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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 rea

• 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.
  • caffeine 6y ago
    I am a grown up, but I'd love to hear your recommendations for how to learn poker for a beginner? Say I can dedicate about 3 hrs / week to this, what is the most efficient way to spend that time?
    • johnnyballgame 6y ago
      https://www.twoplustwo.com/books/ https://www.twoplustwo.com/books/
    • hannofcart 6y ago
      I had the good fortune of being introduced to it by someone who was steeped in Poker theory (a colleague at work). Following that I picked up some more formalism from the book by David Sklansky that features prominently in the other comment in response to your question. However, the person I mentioned before had already given me a head start on most of the practical aspects mentioned in the book. I also benefited from having him to practice against and learn from.
    • Raidion 6y ago
      Winning 50NL poker player (US) here. That's basically as good as you're gonna get without spending a ton of time. I've probably played somewhere around 3k hours of poker, with about 1k hours live and 2k online. You will be a top 20% poker player if you can do two things right. 1) Play the hands you should preflop. This is the poker equivalent of learning blackjack strategy. "Starting hand ranges poker" will start you down that rabbit hole. 2) Figure out pot odds. If you have a straight draw, how often will it hit and is that worth calling a bet? That takes a bit of math that seems hard at first, but gets a lot easier as you start to cache common scenarios. Google "Pot odds poker" to go down that rabbit hole. Review interesting hands and share them online. twoplustwo is the "main" poker forum. Good luck!
    • kjaftaedi 6y ago
      Find at least two books about poker that you think would be interesting and read them cover to cover. Repeatedly consider the concepts you've learned and try to apply them.
  • OskarS 6y ago
    I agree that poker teaches many useful lessons about probability and weighing your decisions, but it's not just a moral panic to say that's it's maybe not the most appropriate game for kids. Poker is genuinely very harmful for a non-trivial number of it's players, and it can be a destructive force in a way that (say) chess is not. I've had more than one friend lose tremendous sums of money and had to go cold turkey on the game, lest it completely ruins their life. Teach your kids Backgammon instead.
    • hannofcart 6y ago
      Started looking at backgammon after reading your comment. I find it fascinating. I'm probably going to go ahead and invest some time learning it. Thanks. I found this section on the Backgammon Wikipedia page relevant to this discussion: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon#Legality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon#Legality
      • snarf21 6y ago
        And to be clear, there is a lot of gambling on backgammon. Add in the doubling cube and it is similar to poker.
        • OskarS 6y ago
          There's gambling on backgammon in the same way there's gambling on chess (or any game): sure, you can play for money, but that's not really the usual way to do it. Nothing in the game requires it. Backgammon clubs work essentially like chess clubs. And no, the doubling cube does not make it similar to poker. The doubling cube is just a way to add another element of risk/reward to the game. In poker, you literally have (fake or real) money in front of you and the entire point of the game is moving that money into the pot and trying to win the pot to gain more money. There's nothing comparable in backgammon.
      • OskarS 6y ago
        Yeah, Backgammon is rad, I really enjoy playing it. It's also an incredible tool to teach both probability (given that you use two dice, and understanding the probabilities of dice events is crucial) and risk/reward judgment calls. It teaches many of the same lessons of poker, but without the gambling aspects. As for the section on that page, you could make the same arguments about monopoly, or any game that uses dice. Backgammon can be played for money like any game, but it's not the usual way to play it, and it's not integral to how it functions. Indeed, the conclusion of the judge in that case was that it was NOT gambling, but a game of skill.
• hahamrfunnyguy 6y ago
  I feel exactly the same way, chess and other complex strategy games are more work than they are fun for me. As someone spends a portion of the day thinking and solving problems as part of my job, I prefer to unwind with other hobbies.
  • dreamer7 6y ago
    I've found Blitz to be an effective way to unwind. It's sort of like playing GTA Vice City or Counter Strike and unleashing some mayhem on the board. There's not much time to think too long and get exhausted but enough time to feel deserving of the victory or defeat
    • cglace 6y ago
      If you just want to just have fun I find bullet to be the best.
• RivieraKid 6y ago
  This is my take as well. I had a few periods when I was spending time trying to get good at chess, but after the initial enthusiasm evaporated, I realized that it's just a waste of time and energy. You only have a limited amount of peak mental performance per day, why use it for something that has questionable benefits over playing video games or watching Netflix? It's better to use my mental resource to learn and make stuff that has long-term value.
  • slothtrop 6y ago
    Ultimately when it comes to craft, one has to find some value in the work, not just the product which ultimately doesn't matter much. Making trinkets, music or software no one needs is no more valuable than a game. I like the general trend of a push toward creation vs consumption, but a sport/game can have a higher level of engagement and challenge, which is a nice mental workout and also offers social outlets. Add to the fact it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. You can make shit and play games too. There have been similar threads actually about reading, e.g. "don't waste so much time on literature, it's overrated, do other rewarding things". You can extend the argument to anything you want. The question of "value" seems personal.
• EL_Loco 6y ago
  Chess is good for kids, but I fortunately fell out of the "chess makes kids smarter" trap a few years before I had my own kids. Besides teaching self-control, focus, how to think more strategically, etc, getting very good at chess will mean that you are just that: very good at chess. So I taught my kids and they play when they want, but they seem to get the same benefits from other boardgames of varying complexity, and many times that's what they enjoy more.
  • pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    IME, which is limited, low level chess competitions might be a good social outlet. Also chance to show a relatively gifted child that 'they might not be all that' which can encourage effort in intellectual pursuits, I feel.
• Bedon292 6y ago
  I came to the comments wondering about this. I have always wanted to learn chess, beyond the basic rules, but never dedicated to it. I think I had some version of Chessmaster, but didn't really do much with it. I just don't know if it makes sense to really spend time on. I have, spent so much time on video games such as Starcraft 2, and other RTS games even. They sucked me in way more than chess. But, with a new daughter, I wonder if it makes sense as maybe something I can teach her in the future. As a way of teaching those concepts. Especially slowing down, and being on a screen less (something I am already a horrible influence on). I would like to teach her 'right' vs just some random horrible ideas I have (but also not crush her and discourage her) Do you have any thoughts on that?
  • darkwizard42 6y ago
    As someone with two young Fortnite obsessed nephews my solution has been board games. They are both taking very well to Catan and Ticket to Ride (with some handicaps). Board games or card games can also be a great place to put time in if chess doesn’t catch!
  • jerf 6y ago
    I think learning basic chess is a good idea. It teaches a valuable idea very cleanly: The duality of offense and defense. This is a very valuable idea and not just applicable in violent war, but can also be applied to business and some competitive social relationships, including things like organized sports. I see a lot of people who lack this basic concept trying to operate in environments where it is crucial to understanding what is going on around you. In my opinion, going deep into it like this into chess specifically has rapidly diminishing returns once you understand that concept. However, there is also arguably some value in just putting in the effort to learn anything to that skill level, and childhood/teenage years are a good time to do it because you have the time (witness those in this very conversation talking about trying to combine it with the university time of their life... many people have learned how bad an idea that is the hard way....); chess is merely one of a panoply of possible options. It's probably not my personal first choice, I'd tend to suggest musical instrument mastery or language mastery or something else a bit more generally applicable, but if it floats you or your child's boat, that's fine. It's a lot easier if you have some buy-in. I would just make sure to include an out; it's really easy for parents to encourage something and neglect to inform their child that it is a valid option to put a reasonable amount of effort into something and then move on when they're ready. My parents, 100% accidentally, did this to me with community youth baseball. In hindsight, they basically did nothing wrong, they were trying to be encouraging and supportive and everything else, and it just never crossed my mind to say that I didn't really want to do it, and I mean no criticism of them. But it was a blinding revelation one day when I realized that I could just not do that anymore.
• poxrud 6y ago
  Can anyone recommend any books or resources on teaching chess to kids?
• LanceH 6y ago
  I like that kids (or adults) playing it have to learn to handle the ego check. There is no blaming randomness, teammates, or that the other kid is bigger/faster. One other nice thing about chess versus other board or computer games is that whatever you put into it will still be useful twenty years from now. The game isn't going to change between now and then.
• onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
  What about Blitz chess?
• jstanley 6y ago
  Before the pandemic, I played 1 season of chess in my local chess league, and I loved it. It's a great excuse to spend a couple of evenings a month going out, meeting new people, and considering interesting positions in interesting games. We normally played 80+20 time control (each player has 80 minutes for the game, with an additional 20 seconds added to their clock after each move), which gives way more time for in-depth analysis of the positions that you can get with the default time controls on lichess. Chess becomes a negative experience if you put too much importance on winning, which I have done a couple of times. If you can make winning important enough that you try hard, but not so important that losing is crushing, then I think it's a great hobby.