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I think the best way to practice math has already been discovered. Get a book, pen and paper, and practice math problems that are very challenging to hard for y

I think the best way to practice math has already been discovered. Get a book, pen and paper, and practice math problems that are very challenging to hard for you. Do this day out and day in. Problem? ... It's not very fun. You always feel frustrated and dumb because you don't understand it. So you'll eventually stop practicing at all because you feel like you don't make any progress. Same thing with chess; play only with Grand masters (if you can find them) and after a few years of getting your ass kicked, you'll eventually get good. (Disclaimer: I only skimmed the article)

whatshisface 7y ago
>Same thing with chess; play only with Grand masters (if you can find them) and after a few years of getting your ass kicked, you'll eventually get good. Wouldn't the grand masters not enjoy beating you over and over again? That's why Go has a handicap system and why online games have matchmaking systems. I think it would be more courteous to try and play with people that could potentially learn something from you, instead of you only learning from them.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Wouldn't the grand masters not enjoy beating you over and over again? I mean, a couple times maybe? At some point I feel like they’d think this is a waste of time.
jbotz 7y ago
Sure... but also while you're sitting there doing challenging problems, mix them up... rather than just doing trig problems, alternate a bit of trig with bit of square equations, etc. That way you'll tire less quickly and retain more. That's what this article is about, not that there's a better method than sitting and doing challenging exercises.
tzs 7y ago
> Same thing with chess; play only with Grand masters (if you can find them) and after a few years of getting your ass kicked, you'll eventually get good. (Disclaimer: I only skimmed the article) I doubt that this would work. It would be like trying to learn math just by reading cutting edge research papers and trying to solve major open conjectures. The gaps between your current level of skill and knowledge and what is needed to comprehend anything from the material you are trying to learn from would be too big. Yes, you learn best with challenging material, but it needs to be sufficiently close to your current skill level that you can at least partly understand it. There used to be a chess club that met weekly in the '80s in Sunnyvale, CA, at the Lockheed Employees Recreation Association facilities. Not many people actually went to it to play chess, because a regular attendant was Richard Shoreman, a well known chess teacher and coach. If you brought the score from one of your recent tournament games, Shoreman would play over it and annotate it for everyone, and give you suggestions on how to improve. His specialty was getting people whose progress had gotten stuck, typically in the 1800-2300 USCF rating range, unstuck, although he was also good at getting lower rated players to rapidly improve. The #1 reason people got stuck, especially around the 2000 rating neighborhood, was they were spending too much time studying GM games and trying to play like GMs. This doesn't work because, to paraphrase Shoreman (because I don't remember the exact statement), GMs play good chess, and before you can play good chess, you have to get good at playing bad chess. Good chess is what GMs do--deep subtle positional play and a thorough opening understanding. Underpinning all of that good chess, though, is tactics. Every positional thing ultimately is either to enable or prevent some tactical thing from happening, and to really play positional chess well you have to have a good tactical understanding. So what Shoreman did with these stuck 1800-2300s was get them to set aside their opening repertoires that they had copied from their favorite GMs, and get them play aggressive tactical openings. It is important to note that these openings were NOT required to sound--the important thing was to get into a tactical game. You are playing for a knockout here, not for a slightly superior pawn endgame. If you can get a good attack from a sacrifice, but can't calculate it out for a win--go for it! I think I recall Shoreman saying to always play the most aggressive move that you cannot see an outright refutation for, or something to that effect. That kind of chess is what he meant by bad chess. Once you really understand that bad chess, you can then start to understand good chess.
kadoban 7y ago
Keeping motivation to practice and learn is also part of a good study plan. The best way isn't some horror plan that can't be followed by mortal man, it's one that can be and yields the best results.
kbenson 7y ago
> Same thing with chess; play only with Grand masters (if you can find them) and after a few years of getting your ass kicked, you'll eventually get good. (Disclaimer: I only skimmed the article) That sounds suspiciously like one of those surface leval optimal solutions which don't survive reality. I imagine the best way to improve is like the best way to diet or exercise. The flawed system you can sustain is better than the optimal system cannot. Playing against the pinnacle of a sport as an amateur is likely sustainable for neither the amateur nor the master. The amateur will quickly tire of never feeling like they have a chance, and not seeing a real improvement when measured against the vast gulf of ability compared to the master. The master will be bored and unchallenged. I think a close to optimal path to improvement for real people would be a club of people all dedicated to improving, with enough competition between them all that none can be complacent, and a mentor with enough skill to provide useful advice at all skill levels. Martial arts schools in the Eastern tradition, for example. Now I'm wondering what the world would be like if every GM ran their own chess dojo. :)

whatshisface 7y ago

>Same thing with chess; play only with Grand masters (if you can find them) and after a few years of getting your ass kicked, you'll eventually get good. Wouldn't the grand masters not enjoy beating you over and over again? That's why Go has a handicap system and why online games have matchmaking systems. I think it would be more courteous to try and play with people that could potentially learn something from you, instead of you only learning from them.

saagarjha 7y ago
> Wouldn't the grand masters not enjoy beating you over and over again? I mean, a couple times maybe? At some point I feel like they’d think this is a waste of time.

jbotz 7y ago

Sure... but also while you're sitting there doing challenging problems, mix them up... rather than just doing trig problems, alternate a bit of trig with bit of square equations, etc. That way you'll tire less quickly and retain more. That's what this article is about, not that there's a better method than sitting and doing challenging exercises.

tzs 7y ago

> Same thing with chess; play only with Grand masters (if you can find them) and after a few years of getting your ass kicked, you'll eventually get good. (Disclaimer: I only skimmed the article) I doubt that this would work. It would be like trying to learn math just by reading cutting edge research papers and trying to solve major open conjectures. The gaps between your current level of skill and knowledge and what is needed to comprehend anything from the material you are trying to learn from would be too big. Yes, you learn best with challenging material, but it needs to be sufficiently close to your current skill level that you can at least partly understand it. There used to be a chess club that met weekly in the '80s in Sunnyvale, CA, at the Lockheed Employees Recreation Association facilities. Not many people actually went to it to play chess, because a regular attendant was Richard Shoreman, a well known chess teacher and coach. If you brought the score from one of your recent tournament games, Shoreman would play over it and annotate it for everyone, and give you suggestions on how to improve. His specialty was getting people whose progress had gotten stuck, typically in the 1800-2300 USCF rating range, unstuck, although he was also good at getting lower rated players to rapidly improve. The #1 reason people got stuck, especially around the 2000 rating neighborhood, was they were spending too much time studying GM games and trying to play like GMs. This doesn't work because, to paraphrase Shoreman (because I don't remember the exact statement), GMs play good chess, and before you can play good chess, you have to get good at playing bad chess. Good chess is what GMs do--deep subtle positional play and a thorough opening understanding. Underpinning all of that good chess, though, is tactics. Every positional thing ultimately is either to enable or prevent some tactical thing from happening, and to really play positional chess well you have to have a good tactical understanding. So what Shoreman did with these stuck 1800-2300s was get them to set aside their opening repertoires that they had copied from their favorite GMs, and get them play aggressive tactical openings. It is important to note that these openings were NOT required to sound--the important thing was to get into a tactical game. You are playing for a knockout here, not for a slightly superior pawn endgame. If you can get a good attack from a sacrifice, but can't calculate it out for a win--go for it! I think I recall Shoreman saying to always play the most aggressive move that you cannot see an outright refutation for, or something to that effect. That kind of chess is what he meant by bad chess. Once you really understand that bad chess, you can then start to understand good chess.

kadoban 7y ago

Keeping motivation to practice and learn is also part of a good study plan. The best way isn't some horror plan that can't be followed by mortal man, it's one that can be and yields the best results.

kbenson 7y ago

> Same thing with chess; play only with Grand masters (if you can find them) and after a few years of getting your ass kicked, you'll eventually get good. (Disclaimer: I only skimmed the article) That sounds suspiciously like one of those surface leval optimal solutions which don't survive reality. I imagine the best way to improve is like the best way to diet or exercise. The flawed system you can sustain is better than the optimal system cannot. Playing against the pinnacle of a sport as an amateur is likely sustainable for neither the amateur nor the master. The amateur will quickly tire of never feeling like they have a chance, and not seeing a real improvement when measured against the vast gulf of ability compared to the master. The master will be bored and unchallenged. I think a close to optimal path to improvement for real people would be a club of people all dedicated to improving, with enough competition between them all that none can be complacent, and a mentor with enough skill to provide useful advice at all skill levels. Martial arts schools in the Eastern tradition, for example. Now I'm wondering what the world would be like if every GM ran their own chess dojo. :)