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Learning Chess at 40

nautil.us

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Re: Learning Chess at 40

#61

Post by StanislavPetrov »

rilut wrote: post #49
pcmaffey wrote: post #41

I highly recommend speed chess (5 mins), as it allows for many more repetitions. You'll learn faster what works / doesn't. Intersperse every once in a while with a slow game to rethink your fundamentals and strategy. Also, speed chess is much more forgiving. 1 mistake is not the end of the game, as time is the great equalizer. Whereas in slow chess, going down a pawn unintentionally is often a loss.

Where can I play speed chess against computer (offline/online) or people online?

I'd suggest checking out FICS (Free Internet Chess Servers) which has been running for about 20 years.

http://www.freechess.org/

There are a variety of clients that you can use to access it. I'd recommend Babaschess (also free).

http://www.babaschess.net/

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#63

Post by dfc »

lordnacho wrote: post #12
danielvf wrote: post #2

I'm learning the game of Go at near fourty. But I'm not having any of the problems he describes. A great thing about learning and playing online is that you can find an opponent at your same skill level within minutes. Unlike learning in a local club, where every person you will ever play beats you every time, I win slightly more than half my games. I also get this nice increasing graph of my skill level. This is a l…

I wish physical sports were like this. Anything online is blessed with this mechanic where you can keep it challenging for everyone other than the people at the top or bottom (based on my experience in CoD where I'm pretty sure I'm bottom). With sports like soccer it's quite noticeable that some people are way better than everyone else, or way worse. And there's no way to improve since you can't just rearrange thousa…

Ages ago I was in the top five for Domination in CoD:WaW. It was still remarkably challenging and exciting. Its not about which team wins (as long as I had one or two of my "good friends" any lobby was going to be a team win), as you get better the number of "micro contests" on each map grows: can I get dogs before we get the B-flag, can I satchel charge the enemy tank as I hop in the weakened tank my loser teammate bailed from, etc. Not to mention there is always the increased expectation to never have a bad game if you are on the top of the leaderboards and a bad game is not just a dent in your W/L, it also produces the inevitable deluge of moronic messages from people accusing you of boosting and being a try hard.

I think competitive video gaming is like anything else, in order to excel and stay at the top you have to constantly compete against yourself.

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#65

Post by dfc »

jlg23 wrote: post #51
rilut wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can I play speed chess against computer (offline/online) or people online?

A great, free site: http://lichess.org/

Its really a toss up between lichess and fics. I wish lichess did not let people chose color for rated games. I also miss xboard...

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#66

Post by sweeneyrod »

bobjordan wrote: post #55

Science be damned. I reject any reasoning built on limit based thinking. I'm 40 now and if I wanted to be world class chess player by 50, I would be. We are all constrained by the limits we accept. Limits can be accepted at any age. There are plenty of limits I have accepted by 40. The problem becomes when we believe those limits are not optional. Any limit I accept is optional.

Unless you are already a good chess player, 10 years isn't long enough to become world class, even for a talented youngster. Thousands of hours of practice is necessary, but not sufficient, to become truly world class. You could become a strong amateur, but without special talent you wouldn't be able become a grandmaster.

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#67

Post by fonosip »

reefoctopus wrote: post #4
danielvf wrote: post #2

I'm learning the game of Go at near fourty. But I'm not having any of the problems he describes. A great thing about learning and playing online is that you can find an opponent at your same skill level within minutes. Unlike learning in a local club, where every person you will ever play beats you every time, I win slightly more than half my games. I also get this nice increasing graph of my skill level. This is a l…

Where do you play?

Try http://go.ba.net Play Go with Friends or Bots no registration, no download needed

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#68

Post by markism »

jnbiche wrote: post #36
EliRivers wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As I've got older I felt I learned stuff much more quickly than when I started college." Drifting into a personal monologue, I know I am a lot better at learning now than I was 15 years ago. Learning advanced mathematics now is much easier than it was then (measured in the rather subjective unit of "amount learned / time taken"). Languages also are much easier. The only difference is the amount of time I put in now…

At around 40, I'm now learning things like math quicker, but then I forget them a year later, whereas the things I learned in college I still remember now. Is this normal, I wonder? You might say, well, if you're forgetting them a year later then you didn't really learn them, but I disagree. I feel more complete mastery of a subject matter more now than I did in my teens. No, I forget things I learn much more quickly…

This might be as simple as the fact that you're spacing your learning out less. In college you learned things over a span of 15 weeks, giving you many opportunities for spaced repetition, which is one of the most effective methods to make material stick. Now I'm assuming you learn material in much less time than a semester, so there's less repetition and therefore less long term retention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#69

Post by agarden »

chongli wrote: post #39
ktRolster wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Viktor Korchnoi gave his expert opinion that most chess grandmasters hit their peak around age 40, maybe a little after. He also tried to analyze what gave various people the drive to work hard enough to become a grandmaster. Also, Anand would arguably be world champion right now if he had the stamina. His knowledge of the game is probably the deepest of anyone, but he runs out of energy as th game progresses.

That's a fascinating insight about Anand. I wonder if he'd improve by hiring a personal trainer to increase his physical fitness?

Physical fitness is given a lot of attention by players at the very top of chess. Here is a quote from an article that talks a bit about it.

“Anand has been pretty active as well,” says the Bad Sodener Zeitung. “He bought a season ticket for the swimming pool in Bad Soden and swam about 1000 metres per day. He would also run 10km every day and has also been spotted on a bicycle in the beautiful hills around Bad Soden. He lost about six kilos this summer. Most of the time, though, Anand prepared for the match in the Chess Tigers Training Centre with his seconds.”

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-viswanathan-anand-world...

Re: Learning Chess at 40

#70

Post by MichaelGG »

keiferski wrote: post #11

Probably the most interesting example of someone pursuing chess later in life is that of Marcel Duchamp, the famous Cubist artist. He grew up playing chess for fun, but at age 36 he basically stopped making art and started pursuing chess full-time. "I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art—and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position." "The chess pi…

I just don't see the beauty in chess. It's got a lot of unjustifiable, inherent complexity. Different pieces with different rules under different conditions. You wouldn't expect multiple designers to converge, or discover, that game. It even has cultural elements embedded.

Whereas Go is nearly as simple as possible, yet much deeper. It's easy to imagine different designers coming to the same set of rules.

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