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How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

gautamnarula.com

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Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#51

Post by charlieflowers »

pk2200 wrote: post #50
pk2200 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockfish (ranked #2 on the various computer rating lists) runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, Android. It's also free and open source! http://stockfishchess.org/ https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish

The Stockfish team has made tremendous progress recently, thanks to 1) putting the code on Github and accepting patches, and 2) building an open, distributed testing framework that tests every patch by playing thousands of games. http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests

OMG, that is cool! Testing by playing 1000's of games, like QuickCheck for chess.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#52

Post by thewarrior »

xerophtye wrote: post #45
thewarrior wrote: post #28

Is there something like this for programming ?

Here, use this: http://norvig.com/21-days.html

Well I have read that article. I do understand that true mastery can take a lifetime.

The posted article gives specific chess exercises which when practiced for 3 - 5 months can produce a marked improvement. I was asking whether there any such exercises for programming.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#54

Post by peterwwillis »

nathancahill wrote: post #11
peterwwillis wrote: post #2

> Error establishing a database connection For the love of god people. Please stop requiring a database connection to serve static content.

It's running on Wordpress. Do you know of static site generator that is similarly easy to use for non-technical people? I use Jekyll, but when I tried teaching it to someone I realized that the learning curve was too steep and switched them to Wordpress.

Existing platforms suck. Some of them have plugins or hacks for this, but mostly it's the fault of the developers for not making their tools more robust. So my comment is partly to blog users, partly to blog developers.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#55

Post by minopret »

thewarrior wrote: post #52
xerophtye wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, use this: http://norvig.com/21-days.html

Well I have read that article. I do understand that true mastery can take a lifetime. The posted article gives specific chess exercises which when practiced for 3 - 5 months can produce a marked improvement. I was asking whether there any such exercises for programming.

I enjoy ProjectEuler.net and I would put it in that category. Within the first few months I was motivated to learn a number of excellent Python performance tips. I can't guess whether you find math puzzles as compelling as I do, but [the popular article about Project Euler in The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/06/how-i-fa...) suggests that you don't have to have a history of enjoying math.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#57

Post by joe_the_user »

e12e wrote: post #46
joe_the_user wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not good to give quick Go learning tips but I think it's interesting that the general consensus is that Go and Chess quire significantly different "mindsets". Both are games of perfect information but it seems that the greater complexity of Go yields quantitatively different requirements for good play - in Go, people teaching generally talk about having the right attitude, avoid "greed" and similar "fuzzy" criter…

I wonder if it is still the case that Japanese Chess (shogi) is also considered "too hard" for AI. I'm by no means a proficient shogi player -- but found it a refreshing "variant" of chess. The main difference from chess, is that the board is 9x9, and crucially, that you get to play captured pieces. I like the idea of Go, but I'm afraid it's a little too simple for my tastes...

If you begin playing Go, you will find that strategic complexity go well beyond most people's ability to calculate so simple mostly applies only to the rules.

Anyway, I think games wind-up being hard to program when one is allowed many moves each turn. Go allows hundreds of potential moves and it is not easy to prune the tree or estimate the relative situations. I remember Shogi being described as similarly hard - I think the re-played captured pieces might be what makes the tree explode.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#59

Post by e12e »

joe_the_user wrote: post #57
e12e wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it is still the case that Japanese Chess (shogi) is also considered "too hard" for AI. I'm by no means a proficient shogi player -- but found it a refreshing "variant" of chess. The main difference from chess, is that the board is 9x9, and crucially, that you get to play captured pieces. I like the idea of Go, but I'm afraid it's a little too simple for my tastes...

If you begin playing Go, you will find that strategic complexity go well beyond most people's ability to calculate so simple mostly applies only to the rules. Anyway, I think games wind-up being hard to program when one is allowed many moves each turn. Go allows hundreds of potential moves and it is not easy to prune the tree or estimate the relative situations. I remember Shogi being described as similarly hard - I…

Oh, I absolutely know go is a complex game, I was talking about the "surface simplicity". It does appeal to me, but at the same time it strikes me as being too bare bones to really be enjoyable -- for me.

Maybe it's just that I think board games should be played on a proper board, with tactile feel of the pieces -- and I don't know anyone that play go (or shogi, for that matter) where I live. Also the main reason I don't play chess -- I can't really say I enjoy any of these games as computer games/internet games.

When a computer is involved, I fell I might as well play something with complex rules that leverages the computer, like Planetside ;-)

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#60

Post by narag »

k_os wrote: post #58

Is there any evidence that becoming good at chess improves any mental aspects or is it just a hard game that you can brag about being able to play?

At least for me, it's more than anything a lot of fun.

Honestly I don't care if it improves quatitative aspects of my thinking. There are other ways to do that.

But there are a couple of lessons that it keeps reminding me: to be very careful in the order I do things and to keep the ego out when analyzing a situation. Of course, YMMV.

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