How To Think About Chess
taaalk.co
How To Think About Chess
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Re: How To Think About Chess
#2Besides the awesome content - which is great for starters to grasp some basic concepts of tactics and pay attention to some common patterns on the checkboard -
I love the format too.
It's really a conversation, a chat, but with solid content and serious people. So following is really easy, and satisfying. (unlike audio/videos of interviews here you can go back and reread lots of times a passage you lost - which is good.)
So Kudos also to the Taaalk team for the great design and format.
Re: How To Think About Chess
#3Besides the awesome content - which is great for starters to grasp some basic concepts of tactics and pay attention to some common patterns on the checkboard - I love the format too. It's really a conversation, a chat, but with solid content and serious people. So following is really easy, and satisfying. (unlike audio/videos of interviews here you can go back and reread lots of times a passage you lost - which is go…
I like the format and the content as well, but the domain name and company name seem pretty terrible, if I'm to be honest.
Imagine explaining it to a friend or prospective user.
"Yeah it's called Taaalk, just go to taaalk.co"
"What, talk.co?"
"No, you need 3 As."
user types 3 more As
"Taaaalk.co is giving me a 404."
"Sorry, you needed 2 more As, let's start over."
"Taalk.co?"
"Just google 'talk'. Actually, wait, don't do that..."
And for that matter, what is the official pronunciation? "Talk"? Or do you have to elongate the vowel? How long should you elongate it for?
Seems like they should decide on a new name before they invest too much into this one.
Re: How To Think About Chess
#4Besides the awesome content - which is great for starters to grasp some basic concepts of tactics and pay attention to some common patterns on the checkboard - I love the format too. It's really a conversation, a chat, but with solid content and serious people. So following is really easy, and satisfying. (unlike audio/videos of interviews here you can go back and reread lots of times a passage you lost - which is go…
I like the format and the content as well, but the domain name and company name seem pretty terrible, if I'm to be honest. Imagine explaining it to a friend or prospective user. "Yeah it's called Taaalk, just go to taaalk.co" "What, talk.co?" "No, you need 3 As." user types 3 more As "Taaaalk.co is giving me a 404." "Sorry, you needed 2 more As, let's start over." "Taalk.co?" "Just google 'talk'. Actually, wait, don'…
Or "Yeah it's called Taaalk.co with 3 As"
Re: How To Think About Chess
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the format and the content as well, but the domain name and company name seem pretty terrible, if I'm to be honest. Imagine explaining it to a friend or prospective user. "Yeah it's called Taaalk, just go to taaalk.co" "What, talk.co?" "No, you need 3 As." user types 3 more As "Taaaalk.co is giving me a 404." "Sorry, you needed 2 more As, let's start over." "Taalk.co?" "Just google 'talk'. Actually, wait, don'…
Or "Yeah it's called Taaalk.co with 3 As"
Even if you say that, a not insignificant number of users are still probably going to type either taalk.co or taaaalk.co to start with.
Re: How To Think About Chess
#6I got really into chess for a bit, but started to find it sort of boring after a while. Midgames can be interesting but the early games are simply displays of memorization. Really incredibly good players end in draws more often than not.
Games like Starcraft are pretty much the exact same - there's a defined early game, a midgame and endgame.
Re: How To Think About Chess
#7I have an expert level rating. I agree with everything in the content. My games are very similar to what he describes. I have not memorized many openings. I just know a few moves in common openings and how to respond to a few quirky responses to them. I want to get to the middle game or out of my opponents memory as quickly as possible. I also sometimes deliberately make some opening weak moves to get out of opponent's memory.
One main thing I found in my experience is, majority of the games in amateur level are decided by blunders. I am not talking about small positional bad moves. These loose pieces are get mated in one move. If you are an amateur first focus on avoiding them by studying tactics before memorizing anything else.
Re: How To Think About Chess
#8Good conversation at about my level (read: plays a bit, but not necessarily well). I've noticed that many new players seem to obsess on their Openings, while my skills are very much the Endgame (I'm great at holding multiple logic trees in my head, which becomes an asset late in a game when you can pursue these to a checkmate). Basically, if I can survive 15 moves against comparably skilled players, I will win.
But that's an "if". I thrashed a mate in about a dozen games in a row, including one where I called 'Checkmate in 8' which drove him mad. And then the following game he 'pantsed' me, drove through to a checkmate without me even taking a single of his pieces.
Is there a point here? I guess you'll rarely win a match in the Opening, but you can lose it. And maybe more people should practice end game positions instead of just playing lots of games from the start and researching Openings because of the literature volume dedicated to those.
Re: How To Think About Chess
#9I got really into chess for a bit, but started to find it sort of boring after a while. Midgames can be interesting but the early games are simply displays of memorization. Really incredibly good players end in draws more often than not. Games like Starcraft are pretty much the exact same - there's a defined early game, a midgame and endgame.
>> there's a defined early game, a midgame and endgame.
all things with defined start and finish criteria can be conceptualized this way.
careers: education is early game setting you up for success, job/career is midgame, retirement is end game.
relationships: dating is early game, engagement/marriage is midgame, death/divorce is end game.
software development: envision project/write requirements is early game, coding/developing/testing is midgame, shipping and bug patching/customer support is end game.
... I could go on and on, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader
Re: How To Think About Chess
#10Good conversation at about my level (read: plays a bit, but not necessarily well). I've noticed that many new players seem to obsess on their Openings, while my skills are very much the Endgame (I'm great at holding multiple logic trees in my head, which becomes an asset late in a game when you can pursue these to a checkmate). Basically, if I can survive 15 moves against comparably skilled players, I will win. But t…
Is there a playstyle of chess where both players agree to skip the opening, just setting up the board as if the opening were played "by the book" by both players and going from there? It seems like that'd be much better for getting amateur-level players practice in their middlegames, since they wouldn't need to worry about perfecting the opening before they could even attempt it.