the bishop. Black then has a choice between retreating (which losses time) or Bxb3 (which gives White bishop pair). The point of Qc7 is that black can answer f5 with Bc4 - offering trade of bishops instead, which is a bit disappointing for White. This is why this resource with g4 is important. So if Black plays Qc7 White needs to kno…

Stockfish isn't convinced that f4 Be7; f5 Bd7 does give W a comfortable advantage; it reckons +0.2, same as if B plays ... Be7 after Nb3 as you recommend. Again, I'm a patzer so if your intuition/calculation says W is much better I don't have any refutation other than "computer says no". W's position sure looks more fun to play, with prospects of a kingside attack, but that's often true in the Sicilian even when thin…

I agree - computer should be able to defend resulting position, but with human eyes ...

Compare positions you get after:

- 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be2 e5 7. Nb3 Be7 8. Bg5 Be6 9. Bxf6 Bxf6 10. Qd3 Nc6

Black here has very natural development - his bishop is controlling d5, his knight is ready to jump to d4 (thus interfering with white heavy pieces control of d-file). Because of this he can liquidate into drawn (if difficult due to worse pawn structure) ending after 11. O-O-O Nd4 12. Nxd4 exd4 13. Nd5 Bxd5 14. exd5

This way of playing with Bg5 is not so popular anymore today (Be3 is way more topical, with either O-O or O-O-O), but it offers clearest comparison to analogous position.

- 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be2 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8. f4 Be7 9. f5 Bd7 10. Bg5 Bc6 11. Bxf6 Bxf6 12. Qd3

Black needs to control d5 and e6 is off-limits, so he has to reroute his bishop to c6, where his knight wants to be. White has lasting pressure on d-file, it's not clear how black will develop his knight and he cannot easily force pieces off the board.

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

#300

Post by me_me_me »

hinkley wrote: post #98
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 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…

They say you need to start as a kid for 2 main reasons, one as you mentioned time. Second is survivor bais. There are way more kids that suck as chess/whatever and stop playing than prodigies on path to become grandmasters.
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