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Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

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Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#61

Post by EForEndeavour »

DumbBoy wrote: post #19
mquander wrote: post #4

I have some personal experience that gives me a different perspective. I learned chess when very young (~5) but I failed to be a successful prodigy -- my rating capped out around 1100 USCF. Every few years I would pick the game back up and play a few tournaments, and each time I improved a bit. I love chess, but it's never been anything like the central focus of my life. In my late 20s I moved to California and also…

This is California you are talking about. They get the best of everything, least they can do is be good at their meaningless pursuits.

> They get the best of everything

Yeah, like a total lack of earthquakes, and pleasantly temperate summer temperatures!

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#62

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

WalterBright wrote: post #45
danielbarla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess is just about the most highly refined competitive intellectual task / "sport" you can ask for (by sheer weight of the number of serious players, and the level of play, though a similar argument can be made for Go). In and of itself, that could be an interesting concept to explore. And if we reject it, I suspect we'd also have to reject other competitive endaevours, like soccer, tennis, etc. To be honest, I some…

I long ago lost the remotest interest in who wins a baseball/tennis/football/olympic game, as it's meaningless. I know people get all wrapped around the axle on who wins, and the ludicrous propaganda of "medal counts" in the Olympics. But it's not for me. I have found it interesting to write software to play chess for me. The last few times I tried to play chess, my mind would just drift off designing a program to do…

> Why would those be less interesting than a contrived set of rules?

Because "contrived rules" are a kind of work of art. This is especially evident in modern board games as the concept of "contrived rules" is refined more and more and in ever branching variations.

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#63

Post by organsnyder »

person_of_color wrote: post #12
zawerf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A famous competitive programming prodigy is tourist[1]. You can find his rating graph starting from 2006 on topcoder when he was just 12 years old: https://www.topcoder.com/members/tourist/details/?track=DATA... He's now indisputably the best competitive programmer in the world. But it's comforting to know that he too had to slowly grow over many years starting from a mere mortal 1200 rating. [1] https://en.wikipedia…

What a waste of brain cycles.

I see no reason to criticize people that compete in this sort of thing. No different than any other intellectual sport.

I would be quick to criticize any claims that success in these sorts of competitions predicts success at delivering business value (which, unfortunately, is exactly what TopCoder's home page seems to be implying).

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#64

Post by ecocentrik »

philbarr wrote: post #52
icr0 wrote: post #18

I started chess at about 900 lichess, and plateaued at 1800(10+0 rapid). What got me from 900-1100 was playing carefully and evaluating my move before I played it(can this piece be taken/is there a mating strategy for my opponent), to prevent blunders What got me from 1100-1400 was learning two solid openings (Ruy lopez for both sides/ Grunfeld against 1.d4) 1400-1600 was doing hella tactic puzzles, and putting mysel…

Openings are the killer for me - I can never remember them, and it feels like a cheat to just remember a particular opening and trot out all the same moves all the time anyway. But then I lose because I've made an obvious mistake during the opening...

Memorized openings just get you out of the gate in avoiding common pitfalls. Understanding why they work gets you a lot further. It's very similar to music in this way. Learning to play a song is a very different exercise from delving into music theory, improvising and composing other songs in the same form.

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#65

Post by have_faith »

philbarr wrote: post #52
icr0 wrote: post #18

I started chess at about 900 lichess, and plateaued at 1800(10+0 rapid). What got me from 900-1100 was playing carefully and evaluating my move before I played it(can this piece be taken/is there a mating strategy for my opponent), to prevent blunders What got me from 1100-1400 was learning two solid openings (Ruy lopez for both sides/ Grunfeld against 1.d4) 1400-1600 was doing hella tactic puzzles, and putting mysel…

Openings are the killer for me - I can never remember them, and it feels like a cheat to just remember a particular opening and trot out all the same moves all the time anyway. But then I lose because I've made an obvious mistake during the opening...

It's more important to remember the theme of an opening than the specifics of the multiple lines sprouting from it. For instance some openings revolve around having a bishop on a strong diagonal and an important central square or two to hold. If you remember these themes a lot of the available moves become (relatively) easy to work out, because you know why the moves are made in the first place. The best thing you can do is find resources that cover the themes as much as the lines/moves themselves, some of the Lichess studies are good, some just cover moves though which isn't helpful.

I've played a lot of people that go down 12 moves of an opening they remembered only to falter as soon as their memory runs out. It's very common, and you will always run out.

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#66

Post by projektir »

WalterBright wrote: post #45
danielbarla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess is just about the most highly refined competitive intellectual task / "sport" you can ask for (by sheer weight of the number of serious players, and the level of play, though a similar argument can be made for Go). In and of itself, that could be an interesting concept to explore. And if we reject it, I suspect we'd also have to reject other competitive endaevours, like soccer, tennis, etc. To be honest, I some…

I long ago lost the remotest interest in who wins a baseball/tennis/football/olympic game, as it's meaningless. I know people get all wrapped around the axle on who wins, and the ludicrous propaganda of "medal counts" in the Olympics. But it's not for me. I have found it interesting to write software to play chess for me. The last few times I tried to play chess, my mind would just drift off designing a program to do…

> The universe is full of puzzles that mean something to solve. Why not work on those instead? Why would those be less interesting than a contrived set of rules?

Can you give some examples? Most things I'm aware of that could be classified as puzzles require, at the very least, enormous time investment, if not specialization, and there's often lots of drudgery along the way.

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#67

Post by pessimizer »

Yajirobe wrote: post #40
WalterBright wrote: post #30

I can't say I understand devoting such time to learning a completely useless, extremely narrow, skill. Learning mathematics is useful. Learning to play a guitar is useful. Learning to program is useful. I came to this conclusion in college. It was hard enough learning math, thermo, physics, etc., and seemed a complete waste of time to get better at chess. The former consumed my mental energies.

How are guitar playing skills useful if you don't plan to be a professional musician?

You can entertain people around a campfire. Or even on plastic benches on a concrete patio outside of a Nowhere, Arkansas highway gas station that sells milkshakes.

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#68

Post by soup10 »

zawerf wrote: post #8
mquander wrote: post #4

I have some personal experience that gives me a different perspective. I learned chess when very young (~5) but I failed to be a successful prodigy -- my rating capped out around 1100 USCF. Every few years I would pick the game back up and play a few tournaments, and each time I improved a bit. I love chess, but it's never been anything like the central focus of my life. In my late 20s I moved to California and also…

A famous competitive programming prodigy is tourist[1]. You can find his rating graph starting from 2006 on topcoder when he was just 12 years old: https://www.topcoder.com/members/tourist/details/?track=DATA... He's now indisputably the best competitive programmer in the world. But it's comforting to know that he too had to slowly grow over many years starting from a mere mortal 1200 rating. [1] https://en.wikipedia…

Never really liked the structure of Topcoder and similar competitions most of the "skill" is just memorizing the algorithms that show up frequently and practicing typing out the solutions fast. A great mathematician would be able to finish a math exam quicker and more accurately than a student. But someone that spends all their time practicing speedrunning math exams would smoke him, only a fool would say the speedrunner is more talented at mathematics than the mathematician that understands the material deeply and has innovated and contributed to the field.

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#69

Post by icr0 »

soup10 wrote: post #68
zawerf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A famous competitive programming prodigy is tourist[1]. You can find his rating graph starting from 2006 on topcoder when he was just 12 years old: https://www.topcoder.com/members/tourist/details/?track=DATA... He's now indisputably the best competitive programmer in the world. But it's comforting to know that he too had to slowly grow over many years starting from a mere mortal 1200 rating. [1] https://en.wikipedia…

Never really liked the structure of Topcoder and similar competitions most of the "skill" is just memorizing the algorithms that show up frequently and practicing typing out the solutions fast. A great mathematician would be able to finish a math exam quicker and more accurately than a student. But someone that spends all their time practicing speedrunning math exams would smoke him, only a fool would say the speedru…

Topcoder is kinda flawed, but competitions like the IOI and ICPC are quite legit. In addition, `tourist`is the top performer on codeforces as well as basically any competitive programming site

Re: Learning Chess at 40 (2016)

#70

Post by icr0 »

WalterBright wrote: post #30

I can't say I understand devoting such time to learning a completely useless, extremely narrow, skill. Learning mathematics is useful. Learning to play a guitar is useful. Learning to program is useful. I came to this conclusion in college. It was hard enough learning math, thermo, physics, etc., and seemed a complete waste of time to get better at chess. The former consumed my mental energies.

I mean, to be completely honest, I find playing chess very fun, even if it was a "waste of time"
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