On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years • Hacker News Board

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#301

Post by Falell » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

Trufa wrote: post #93

prune2000 wrote: post #10

You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by other players on opening theories, free analysis of your games, and all these statistics about your progress and more! Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Good luck!

I’m a huge fan of lichess for playing and analysis but I think for tactics, it’s the one place it’s lacking, it’s always too easy for me for some reason and I go to chesstempo instead. Does anyone else experience this? By the way, when I say easy it’s for me that I’m an average player.

I'm also not a fan of lichess's puzzles, especially on mobile.

Over the years I've been bitten for weeks at a time by a bug that fetches a batch of puzzles at a time on mobile, and then loops through those 50 puzzles repeatedly instead of fetching more.

Even when not bugged, this behavior of 'fetch N puzzles at once' heavily encourages rating ping pong, you get a batch of easy puzzles, get them all right so your rating jumps more than it should, then a batch of hard puzzles and get crushed. I found I only ever progressed on lichess after grinding meaningful improvement slowly on chess.com, then coming back to lichess to 'catch up my rating'.

I also quite like Chess.com's Puzzle Rush.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#302

Post by aerovistae » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #284

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually I decided that I no longer wished to prioritize the game over other things This is what I unfortunately found as well. I reached Legend in Hearthstone (The top rank, no clue what percentile it was) a while back and top 3-5% in StarCraft II a couple of years ago. In both games I stopped playing shortly after reaching that level because the time investment just didn't seem worth it to me. I love games, but…

I stopped playing RTS entirely some years ago because of that. I used to love RTS but... 1. Rushing is stupid, all RTS seemly suffer from allowing it even when devs attempt to curb that down, I remember in AOE for example people training on how to build towers on the enemy base in 2 minutes or how to win with villager rush. (also knew a guy that relentlessy tested ways to rise to the second age faster) 2. Singleplaye…

> 1. Rushing is stupid, all RTS seemly suffer from allowing it even when devs attempt to curb that down, I remember in AOE for example people training on how to build towers on the enemy base in 2 minutes or how to win with villager rush. (also knew a guy that relentlessly tested ways to rise to the second age faster)

I have to politely refute this. "Rushing" is the word inexperienced players use for "playing in a more optimal way that prepares you to attack sooner." If you call it "rushing," what you're really saying is that you need other players to deliberately play worse to give you extra time to prepare. All of these strategies have counterplay and usually lead into long games. Using a vil rush or tower rush is not a way to end the game, it's a way to begin it.

> 3. Multiplayer is a matter of how fast you click and how good you are with pattern matching and some other training-related things, intelligence for example isn't that important, rote learning, time to practice, etc... that is.

Again, you could only say this if you had not made it to a competitive level. Intelligence is pattern-matching. And of course playing anything at a competitive level involves "training-related things," that's a kind of meaningless statement if I'm being honest. And I can't speak for StarCraft, but in AoE2 APM is not essential. To prove the point, the top-rated player has beaten other top 200 players without using his keyboard. It's about decision-making. Even at my level, I can beat other players rated a couple hundred points beneath me without using keyboard shortcuts just because my decision-making is better.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#303

Post by drexlspivey » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

tikej wrote: post #105

sedivy94 wrote: post #31

Highly, highly recommend "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix. Like wow.

It is a cool series but nowhere near real description of chess. Of course it’s ok, but it’s worth to remember, that in order to get to the international level you need excellent coaches and years of brutal many hour practice. Talent is somewhat important but nowhere as important as training. To have more objective outlook at “chess prodigy” story it’s interesting to look story of Joshua Waitzkin. He is a great and ta…

Mikhail Botvinik who was the world champion between 1948-1963 (with two brief 1-year disruptions) also had a career as an electrical engineer during his peak chess years

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#304

Post by ksdale » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

jniedrauer wrote: post #265

erfgh wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually no, most physical sports are not like that because the human body has limits and exceeding them is counter-productive because it leads to injuries. Most professional soccer players spend about 1-2 hours per day on training. Off-season they will spend slightly more but that's only for about 3-4 weeks. Doing anything more leads to injuries.

1-2 hours of training per day is incredibly low for a professional athlete. Professional cyclists are on the bike for over half the day, and there is even more work to be done on active recovery and strength training. Even runners, who are more limited by their body than nearly any other sport, spend 15+ hours a week just on running. It's a full time job.

I agree, there's no way professional soccer players only practice 1-2 hours a day. I'd guess 1-2 in the gym plus another few hours at least actually practicing soccer. Even something that's fairly brutal like American football involves an hour or two per day in the gym, plus practice. Professional athletes figure out how to practice as much as possible in a way that doesn't lead to long-term injury and "as much as possible" is almost always way more than a couple hours per day.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#305

Post by gutter_rat » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:38 PM UTC

_the_inflator wrote: post #157

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually I decided that I no longer wished to prioritize the game over other things This is what I unfortunately found as well. I reached Legend in Hearthstone (The top rank, no clue what percentile it was) a while back and top 3-5% in StarCraft II a couple of years ago. In both games I stopped playing shortly after reaching that level because the time investment just didn't seem worth it to me. I love games, but…

I sacrificed around 1 year during university to Age of Empires. Wasn't my most productive year at uni. Anyone remembers DBD_Jinx? For very long the only western dude to compete with the Koreans in 1vs1. However he also confessed, that he had partly sacrificed his private life for it. I trained a lot. I trained hours a day on 2X speed hunting, build order. I played under many smurf accounts, to then foster my primary…

In 2000, I came out of my first retirement to play a couple tournaments. The first time I heard of DBD_Jinx was when he beat me in the second round of the BattleTop NYC Challenge. He went on to win the tournament and became widely recognized as a top player.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#306

Post by rozim » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

mrpotato wrote: post #297

prune2000 wrote: post #10

You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by other players on opening theories, free analysis of your games, and all these statistics about your progress and more! Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Good luck!

> Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Could you point me to where/how I can do this? It is definitely something I'd like to see! Thanks

Go to your 'Profile' page, then 'Chess Insights' and you end up at a URL like:

https://lichess.org/insights/atabotix/acpl/variant ^^^^^^^^ user name

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#307

Post by slothtrop » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

RivieraKid wrote: post #131

blub wrote: post #115

I would recommend chess for kids/teens, because it's an interesting way to teach certain self-control and tactical/strategy concepts which can be applied in real life. As an adult, chess is a time sink with very little upside if you want to be at least decent, especially at longer time controls. I've been playing chess for more than a couple of decades, but recently decided to stop partly because of the pandemic, but…

This is my take as well. I had a few periods when I was spending time trying to get good at chess, but after the initial enthusiasm evaporated, I realized that it's just a waste of time and energy. You only have a limited amount of peak mental performance per day, why use it for something that has questionable benefits over playing video games or watching Netflix? It's better to use my mental resource to learn and ma…

Ultimately when it comes to craft, one has to find some value in the work, not just the product which ultimately doesn't matter much. Making trinkets, music or software no one needs is no more valuable than a game. I like the general trend of a push toward creation vs consumption, but a sport/game can have a higher level of engagement and challenge, which is a nice mental workout and also offers social outlets.

Add to the fact it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. You can make shit and play games too.

There have been similar threads actually about reading, e.g. "don't waste so much time on literature, it's overrated, do other rewarding things". You can extend the argument to anything you want.

The question of "value" seems personal.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#308

Post by perfect_wave » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #40

windowshopping wrote: post #28

I did something very similar with an old strategy game called Age of empires II. Over the course of two years I went from a 1300 rating to 1850. I don't play chess, so it's hard for me to compare the scales, but I will say the highest players were rated around 2600. I think being 1850 put me around 90-95th percentile for active players-- there were less than 50 players over 2300, and only a few hundred over 2000. My…

> Eventually I decided that I no longer wished to prioritize the game over other things This is what I unfortunately found as well. I reached Legend in Hearthstone (The top rank, no clue what percentile it was) a while back and top 3-5% in StarCraft II a couple of years ago. In both games I stopped playing shortly after reaching that level because the time investment just didn't seem worth it to me. I love games, but…

Also a Hearthstone player here- I used to regularly hit top 200 legend on ladder. I think one of the biggest lessons that I got out of starting to get more into the competitive scene is that there's more to games than trying to be the absolute best and that I need to set my limits and figure out where I can have fun without letting something take over my life.

I've since cut back significantly on my Hearthstone playing and been able to apply similar thinking to other games I've picked up (for example Magic The Gathering: Arena). Games are for having fun not for endlessly trying to get better. That was probably a mentality that I picked up from years of MMORPG (Runescape) addiction.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#309

Post by slothtrop » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #209

cupofcoffee wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please tell us more about your day to day life and why 2 hours of free-time is considered a luxury?

If you have a full-time job, family, friends, exercise, and have a hobby or two already - I'm not sure where you come up with two hours of free time per day after that. Are you literally scheduling everything you do? Are you sleeping less than 6 hours? Obviously, there's probably 2 hours per day in small intervals where I'm not maximizing my day. Because of this, I recently picked up guitar, and this is nice for the…

Similarly I've wanted to allocate some amount of time to a creative outlet, which I've neglected for some time. Huge time sink to get something out of it, I feel. I also enjoy variety when it comes to games. That can be chess at times, but not in a dedicated, obsessive sense, just a means to flex my mind a bit with puzzles.

Admittedly, level of challenge in games can vary tremendously. I always like to have one on rotation that is difficult.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#310

Post by thelean12 » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

Galanwe wrote: post #246

screwt wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ELO ratings start at 600 for absolute beginner. With a good amount of effort, a dedicated amateur can reach ~1500 without too much difficulty, and at that level you'll beat any casual player. 2000 is international standard. Best human player is around 2700. Note - chess.com does not use ELO ratings - they have their own rating system which is more complex (includes an uncertainty factor based on how recently you have…

> With a good amount of effort, a dedicated amateur can reach ~1500 without too much difficulty I read that kind of argument all over the place in the chess community, and that really strikes me as some kind of misplaced elitism. ELO can be seen as a glorified indicator of where you stand in the distribution of a pool of players. Math aside, the ELO is a system that allows for the distribution of scores to evolve inc…

Key phrase being "dedicated" amateur.

I bet 2 years of daily effort and study would get most people to 1500.

How many people play for years without actual dedication, or join tournaments before they're at the 1500 level, or quit when they keep losing a lot to higher level people in tournaments, or whatever?

My definition of "dedicated" probably removes at least 50+% of the pool right away.