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Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

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Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#71

Post by fenomas »

ryan-allen wrote: post #41
Retra wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard work can also just be mentally exhausting, and it's much easier to just wait for a proper creative mood than to struggle for who-knows-how-long trying to do something you know you can easily do with far less effort at a later time.

I read the book end to end, reviewed in this post (which was on HN ages ago): http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/04/23/daily-rituals-mason-... It's about great people and how they structured their days. What seems to be fairly consistent was that they were often 'on and off' as well, but to try to ensure that they did actually get work done consistently was to work a) every day and b) not for too long. So each day was…

Raymond Chandler had an interesting take on this. Basically he set aside four or five hours each day, during which he did not have to write, but he was not allowed to do anything else constructive. He could lay around or stare out the window, but no reading or paying bills - it was write or do nothing. Everything else, he said, came of itself.

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#72

Post by boomlinde »

Traubert wrote: post #59
boomlinde wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "playing perfectly" you mean making the right moves, not really. If the goal of chess is to win, the perfect player can't lose. If a person plays perfectly and loses, what does that make the winning player? The point here is obviously that Magic has an element of chance that chess lacks.

Maybe the winning player is white and chess is a win by force for white. Or the same could even be true about black! (Probably not.)

That is a good point. White has an advantage at least statistically, and in a match I think that your color is decided by chance.

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#73

Post by CSMastermind »

V-2 wrote: post #61
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised he so candidly rates his own abilities and the abilities of his peers // In chess though you have a ranking, you have past games to compare. It would be silly for him to say "oh, I'm not that good" as there's a measured value which [possibly incorrectly] says he's the world number one. Similarly he spends a lot of his time assessing his opponents, their games, their characters. I found it interesting…

There's also rating inflation, though, which makes cross-era comparisons flawed. And besides, many players have their nemesis. Sheer numbers don't reflect that. Eg. Anand used to be one of the strongest players in the world, but overshadowed, some say intimidated, by Kasparov before the latter retired. Given Anand's rating, he performed quite poorly against Kasparov.

Are you aware of any attempt to compare cross generationally based on game trees? Find game positions that both players have faced and see who made the better move?

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#74

Post by V-2 »

CSMastermind wrote: post #73
V-2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also rating inflation, though, which makes cross-era comparisons flawed. And besides, many players have their nemesis. Sheer numbers don't reflect that. Eg. Anand used to be one of the strongest players in the world, but overshadowed, some say intimidated, by Kasparov before the latter retired. Given Anand's rating, he performed quite poorly against Kasparov.

Are you aware of any attempt to compare cross generationally based on game trees? Find game positions that both players have faced and see who made the better move?

Yes,

http://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-st...

I remember there was a heated debate as for whether or not Crafty was a strong enough engine for the task.

I don't have all the links at hand, but it shouldn't be difficult to find various parts of this discussion.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/using-che-engines-to-estimate-h...

Authors of the research argued that contrary to what common sense implies, even if it Crafty is weaker than some evaluated players could have been, results are still legit.

Of course this approach doesn't give full justice to players - while some might have strived for winning by perfect play, others could deliberately play inferior moves just to create complications and provoke their opponents into making mistakes worse than their own, by getting them into time trouble, making them uneasy etc. (eg. Tal was famous for that).

A game - oversimplifying a bit - is won by the player who made less mistakes than the opponent, not by the one who made less mistakes on an absolute scale. So both strategies are valid as far as sport is concerned.

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#75

Post by lmm »

adamnemecek wrote: post #9
jonny_eh wrote: post #6

I'd love to see Carlsen play a modern game like Hearthstone or Magic. Even just to hear his thoughts on them.

I would guess that he'd feel like there is too much chance. The issue with a game like Magic is that you can play perfectly and still lose. And I say this as someone who loves the game. EDIT: I read further and it seems like he enjoys poker. So I guess it's possible that he'd enjoy MTG.

Have you compared e.g. Mage Wars? I was thinking about this earlier today; there's still a little randomness (the dice), but because you always have your whole spellbook to choose from, it feels like the game's more towards the chess end of the spectrum.

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#76

Post by lmm »

boomlinde wrote: post #72
Traubert wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the winning player is white and chess is a win by force for white. Or the same could even be true about black! (Probably not.)

That is a good point. White has an advantage at least statistically, and in a match I think that your color is decided by chance.

At grandmaster level a match will consist of a large number of games, sometimes an even number, with the players alternating between white and black.

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#77

Post by Igglyboo »

lgieron wrote: post #51
Igglyboo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have to agree. Great magic players (kibler, finkel, lsv, anyone in the hall of fame) will often have lifetime win rates that are slightly higher than 50% with 60% in a single season being an extreme outlier.

Wow, really? Do you have a source for that?

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg...

So my memory is failing me and I was off by a decent amount, seems mid 60's is an average ceiling for win rate.

This is just an example from the 2013 season at the world championships. You'll want to sort it by Con(structed) Win %. Even the best players in the world win slightly more than they lose over an entire season.

EDIT: Actually individual hall of famers might be better to look at, especially since these are lifetime stats.

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/halloffame.aspx?x=...

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/halloffame.aspx?x=...

If yo go to the career stats page you'll see that kibler has a lifetime win rate of around 60% and finkel is slightly higher than that.

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#78

Post by kissickas »

muyuu wrote: post #64
boomlinde wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "playing perfectly" you mean making the right moves, not really. If the goal of chess is to win, the perfect player can't lose. If a person plays perfectly and loses, what does that make the winning player? The point here is obviously that Magic has an element of chance that chess lacks.

In real terms it does happen, since branching factor makes true perfection impossible in chess. You can play theoretically superior chess and calculate more positions than your opponent and still lose the game, although it's very unlikely. Both player have a horizon and sometimes they can bump in a position of clear superiority for one side that none predicted.

I'm not sure I understand. Wouldn't this mean there is a sequence of moves I can memorize that will result in a winning game, every time?

If such a game could be foiled by the other player making a "bad" move, then it would by definition not be a bad move.

Re: Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)

#80

Post by [deleted] »

kizer wrote: post #2

I think there's a great analogy for why he cares so little about his intelligence: do you think Michael Jordan sat around admiring his build, his height, etc? In a competitive environment, it's best to accept that some of your abilities are fixed, so you can focus on training what can be bettered.

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