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On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

• BRedSox 6y ago
  Very interesting read. I’m a checkers man myself but this made me want to crack open a book on the game.
• JamesBarney 6y ago
  Honestly his progress doesn't seem especially fast. I think he's spending way too much time on opening theory positional chess, when he'd probably get more bang for his buck drilling more tactics or playing some games with longer time controls.
• llarsson 6y ago
  Cool that the author does this, and has found a method that works for them! However, to be able to spend 2 hours a day on this seems like an indescribable luxury to me. And the quote about netting about 1.5 ELO per day sounds like a linear growth is assumed, which I can assure will not be the case past the initial massive improvements one gets from "not knowing the rules" to "actually starting to get it". I love solving the odd chess problem here and there, and I whole-heatedly recommend lichess.org for that. The website and app are both great and the problem database is huge and varied. All free, too.
  • turing_complete 6y ago
    I would not be able, or rather willing, to spend two hours per day playing chess at this point. However, it is all about priorities. If playing chess and improving is valuable to you, everyone can make the time.
    • sgt 6y ago
      Would you be willing to spend 2 hrs per day on any type of game?
      • watwut 6y ago
        Another person, but no.
      • eru 6y ago
        If you have the time, and it's fun, why not? Many ordinary people spend more time every day watching TV.
        • watwut 6y ago
          I do tv watching equivalent at times when I tired for focused activities or when I also do something else on the side. It is just not the same. You play chess at your mental prime-time basically, to challenge and tire the brain. You watch tv/youtube to get rest.
          • eru 6y ago
            I usually use sleep to rest.
        • ZephyrBlu 6y ago
          Time alone is not enough to reach the top 5% or better in a game. You need to be focused and put a lot of effort into improving. It's quite draining, and nothing like watching TV.
          • eru 6y ago
            Oh, true. I was just reacting to the 2h-a-day.
    • will_pseudonym 6y ago
      And since it is a game, someone can also just have fun playing it, too, and meet people along the way too as an added bonus.
      • barry-cotter 6y ago
        If you have heard of K. Anders Ericsson or deliberate practice you’ll know this has limits. The fastest way to get great at anything when you’re already good is not play. It’s deliberate practice. You work at the edge of your ability, doing something you are just barely capable of doing, trying to get to competent. Once you’re competent you move on to the next frustrating thing that you can’t quite do reliably. It’s closer to mentally exhausting than fun.
        • entropicdrifter 6y ago
          That's the fastest way to grow, but to retain that growth it's also worthwhile to have some 'fun' with each new skill shortly after becoming competent at it and periodically (say, monthly at a minimum) thereafter. At least, that's how it is in my experience with shred guitar techniques. The higher level stuff gets rusty faster than the fundamentals
  • em500 6y ago
    > Cool that the author does this, and has found a method that works for them! However, to be able to spend 2 hours a day on this seems like an indescribable luxury to me. Why? Even full-employed Americans spend 4 hours per day on average on leisure and sport. (https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/activity-by-emp.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/activity-by-emp...)
    • ritchiea 6y ago
      Studying chess isn't leisure in the same way that watching TV or reading a book or playing a sport are leisure. If you are studying chess with the intention of actually improving your game it requires a lot of mental energy. For a lot of people, it not most people, it would be closer to more work than leisure time. I also play chess but I don't think of chess as time to unwind. It's definitely fun, but requires a lot of focus and I have to stop playing a few hours before bed so I can actually unwind.
      • philjr 6y ago
        Anything you put "work" in to (like serious hobbies, sports etc.) can still be considered a hobby / leisure. Lots of competitive low end golfers, tennis players, basketball players etc. I've found it one of the best outlets from work quite frankly, to have another committed side interest that requires dedication and commitment. You should try it :-)
        • magicalhippo 6y ago
          When I studied I worked at a grocery store part time, and found it a very good fit as it was mostly mechanical work requiring very little mental capacity. After I graduated and got a programming job, I found that my hobbies took a big hit, as they all mostly required similar mental focus as work. So these days I generally do a lot less mentally taxing things. Sure I'll have bursts of creativity, but most days my brain is spent when I'm done at work and I'll go for a bike ride or watch a movie.
          • 6y ago
  • globular-toast 6y ago
    > However, to be able to spend 2 hours a day on this seems like an indescribable luxury to me. Is this how far we've regressed? I'm sure most humans through history have had more free time than you.
    • jen729w 6y ago
      While agreeing with your general principle, I think you're being unfair. Two hours a day, every day, is a lot of time. I barely watch television and still, if you asked me to find two more hours every day I'd tell you that you were crazy. I already have hobbies. I relax. I spend time with my partner. I sleep, I cook, I work, I walk. I do not find myself with two hours that I don't know what to do with, and I'd challenge you to find someone that does.
      • globular-toast 6y ago
        Wait, do you think the OP has somehow discovered a 26 hour day? Everyone gets 24 hours. Take off about 8 hours for sleeping. That's what you have to play with. How you choose to divide that up is up to you but it's always used in full, no matter how you choose to use it. In this day and age the amount of time you need to dedicate to just surviving is close to zero. It's your choice to work more and not have enough time to play chess.
      • karatinversion 6y ago
        Every hour ends up going to something. To make space for something new, something else always has to go.
    • cupofcoffee 6y ago
      Reminds me of Nietzche: "Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”.
      • bvcvbuiy 6y ago
        You can add 'a parent' to your list.
  • cupofcoffee 6y ago
    Can you please tell us more about your day to day life and why 2 hours of free-time is considered a luxury?
    • onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
      If you have a full-time job, family, friends, exercise, and have a hobby or two already - I'm not sure where you come up with two hours of free time per day after that. Are you literally scheduling everything you do? Are you sleeping less than 6 hours? Obviously, there's probably 2 hours per day in small intervals where I'm not maximizing my day. Because of this, I recently picked up guitar, and this is nice for the random periods I'm free, because I feel like picking it up 4 or 5 times a day for 5-10 minutes still allows me to make a lot of progress, be creative, and learn a lot about (and appreciate) music. Chess is also something you could do this with, but I feel like at that time scale it would be harder and less rewarding, and this is still about 1/4th of the two hours mentioned. Edit: I probably spend 30 minutes on HN per day, which is mostly a waste. But this is also in small intervals.
      • tibbar 6y ago
        OP here. Yeah, the best advice I know for making anything a daily habit is to make it an emergency. It comes first. So, you get some negotiable time, the first thing you do is (chess) and then you figure out the other things later. The downside is of course that sometimes the other important things are hard to maintain. But this is how you do it.
      • dinkleberg 6y ago
        Of course you can’t just tack on another hobby that’s 2 hrs/day when you’ve already got others. There are sacrifices with everything. If you want to take up chess as a hobby you’ll need to make room by doing less of another hobby or something else.
      • slothtrop 6y ago
        Similarly I've wanted to allocate some amount of time to a creative outlet, which I've neglected for some time. Huge time sink to get something out of it, I feel. I also enjoy variety when it comes to games. That can be chess at times, but not in a dedicated, obsessive sense, just a means to flex my mind a bit with puzzles. Admittedly, level of challenge in games can vary tremendously. I always like to have one on rotation that is difficult.
  • tmp5690 6y ago
    I recently became a tenure-track prof, new father with a partner that works full time and I can get about 1-2 hours of chess in a day.
• tutfbhuf 6y ago
  Congratulations that's a great achievement. I think that almost everyone should be able to achieve a solid 2000 elo rating, with enough dedication over the years. Doing tactics puzzles is one of the most important factors for fast improvements. > Some day, I want to become a titled player. A candidate master needs an ELO of 2200 2000 and 2200 are completely different skill levels. I have some friends who play chess for more than 10 years in a chess club, starting as a kid, but haven't reached titled skill level yet and probably never will. My personal advice is: focus on the fun part of chess, there will always be a stronger player, but that doesn't matter.
  • swyx 6y ago
    ignorant question time: isn't ELO relative not absolute? if everyone gets better doesn't that just make it a lot harder to get to 2k?
    • rlayton2 6y ago
      Lots of new players that join up, drop their ELO points into the "bag" and then leave (or if online, sign up new accounts). ELO "points" aren't a finite resource.
      • matsemann 6y ago
        That would quickly lead to hyperinflation of ratings. The rating lost by a new player is not won by an old player. If you join and is assigned a rating of 1900, but loose your 5 first games, you probably loose a 100 rating points each game. However, the player beating you at 1000 rating doesn't get 100 points, just a few points.
        • matsemann 6y ago
          The first "1900" was meant to be "1000" as well. Cannot longer edit.
        • stnmtn 6y ago
          It's generally understood that online chess ratings are inflated over what the FIDE/table rating is.
• will_pseudonym 6y ago
  I've been watching a lot of GM Daniel Naroditsky's "Speedrun" series, where he plays games and teaches you why he's making the moves he's making vs alternatives, starting at a very low rating, to get back to a 3000 rating. He's a great teacher, and I've gotten a lot out of watching that series. He streams them live, and then edited videos of the games on stream are uploaded on his YouTube channel. Here's the YT playlist for the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytkf3qZTj74&list=PLT1F2nOxLHOcmi_qi1BbY6axf5xLFEcit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytkf3qZTj74&list=PLT1F2nOxLH...
  • voxl 6y ago
    Why is there a random Jordan Peterson video in that playlist?
    • will_pseudonym 6y ago
      No idea. Daniel's channel is solely devoted to chess. My best guess is his editor made a mistake in making the playlist, maybe thinking he was logged into his own personal account? I didn't realize it was there in the playlist, as I just watch the new videos when they get posted.
  • SubiculumCode 6y ago
    Do you prefer his youtube channel or his twitch stream?
    • will_pseudonym 6y ago
      I am on YouTube a lot more than Twitch, but if he's streaming live on Twitch, I'll watch him. I have just been watching all of his back catalog of YouTube videos.
• prune2000 6y ago
  You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by other players on opening theories, free analysis of your games, and all these statistics about your progress and more! Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Good luck!
  • petepete 6y ago
    I asked which Chess service to set my dad up with on his iPad a few years ago on here and someone recommended lichess. He's put hundreds and hundreds of hours in since and absolutely loves it. Amazing service.
    • j4yav 6y ago
      Open source as well: https://github.com/ornicar/lila https://github.com/ornicar/lila
  • danielskogly 6y ago
    Seconding this! Lichess is also free/libre and open-source[0], and has a really nice API[1] allowing you to do pretty much anything you could think of wanting to do when it comes to online chess. [0]: https://github.com/ornicar/lila/ https://github.com/ornicar/lila/ [1]: https://lichess.org/api https://lichess.org/api
  • shric 6y ago
    Highly recommend lichess.org too. Completely free, open source, runs on donations, no ads or constant nagging to try premium.
  • mrslave 6y ago
    A quick second endorsement for this absolute gem of a website: lichess.org. I've gone from a player who can't beat the computer on level 1 (estimated ELO 800 LOL) to winning 50% of matches on level 3 (est. ELO 1400). Still pretty poor, but so is my study effort. And I'm OK with it. My colleague from another time zone struggled to recommend a book for my level and kinda laughed (albeit politely). But now we can play a quick game in our work breaks online. Thank You Lichess! canned applause Edit: DO THE PUZZLES!!! (sorry, tired)
• bArray 6y ago
  I have been thinking about chess for a while now as an indicator of cognitive health. Not that a single number can define how smart a person is relative to another, but instead how my own cognitive ability is doing. I had been using the game of 2048, but given the random element and how easy the game is, it's just not a great measure anymore. I have recently started a different diet and I want some measurable way of knowing how well my own brain is affected by it. The only real problem with chess as a measurement is that if you do the online games for example you get cheaters, etc. Does this detriment your ranking or do people generally find this not to be a problem?
  • will_pseudonym 6y ago
    You can also gauge how well you solve chess puzzles. A great place for this is Lichess[0], where you are presented with situations from real games played on the platform, and you are trying to find the best series of moves for one side, playing against the computer. Those puzzles have difficulty ratings based on the ratings of players who have been able to solve them or not, and your rating goes up or down depending on if you solve it successfully. It's also great because there's no time commitment or pressure with the puzzles. You can jump in or out at any time. [0] https://lichess.org/training/ https://lichess.org/training/
  • ivnubinas 6y ago
    There's cheaters but the number is so low that it doesn't really make that much of a difference. Also, if they get caught you get your points back.
  • tabs_masterrace 6y ago
    Yeah, I think chess can give you cold hard feedback on how well your mind is working on a given day. As the author already mentioned, performance can vary a lot. When you're doing poorly, you often don't feel very different, but then you sit down to play chess and realize you're basically sleep walking. What you're looking for is a fully awake, high alert, high awareness state of mind. Factors like diet and regular exercise can make a huge difference in my experience.
• nitendoraku 6y ago
  ELO from IRL tournaments and ELO on these websites is pretty different. Tournament C players can pretty easily have expert ELOs online.
  • burnthrow 6y ago
    The OP feels like clickbait and should include "chess.com Blitz rating" in the title.
  • MagnumOpus 6y ago
    At an Elo level of around 2000 they converge. (I.e. both lichess and chesscom calibrate their algorithm to match on-the-board standards around that region.) For various reasons, online Elos are inflated by 100+ points if you go above 2500+ or below 1500. A progression from zero to 1750 rating is just as instructive if you assume he went from zero to 1650...
• watwut 6y ago
  I started late too. Not as committed as him. The most useful resource for beginner I found was "Chess King Learn" series of apps. The ones with beginner tactics puzzles - capturing pieces were invaluable. Those are simple drills, but when you do them you will be able to "spot" opportunities without effort. That made massive difference in my play. That and Magnus trainer. I did not paid for subscription, but there are exercises focused on training your imagination, pathfinding and other similar skills. Lichess people recommend is great for online play, but the above are much better for learning.
• siscia 6y ago
  Lately I have been enjoying chess with my SO, if you put aside stupid rivalries, it is another great way to bound over something simple.
  • voxelghost 6y ago
    I'm not good at chess by any standard, but I enjoyed playing for a while in my youth. My ex got interested, and I tried to teach her... She was so completely convinced that she was smarter than me that she swiped all the pieces clear across the room on her second mate and never wanted to play again.
    • YetAnotherNick 6y ago
      It is not the problem of chess, but problem of her.
• aerovistae 6y ago
  I did something very similar with an old strategy game called Age of empires II. Over the course of two years I went from a 1300 rating to 1850. I don't play chess, so it's hard for me to compare the scales, but I will say the highest players were rated around 2600. I think being 1850 put me around 90-95th percentile for active players-- there were less than 50 players over 2300, and only a few hundred over 2000. My only real commentary is that trying to follow a progression like this can be profoundly, profoundly frustrating. You need to really make sure you're enjoying this hobby before you try to dedicate yourself to a trajectory like this. It can really make you feel like shit a lot of the time, as you find yourself continually repeating mistakes that other people breeze past without issue. It takes true love of the game and a great deal of patience and persistence to push through all the downspells. Eventually I decided that I no longer wished to prioritize the game over other things. The enormous time investment was no longer a worthwhile trade-off for me, and I stopped playing almost all together. I haven't regretted it since. There's just so many things to do in life. I gave it thousands of hours of my time, and now the door is closed on that. Now I'm learning Ruby on rails!
  • the_only_law 6y ago
    Never got into aoe2 but used to play a good bit of aoe3 (and have started again since the DE released). I used to hang around people who played ot semi competitively though I was never on that level. I understood the game for the most part, but my execution was never good enough. Too much semi precise timings required and I could never get my APM high enough.
  • Pelic4n 6y ago
    That's amazing. I love that game dearly and have been playing on/off for more than 15 years, so I get routinely obsessed with it, play a lot a few weeks, get good against the AI (usually using cheese like huskarl spam or massed mangudai), then get my ass handed to me online & ends up quitting. Then I don't play for a year or so. At which point were you able to reliably not fail the boar lure ?
    • rubidium 6y ago
• sedivy94 6y ago
  Highly, highly recommend "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix. Like wow.
  • hackerNoose 6y ago
    It's not very realistic when it comes to the chess, except the actual games. I also found it frustrating that they obviously were inspired by Bobby Fischer whose real life would have made a great story, but decided he wasn't hollywood friendly.
    • jsnell 6y ago
      The Netflix series was an adaptation of a 35 year old novel of the same name.
    • noir_lord 6y ago
      There are parallels to Fischer but if you want that movie "Pawn Sacrifice" is a decent movie. As for realism when it comes to chess, as a (former - covid bleh) competitive league player they absolutely nailed the "feel" of the Chess world for me, better than anything else I've seen - yes they compressed the games and showed players moving far too quickly but that was a necessary compromise - hard to show a 7 hour game in real time as a TV show. The camaraderie and eccentricities of the Chess world where displayed really well.
    • C4stor 6y ago
      To be fair, Bobby Fischer life, while not totally uneventful wouldn't really be dramatic enough for a serie. At least, not without focusing on the geopolitical aspect of when he played spassky, which the serie apparently didn't go with. Also, using a woman character was a good idea in my opinion, since chess is such a man world.
    • georgeoliver 6y ago
      Not very realistic? I thought the depiction of tournament play was spot on, with the obvious exception of a few 'dramatic moments'. Have you played OTB tournaments?
• esfandia 6y ago
  I've noticed a big time day-to-day correlation between my chess performance and the amount of sleep I had. Also, coming back refreshed from a 1 or 2-week vacation (with plenty of sleep) leads to an immediate boost as well.
  • ricardo81 6y ago
    Sounds like "The yips". I know what you mean. It's as if overusing part of the brain makes the connections less powerful than they'd normally be. Possibly already some credible science behind it.
• cyberferret 6y ago
  I've set out on a similar journey in the past couple of years, but been very much doing it 'in the dark' by focusing on learning and watching a lot of tactical videos on Youtube (mainly agadmator's and GothamChess's channels) which have given me a new insight into various chess theories. I have a paid Chess.com account (same username as my HN handle), but still lack the confidence to really engage a human opponent 1 on 1. Maybe next year, once I have really got opening books and endgame theory down pat. I still make too many blunders in those parts.
  • SubiculumCode 6y ago
    I'm a fan of John Bartholomew myself. You've probably encountered his youtube channel. GothamChess is streaming on twitch all the time. I've also set out to improve my chess, somewhat casually, over the last year. About an 1800 rapid player on Lichess (~1500 on Chess.com), their ratings differ. As far as openings, I like the courses on chessable.com.
  • rocqua 6y ago
    In my go games, I have noticed a massive aversion to actually playing, because I hate my blunders too much. My advice would be, either accept that you will blunder and play anyway, or give up on playing. Blunders are part of playing, there is no avoiding them. Moreover, the more you try to avoid them, the more they hurt when they inevitably do happen. The only viable way to play that I can think of is to embrace that blunders will happen. For me that seems to be too hard, so I don't play anymore.
• beeforpork 6y ago
  A long while back, I dedicated my time to Tetris (on Gameboy). I surely spent less time on that than would have been necessary for chess, but it is amazing to see what progress is possible. I could play level 9[heart] without an end (in infinite play mode) or up to high 3 (6 rows of waste on bottom). When moving a brick to the left or right edge, the gameboy would make a long beep instead of individual blips. No idea how I could move my fingers that fast. It is fun. For chess in contrast to Tetris, there is even a good chance for it to stay fun -- Tetris is a bit too simplistic for that, I think.
  • RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 6y ago
    If you don't already know, then you might be interested in the Classic Tetris World Championship, which is currently running on Twitch (with VODs on YouTube). The YouTube channel aGameScout[0] also has a lot of interesting information on the history and recent developments of the tournament. [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/aGameScout/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/aGameScout/videos
  • LeonidasXIV 6y ago
    I did a similar thing. I bought a Gameboy and modded it for music production, but by far the most time I spend with it was playing Tetris DX where I started from failing really early up to the highest levels (that give you the rocket launch ending). It is a terrific device to play Tetris. No colour, no distraction, 30h of pure Tetris with one set of batteries. I am however missing that you can't start from higher levels than 9 (thus forcing you to replay boring bits) and it is missing the modern Tetris features like holding and hard-drops. Somewhat surprising nobody implemented modern Tetris for the classic GB yet.
• Fumtumi 6y ago
  I thought about learning chess and what it actually involes when i watched the new netflix show. i came to the relisation that it actually involes becoming good in a very very big search space by having a lot of experience and being fast in calculating and remembering chess moves. Especially when i see how many people read up on grand masters, i came up with the theory: The normal person is running behind or trying to 'just' learn the fast pre found and pre tested moves from a handfull of people who actually played/thought those moves through. Like being a musician and only doing covers for 30 years while never playing/creating something themselfs. AI became a tool by 1. no longer needing Grand Masters to find the next level and 2. being accessable to everyone which could create new pockets discovered by AI/through AI (compute power) and being learned individual. How much real strategy is there for two really good players? Or is it more of an 'he is going for this move, i know this kind of moves and i need to intervine through moves so the opponent gets forced to play my moves'? Also: Quite impressive the dedication, respect!
  • Others 6y ago
    I don’t think this take is quite right. In the early/late game, sure it can end up being memorization. But the game has so many states that the mid game tends to be quite complex and there is a lot of skill (calculation/tactics ect.) which is really not memorization
  • j4yav 6y ago
    There is way more than a human can hold in their head, so games are interesting and not predetermined even at expert level. Try watching a game with commentary, such as a world championship tournament, and you'll see the kinds of thought processes that experts go through.
  • matsemann 6y ago
    > The normal person is running behind or trying to 'just' learn the fast pre found and pre tested moves from a handfull of people who actually played/thought those moves through. Quite the opposite, amateur players play a few moves from a standard opening, and then deviate hugely from the book variations and go into uncharted territory really fast. And while pro's certainly spend an insane amount of time memorizing openings, chess is far more than rote memorization which you kinda seem to apply.
• JanecekPetr 6y ago
  For complete cheers beginners who want to learn and understand the ideas of the game, I highly recommend buying an oldish engine, Chessmaster XI: Grandmaster Edition, as it contains a set of amazing, approachable tutorials by an IM Joshua Waitzkin. You might know him at the author of the Art of Learning book. Some will say that the program is old. It is. Who cares, the engine is strong enough for you, of that I'm sure, and there isn't much else you'd want as a complete beginner.
  • piker 6y ago
    > tutorials by an IM Joshua Waitzkin Thought I recognized that name. He's the kid on which Searching for Bobby Fischer is based. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Waitzkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Waitzkin
  • omega3 6y ago
    I would actually advise against this game, the tutorial is interesting as are the different player profiles but I discovered it has a weird sinusoidal like algorithm where it would try to match your performance with some impossible, engine like moves after a series of weaker plays. It makes it pretty frustrating to play.
  • rocqua 6y ago
    I loved that series of tutorials!
• omega3 6y ago
  I recommend the chess tempo website for improving your chess, especially the spaced repetition options.
• mpol 6y ago
  Two small notes, this seems not to be an official rating. The 1750 is reached at chess.com it seems. I play at lichess, where I am around 1700. My official rating is currently 1437, my highest rating ever was 1583 two years ago. So there is definitely inflation at lichess, and I would assume there is inflation at chess.com. So claiming 1750 ELO when it is not an official rating seems somewhat risky. Another note, he seems to be 21. I do understand you are an adult by then, but really, there is so much youth in you when you are 21. I see other players at the club get so much better at that age. I started at 31 at maybe 1100, and got to a max of 1583 only 12 years later. My brain is not so spongy anymore :)
  • pea 6y ago
    I also found with lichess that blitz players are a lot stronger than rapid - I'm 200 points higher on rapid than blitz and it seems that's pretty common, which has always confused me (and not hugely different time controls - 5+3 vs. 10+0)
  • tartoran 6y ago
    Good point. I reached a similar outcome at about 31 but the obsession was getting so much in my way of life that I stopped. I was basically opening the now instant defunct instantchess.com at any idle moment I had. At this point was more like an addiction
  • sharedfrog 6y ago
    > So there is definitely inflation at lichess I don't think it's inflation. Lichess simply uses a different formula (Glicko-2) than either chess.com or FIDE.
    • unholiness 6y ago
      Glicko is just ELO with an uncertainty factor that speeds up down how quickly your rating changes if you've played fewer games. Actually, FIDE's implementation of ELO also has an approximate version of this, increasing its "k" value for new players and decreasing it for some thresholds of games played, ratings, and player age. Both these adjustments just affect how quickly your rating would change if your win rate changes. They do not your equilibrium rating at a particular skill level. Lichess ratings are inflated not because of Glicko but because of the player pool. New players start at 1500 ELO in both Lichess and FIDE, but Lichess's pool of "new players" is a lot wider and has a lot more amateurs than FIDE's new players. The amateurs' points ultimately get spread around the player pool while they descend from 1500 to a more realistic rating, inflating the ratings of other players on the way.
• thom 6y ago
  It feels like a golden age to be learning chess right now. There's just infinite good content on YouTube (St Louis Chess Club, Atlanta Chess Club, Chess24 etc) and various apps (lichess, Chessable, Chess Tempo etc). Plus you can get a decent sized database (e.g. http://caissabase.co.uk/ http://caissabase.co.uk/) and cutting edge engine for your own study for absolutely free. Really hoping when the pandemic is over this leads to a boost for actual chess clubs and isn't just an online phenomenon.
  • noir_lord 6y ago
    Hey, That's my project (caissabase). Small world, thanks for mentioning it :).
    • thom 6y ago
      Woot, and I completely missed that you did a new release over the weekend! Thanks for all the good work!
      • noir_lord 6y ago
        Aye, Saturday - now that my life has settled down I'm going to aim for once a quarter (I always announce them on twitter @caissabase ) but there will be another before Xmas because someone sent me a bunch of TWICS I was missing so once I've cleaned/de-duped those probably.
    • georgeoliver 6y ago
      I'm a happy caissabase-ist! Thanks for maintaining.
      • noir_lord 6y ago
        :) I'm just glad people actually use it, I do it for myself anyway but it's nice to know that others get some benefit out of it as well.
• yetkin 6y ago
  1750 rating is quite achievable, if you put certain interest on chess, via classic books or analyzing important games. Achieving 2000 is something different as well as 2300 and 2500 I think ratings up to 1750 is about not making silly mistakes, understanding the basic concepts.
• blub 6y ago
  I would recommend chess for kids/teens, because it's an interesting way to teach certain self-control and tactical/strategy concepts which can be applied in real life. As an adult, chess is a time sink with very little upside if you want to be at least decent, especially at longer time controls. I've been playing chess for more than a couple of decades, but recently decided to stop partly because of the pandemic, but mainly because it just takes too much time. Chess at its core is a battle of intellects. It's not a relaxing thing like watching a movie, or cooking or even kicking a ball. It's a competition and at the end of each match there will be a winner and a loser. Unlike other sports it only requires mental effort without the benefit of working out the body.
  • hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
    Nah chess is fun. Let people play if they want. It’s a great way to pass time in a forest cabin :)
  • hannofcart 6y ago
    I advocate the same (teaching kids) Poker for the same reasons you mentioned (certain self-control and tactical/strategy concepts) but this is often greeted with controversy anytime I voice it. Learning to weigh the odds, exercising patience, taking calculated risks in the face of incomplete information, making allowance for the vagaries/emotions of your opponent all seem like great skills that would help one in life. However, people often voice indignation at teaching kids the "vice" of gambling.
    • matwood 6y ago
      Poker is great. The other big thing it teaches is that luck is real. A hand can be played perfectly, and the player can still lose. Long term, the better player will win, but any player can get sucked out on any given hand. Losing in this way is tough, but a great lesson.
      • alasano 6y ago
        That's definitely a great lesson from poker which translates to real life. Winning or losing in the short term is insignificant when compared to consistently making the best decisions possible with the information you have. If those decisions have a positive expected value, you will end up a winner in the long term despite any short term variance.
• emmelaich 6y ago
  > on Friday I’m better than average, I wonder if this is because the opponents might have been drinking. For me at least, I know that even two beers has a noticeable effect when I do lichess puzzles.
• C1sc0cat 6y ago
  For non chess player what does a rating of 650 mean?
  • screwt 6y ago
    ELO ratings start at 600 for absolute beginner. With a good amount of effort, a dedicated amateur can reach ~1500 without too much difficulty, and at that level you'll beat any casual player. 2000 is international standard. Best human player is around 2700. Note - chess.com does not use ELO ratings - they have their own rating system which is more complex (includes an uncertainty factor based on how recently you have played), but is supposed to be roughly equivalent. The author of the article is playing blitz chess (3 minutes a game) rather than standard chess, so the ratings are largely irrelevant to standard levels.
    • Galanwe 6y ago
      > With a good amount of effort, a dedicated amateur can reach ~1500 without too much difficulty I read that kind of argument all over the place in the chess community, and that really strikes me as some kind of misplaced elitism. ELO can be seen as a glorified indicator of where you stand in the distribution of a pool of players. Math aside, the ELO is a system that allows for the distribution of scores to evolve incrementally as matches are played. All in all, if you want to interpret an ELO, you can always refer to the corresponding centile. With an ELO of 1500 you are in the ~80 percentile of your pool (USCF). That places you as better than 80% of players (that are doing tournaments). This requires a lot of work, and you would definitely not be a "regular amateur player". The center of the distribution should be around 1200 ELO at the 50th centile. Imagine what that would mean to be in the top 20% of all basket ball players that play tournaments.
      • thelean12 6y ago
        Key phrase being "dedicated" amateur. I bet 2 years of daily effort and study would get most people to 1500. How many people play for years without actual dedication, or join tournaments before they're at the 1500 level, or quit when they keep losing a lot to higher level people in tournaments, or whatever? My definition of "dedicated" probably removes at least 50+% of the pool right away.
• sandworm101 6y ago
  Online chess is currently facing a wave of cheating. Kids, stuck at home by covid, are playing chess at grandmaster levels. They are using software to suggest moves. Detecting it has become an interesting big data/machine learning problem. So i wouldn't get to obsessed with soecific rank-based rating schemes. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.5769434 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-e... https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/16/chesss-cheating-crisis-paranoia-has-become-the-culture https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/16/chesss-cheatin... >> In one chess tournament, five of the top six were disqualified for cheating. In another, the doting parents of 10-year-old competitors furiously rejected evidence that their darlings were playing at the level of the world No 1. And in a third, an Armenian grandmaster booted out for suspicious play accused his opponent of “doing pipi in his Pampers”.
  • XCSme 6y ago
    I don't think this a real issue in online chess, cheaters get banned pretty fast, very easy to detect. There are cheaters as in any other game, but from my experience there are percentual a lot fewer cheaters in chess than in Counter Strike for example.
    • sandworm101 6y ago
      >> Such controversies have been replicated even in the lower-stakes world of junior play. Sarah Longson, a former British ladies’ champion who runs the Delancey UK Schools’ Chess Challenge, said at least 100 of 2,000 online participants cheated. I would say 5% is pretty bad. Assuming there is an advantage to cheating, the higher up the ranks you get the greater the likelihood that you will face an undetected cheat.
      • XCSme 6y ago
        I think that the big difference between chess and other competitive video games is that in chess you have to do all the steps as the computer says, not just a few of them. In high-level chess one good move is not enough to win a game, you have to consistently find the best move. In a game like Counter-Strike or League of Legends it is pretty easy to just use the cheat a few rounds, or just parts of a round to gain an advantage and then maintain that advantage.
• westwing 6y ago
  Here's a theory on why nerds get bullied: Bullies instinctively realize that there's an unusually smart person in their tribe who is wasting their gift on fruitless endeavors, thus reducing the survival chances of the tribe. Of course, our modern society can afford to have smart people play chess. However, there is no evidence that chess skill transfers to other areas. Therefore, until proven otherwise, developing chess skill should be perceived as frivolous, just like developing skill in any other less prestigious game.
  • PartiallyTyped 6y ago
    You are giving them too much credit. Humans only observe really local information and are, in most cases, unable to grasp the actual dynamics of the society, let alone 'what is beneficial' for it. Chess can be used as a means of showing that any skill can be learned [1]. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grand...
    • westwing 6y ago
      I'm not talking about complex societies, but about the kind of small tribes that we evolved in, where such information is local. School classes resemble such tribes. If bullying was simply dominating behavior, it should be generally directed at anyone, yet it more commonly affects the stereotypical nerd. In any case, this isn't to give credit to bullies. There is no credit to be given for behavior that I consider innate.
      • PartiallyTyped 6y ago
        Apologies, by credit I meant to express that the causal relationship you are looking for may not exist. > If bullying was simply dominating behavior, it should be generally directed at anyone, yet it more commonly affects the stereotypical nerd. But then you risk a coalition that will shun you. A nerd is perceived as 'the weakest' of the tribe, this enables the rest of the tribe to bully the nerd by proxy, you give them somebody to look down on, without the risk of the nerd retaliating.
• deleted 6y ago
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• ehejsbbejsk 6y ago
  I was doing this with Go and I kept stalling at around 5k. I don’t know about chess but Go servers can be pretty intense and competitive (especially Asian servers). Unless I devote a lot of my time into the game I doubt I will ever reach the dan level.
• dalbasal 6y ago
  I think the meta that these experiences renforce is (the somewhat cliche) growth mentality. Path A is different from B in term of ratings progress for any given number of hours played/practiced. Playing Blitz. Playing Classic. Having a coach. Self coaching. Analyzing games. Tactics. Openings... Some combination of these will build skill more effectively than other. You can intentionally select an effective path, if you want/choose to. Being just a game/hobby for most people, it's perfectly rational to choose a slower rate of improvement. I play mostly bullet... no analysis/study/etc. It's fun, but not much progress. That's a choice, conscious or otherwise. I think a lot of people, in retrospect, might characterize the intentionally progressive path as too demanding on time. This is often illusionary. The X curve is hours dedicated, whether that's 10 per year or 1000. Skill progression is not more demanding of time, but it can demand more "energy". This is important because we do dedicate our time to something, inevitably. We spend a lot of time on "skilled" activities in the sense that it's possible to improve at them.. How many hours do you spend writing emails? Writing is skilled work. Programming, obviously. etc. We cook. We have hobbies. If you spend 30m per day with your kids on homework, that's teaching. Teaching is a skilled task. Gardening. Home improvement. It is possible to intentionally get better at these skills, if we choose to. We're already spending the time. Even passive activities can be (arguably) skilled. "Film appreciation" is also kind of skilled. You can learn to appreciate the shots, composition. Each movie you watch can extend your understanding of filmography. There's something kind of magical about and elo rating. It's a nice objective number that changes every time we play. Imagine having an elo rating for your cooking/writing/programming/etc.
• vfc1 6y ago
  I had a similar progression also in two years, from only knowing the rules to 1658 last week (my peak rating so far). But this is rapid rating, not Blitz or bullet, and I only play 45 minutes matches with 45 seconds increment on chess.com (which I think is not actually classical and not rapid, but marked as rapid on chess.com). I don't do puzzles, study cards or anything, I simply took a couple of opening video courses from Simon Williams on both white and black, and played those exclusively. Initially I played 15 minutes/10 seconds increment games, several a day, until I felt that I was losing a lot of winning positions only due to time. Then I increased to 30 minutes, and now 45/45 which is almost a classical format. I don't think playing short time formats is ideal for learning, I like playing longer ones and really think the games through. Then analyze each game thoroughly with chess.com post-game analysis. I only play one game a day, almost every day. Most games end in well less than an hour, but some take close to almost two hours (due to the increment and long end games). I think like in any game, if you continuously play with opponents of just about your skill level, and you analyze your games to make sure that you are not making the same mistakes again and again, you will improve over time just like with anything. To minimize rating fluctuations and tilting, playing only one long and well thought out game a day works great and keeps it fun. I think to keep it fun, it's important not to forget that rating fluctuations are normal and don't mean much. As long as you keep playing and analysing each game, improvement is possible.
• kadabra9 6y ago
  I've mentioned this before in other discussions about chess. I was a little over 2000 USCF when I went to college before I decided that girls were more important than getting to 2200, lol. Anyways, if you're a newer player and want to improve your game fast, this is what I would focus on. 1. Tactics. The vast majority of games between newer players are decided by tactics...someone hanging a piece, falling into a trap, etc. Practice tactics by doing puzzles, reviewing games of strong players with tactical themes. Lichess and Chess.com both have decent collections of tactics puzzles. 2. Don't try to learn a ton of openings. Pick one or two openings for white and black, and focus on them. Don't try to memorize lines, but rather become more familiar with the structures that result out of the openings, what typical objectives for white and black are, etc. 3. Familiarize yourself with endgame play. This is less important than #1 as a newer player, because all the endgame knowledge in the world means nothing if you hang a rook in the first 15 moves. But, it IS still important though, because you will get into endgames with a small advantage (or disadvantage) so you need to be familiar with how to convert that into a win (or hold your position). Rook endgames are especially important since they are generally the most common type of endgame. Lev Alburt has a good book called "Just the Facts" which covers endgame play. There are also puzzles and excercises on lichess and chess.com 4. Probably the fastest way to improve is to actually play games against stronger players than you and have them analyzed or annotated. You can either do this with a computer program, or a stronger human player if youre fortunate enough to know a strong player or have a coach. Lichess and Chess.com both have tools which will analyze your game and point out mistakes, missed opportunities etc. These are very helpful, they will instantly point out key moments in the game so you can see where you (or your opponent) went wrong. Improvement in chess is really a volume game. The strongest players have played thousands of games and have a good sense and understanding of different positions because they have seen so many of them. They're able to quickly recognize patterns in these positions and devise a plan based on strengths/weaknesses. The best way to sort of develop this sixth sense is to put in the volume and play!
  • navan 6y ago
    Totally agree with all your points. I also have a rating little over 2000 USCF. New players tend to over-emphasize on openings. To this day I know only names of about 5 openings. I do not know more than a few moves in them. I have generic replies for most of them. Majority of the games of new players are decided by some stupid blunder. Blitz games do not help improve this area much. Like you said game reviews and puzzles are best.
• brian_herman__ 6y ago
  You have to learn how to play more slowly, if you are going to do any tournaments slow play is much harder to do if all you do is blitz.
• FailMore 6y ago
  This Taaalk on how to think about chess might be useful if you are a beginner: https://taaalk.co/t/how-to-think-about-chess https://taaalk.co/t/how-to-think-about-chess Discussed on HackerNews here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9300017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9300017
• noisy_boy 6y ago
  I have to admit that Chess is one of those games that I am always hoping to learn to play well and am always reminded of my dumbness every time I try it.
• nandreev 6y ago
  Some "suggestions" that helped me get from 1000 to 1300 very quickly: - Castle very early - Resist taking pieces for no reason. To take is a mistake - Use your opponent's time to plan your next move - If you stop hanging pieces you will automatically be >1200 - Save your bishops, bishops > knights in most endgames - For every hour you spend analyzing your past games your rating will go up by 10 - You won't improve by playing blitz. Go for 15 + 10 time controls
  • david927 6y ago
    > Save your bishops, bishops > knights in most endgames That's funny because I found the opposite to be true if it's a single bishop / knight endgame. > You won't improve by playing blitz. It will just take longer. A single five minute game a day over coffee will work, if that's all the time you have for.
    • cambalache 6y ago
      > That's funny because I found the opposite to be true if it's a single bishop / knight endgame. No matter what you found, it has been statistically proved that a Bishop (against a Knight), and especially a Bishop pair is stronger than a Knight/Knight or Knight/Bishop .
      • david927 6y ago
        Wow, I didn't know that! Thanks so much. Bishop pair is clear, of course, but I literally would look for a single knight/bishop ending (where I would have the knight), thinking it gave me the advantage. Maybe it was a placebo effect. Ha! Thanks again!
        • cambalache 6y ago
          You can see here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value Also Kaspy confirming here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3uvvA7dyoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3uvvA7dyoI (:30 in the video)
• a4444f 6y ago
  Bravo!
• NoSalt 6y ago
  This is a lot of time to devote to chess "as an adult". I've got children, who take up a lot of my time. I would love to learn how to play chess, but for "fun" not as some kind of competition. Is it worth while to learn chess for this reason, or is it only rewarding if you are beating somebody?
• rurban 6y ago
  1750 is pretty good. But with chess you can get so many games per day, it's much easier than other games with the same ELO ranking system. It's the sheer number of valid games which are possible online. You can also easily cheat online. An analogy: I started with 52 as regional table tennis player. In Saxony. I started with 1150 or so, and am now at 1300. We cannot play that many games, around 4 per month, so we cannot raise our points that much as in chess. But other countries do have a trick, and therefore have much higher ELO points. They added their self organized games in so-called "<sponsor>-pokal" leagues, which can be played daily around the district. You can easily organize your oiíwn tournament with the Swiss system, which guarantees time-bounded end times. You are sure that the tournament is finished by 10pm. And most countries honor these tournaments points, so you can easily raise up your ranking. But my country saxony doesn't like this idea because there are folks who would cheat the system. They would loose on purpose in such tournaments to be able to stay in the official lower ranked leagues, where they will win more easily against lower ranked players. They would abuse the system. I'm pretty sure professional chess players in the lower ranks would also like to play for his club in much lower leagues, so that wins are easier. Only to get into international tournaments or the highest leagues you need the points. Many are also loosing on purpose at the end of the season to be able stay in the lower ranks, if the remaining games are not important anymore. Eg when I played in the US I would beat the 1600 players. In Saxony no chance at all.
• gknoy 6y ago
  > I put blunders and mistakes from my games here When talking about drilling with Anki, the author notes that they show the position where they made a mistake. When learning a game (Chess, Go, computer games) how do you identify where that mistake is? How do you develop the skill to recognize where the mistakes are?
  • noir_lord 6y ago
    Have the computer score every move to a depth of 16 ply(moves) then look for radical shifts in the scoring. A sudden swing from +1.4 to -4 means there was a blunder. You set the ply shallow because no beginner is seeing more than 8 moves ahead, most masters can’t in most positions. Fritz and scid etc also have mark tactical exercises modes that so the above automatically.
• lubesGordi 6y ago
  I've been studying chess for the past year as someone much older than 21, and I find it's pretty interesting! For one thing, tactics and calculation for sure will be varying considerably between players of different skill levels. For me, it can take forever to calculate 3 moves ahead because I lose my place as I go. I think for good players, they can see it almost instantly, subconsciously. And I think that is where the chess prodigy comes in. From the beginning, the chess prodigy probably gets their subconscious in tune with moving the pieces and can see tactics and N moves ahead almost instantly. I'm curious to see how much better that gets for me over time. If I practice a bit every day, how fast will my calculation get? It's probably logarithmic but still... Anyone have experience getting good (~1700 or >) as an adult?
• karmakaze 6y ago
  I don't know if I have the patience to learn chess to a high level as an adult. Also mentioned here, I too have been replaying Starcraft2 ladder as a way to keep up my 'fast' thinking skills. The other pastime I used to engage in is Go. It's a good alternative to chess because for a long while you can choose to improve on your high-level strategy vs detailed tactics and playouts. At some point, I suppose it becomes like playing a few chess games that leak into each other.
• sabujp 6y ago
  do puzzles, blitztactics.com, play longer games and think deep, memorize 15+ moves into your favorite openings, you really only need 3-5 to be a decent player, e4, d4, c4, e.g. london, queen's gambit, king pawn, sicilian.
• pasxizeis 6y ago
  If you're looking for tactics trainer (and free!), there's no better one than ChessTempo.com.
• hugocbp 6y ago
  That was an amazing read but, to me, the whole thing sounds to me more like a second job than a hobby, if I'm being honest. Obviously different people relate differently with those side activities but your dedication to learn chess puts it very much outside my personal definition of hobby or unwinding activity. I have a analog story that ended up burning my up with my hobby: playing music. I played guitar (acoustic and electric) since I was a teenager, and sometime after I was an adult, I decided to double down to really learn it (as a hobby, since I already had my main career). I set up several hours a week for deliberate practice, started a classic guitar class, tried some Brazilian MPB class. The endgame for me was that I got completely burned out. After doing that for about 2 years, playing became a big chore for me. One day I just stopped and didn't touch a guitar again for almost 5 years. It was still very interesting to see how you approached it.