4 ms·

The problem with tactics training is that there is always a "best answer" because they have been picked to have a best answer. What got me playing over 1700 (l

The problem with tactics training is that there is always a "best answer" because they have been picked to have a best answer. What got me playing over 1700 (lichess rating grin) were two things: 1) deepening my mental checklist: 1) am i being attacked, 2) are there unprotected pieces, 3) am I about to be forked/pinned, 4) can I fork/pin my opponent ... and increase how far down you can BFS this without getting a headache. And avoiding endgames because those are just logical grinds. 2) playing with an analysis engine like stockfish. For me, memorizing defenses was not feasible because it is so broad, but I learned two openings (scotch and queens pawn) and at least know the defenses there because i know the openings. a little bit. I'll keep at it, memorizing defenses, but I'm old and probably won't cram more into my brain. EDIT: I used to go to a sunday-night chess meetup before COVID. 1700 on Lichess is nowhere near 1700 FIDE rating (of course, it was at a bar, so I'm usually a few pints in). I stopped going because I got tired of getting my ass kicked, there weren't enough mediocre players there.

EarthIsHome 6y ago
As an unrated player who plays occasionally, I've also found the mental checklist you've listed in 1) to be more helpful than memorizing chess openings. I've had a pretty high "win rate" when playing non-chess enthusiasts around my workplace or friend group. The issue I've encountered with memorizing openings is that it assumes both sides are playing perfect openings that complement each other. In reality, in my "lower rated" games, my opponent is likely to make suboptimal moves against the opening I memorized. There are ways to punish their moves, but I would've needed to memorized that. So, I have to come up with changes to the memorized opening on the spot. Going through the checklist allows me to play without memorizing movesets even though the moves I make are not the "best".
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  > There are ways to punish their moves, but I would've needed to memorized that. So, I have to come up with changes to the memorized opening on the spot. This is a good way to put it. I don't yet understand what makes an opening such a personality. Like, what the "attitude" of an opening is beyond "white tries to dominate the center with a fiancetto from the king-side and crush the opponents defenses through pressure on f7" (this is like how every Wikipedia entry on openings is written). Great, thanks! I think this is probably one of the things that separates enthusiasts from naturals, because while I get the basic point of the sentence, I don't see how that plays out for 10 moves. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. I keep waiting for it to "click" one day. But yes, seeing someone deviate from a memorized opening doesn't help me win either!
  - millstone 6y ago
    The "personality" of an opening is the nature of imbalance it creates. For example, in a gambit, white may sacrifice a pawn in exchange for quick development and an attack. In a Dragon opening one side has a powerful bishop but also a potential weakness near their king. The way you win in chess is to create an imbalance and then exploit your half of it. The imbalance may be on many facets, like different pieces or pawn structure or activity. Some openings create few imbalances (e.g. Exchange Slav) and these are drawish.
    - EarthIsHome 6y ago
      > The way you win in chess is to create an imbalance and then exploit your half of it. This is a very helpful way for me to think about future moves, because I can add to my mental checklist: "scan for any possible imbalances." You mentioned three facets: piece imbalance, pawn structures, and weaknesses near the king (or other pieces). Are there more?
      - millstone 6y ago
        Chess author Jeremy Silman, who champions the "imbalance" idea, gives a list: - Minor pieces (bishops vs knights) - Pawn structure - Space - Material - Files and squares - Development - Initiative I would add how much time is left on the clock, though that is not a feature of the board. An example: say you have a bishop and your opponent has a knight. This is an imbalance, and you want to exploit it by making your bishop better than their knight. Concretely that means trading pawns, to open up the game, so your bishop can bring its long-range strengths to bear.
georgiecasey 6y ago
> What got me playing over 1700 (lichess rating grin) were two things: On what time limit? I'm ~1700 on Rapid but ~1400 on Blitz. I find you need to play a lot of games to get good at quick time limits.
- ABCLAW 6y ago
  Playing a lot of games doesn't make you better, unfortunately. Especially not in quicker time controls. It just cements your current habits unless you're explicitly reviewing, changing and working on aspects of your play. You have to be making the right choices, then you can work on speed. Quicker time controls are REALLY good at producing a lot of games for you to identify patterns of your own errors, though! Take a given game, slap on stockfish, then check what tactics you're missing and what positional decisions you made that significantly impacted the bar. On an individual level, not so important, but if you start noticing trends in your errors, you can mass-puzzle the areas you're weak at, etc. That said, this analysis only works if you know your openings. Contrary to the OP, if your openings are mediocre you can't learn that much from your games. Understanding a system or two in depth will help you develop a 'feel' for what positions are dangerous, which positions are full of potential, etc. At a certain point that intuition will stop requiring 10-15 moves of theory to be sound, and you can start free-styling.
georgiecasey 6y ago
> 2) playing with an analysis engine like stockfish. so... cheating?
- gjm11 6y ago
  I assume they meant not "playing my games against other humans with the help of an analysis engine like Stockfish" but "playing games against an analysis engine like Stockfish". Which is not in any sense cheating.
  - SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
    Yes, thank you, I assumed it was obvious: I meant playing against a computer while keeping stockfish running, figuring out my next move, and then seeing what stockfish recommends, then trying to follow that line to see if it makes sense. Like asking for help from professor, except you have to figure out the answer, which doesn't always help.
another_cpm 6y ago
I'm below 1600 to 1700 on lichess, though I don't play as much there. I've found that nothing beats playing games and analyzing them afterward. The analysis is first just using my wits, then with an engine. I'm mostly looking to see where I made a mistake or where my opponent made a mistake and I missed it. I build drills to teach myself what moves to play in given positions. I use chessable for that. I agree with the commenter who said that 1200-level players on chess.com do come with opening prep and will try to catch you out with their pet lines. Obviously it's too much to learn refutations for all the crazy gambits out there, but it's worth spending a bit of time understanding openings. The fine article we're commenting on does not go too far -- even for a beginner, it's worth knowing the difference between a Sicilian and a Caro-Kan. Even just learning the first four moves of the common openings is worthwhile, because it will save you time and energy that you need for the middlegame. I agree that learning deep theoretical lines is a waste of time. Most likely you'll be out of book by move five in an amateur game. So learn a small number of moves (ideally, with a good reason why that move makes sense, even if it's just to develop a piece) and have some idea of the common plans that each side has in that opening.
billfruit 6y ago
I am not at any skill level, but I do think that after some time studying endgame patterns, I could easily apply them in finally forcing the mate in end games, whereas studying openings seems more abstract and unclear how exactly it is going to benefit.
- todd8 6y ago
  There are some endgame basics that new players need to learn, K&Q against K, K&R against K, K & 2 Bishops against K, how to catch a passed pawn and some others. These aren’t difficult to learn, and once you reach these basic positions you can expect your opponent to resign. The reason for the advice to avoid end games is that the real end game contests happen with positions having a few more pawns or pieces. These positions can have a single not obvious winning move out of many alternatives. One false step can lead to a draw or loss instead of a win many moves later. Two almost identical positions can result in different outcomes even with perfect play.
oldstrangers 6y ago
1700 on lichess is about 1400-1500 on chess.com. Lichess tends to be about 200 points overrated on average.
- k_sze 6y ago
  Wait, how is that even possible? Are they not using the same ELO algorithm?
  - nwallin 6y ago
    They have different player populations. A pool of Elo ratings only rates players relative to the other players in the population. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 2400-2600, and you create a new pool of Elo ratings for them, their new Elo ratings will range from 1400-1600. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 1400-1600, and you create a new pool of ratings for them, their new Elo ratings will range from 1400-1600. And so on.
    - slyall 6y ago
      Also both sites use the Glicko rating system rather than a straight ELO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system
    - k_sze 6y ago
      So what does that say about the relative strengths of the players between chess.com and lichess.com? That chess.com has the more elite players from lichess.com and so the lichess.com players are weaker on average than the chess.com players?
      - lightbulbjim 6y ago
        Maybe, but it doesn't really matter in practice. If you play against opponents with a similar rating to you then you'll be evenly matched.
      - archseer 6y ago
unkulunkulu 6y ago
I find modern tactics training with positions taken from real games quite useful. I finally made progress past ~2100 level in them when I stopped looking at the problems as puzzles with a hidden beautiful answer or tactical idea and just started thinking in terms “what I would play in a real game”

EarthIsHome 6y ago

As an unrated player who plays occasionally, I've also found the mental checklist you've listed in 1) to be more helpful than memorizing chess openings. I've had a pretty high "win rate" when playing non-chess enthusiasts around my workplace or friend group. The issue I've encountered with memorizing openings is that it assumes both sides are playing perfect openings that complement each other. In reality, in my "lower rated" games, my opponent is likely to make suboptimal moves against the opening I memorized. There are ways to punish their moves, but I would've needed to memorized that. So, I have to come up with changes to the memorized opening on the spot. Going through the checklist allows me to play without memorizing movesets even though the moves I make are not the "best".

SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
> There are ways to punish their moves, but I would've needed to memorized that. So, I have to come up with changes to the memorized opening on the spot. This is a good way to put it. I don't yet understand what makes an opening such a personality. Like, what the "attitude" of an opening is beyond "white tries to dominate the center with a fiancetto from the king-side and crush the opponents defenses through pressure on f7" (this is like how every Wikipedia entry on openings is written). Great, thanks! I think this is probably one of the things that separates enthusiasts from naturals, because while I get the basic point of the sentence, I don't see how that plays out for 10 moves. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. I keep waiting for it to "click" one day. But yes, seeing someone deviate from a memorized opening doesn't help me win either!
- millstone 6y ago
  The "personality" of an opening is the nature of imbalance it creates. For example, in a gambit, white may sacrifice a pawn in exchange for quick development and an attack. In a Dragon opening one side has a powerful bishop but also a potential weakness near their king. The way you win in chess is to create an imbalance and then exploit your half of it. The imbalance may be on many facets, like different pieces or pawn structure or activity. Some openings create few imbalances (e.g. Exchange Slav) and these are drawish.
  - EarthIsHome 6y ago
    > The way you win in chess is to create an imbalance and then exploit your half of it. This is a very helpful way for me to think about future moves, because I can add to my mental checklist: "scan for any possible imbalances." You mentioned three facets: piece imbalance, pawn structures, and weaknesses near the king (or other pieces). Are there more?
    - millstone 6y ago
      Chess author Jeremy Silman, who champions the "imbalance" idea, gives a list: - Minor pieces (bishops vs knights) - Pawn structure - Space - Material - Files and squares - Development - Initiative I would add how much time is left on the clock, though that is not a feature of the board. An example: say you have a bishop and your opponent has a knight. This is an imbalance, and you want to exploit it by making your bishop better than their knight. Concretely that means trading pawns, to open up the game, so your bishop can bring its long-range strengths to bear.

georgiecasey 6y ago

> What got me playing over 1700 (lichess rating grin) were two things: On what time limit? I'm ~1700 on Rapid but ~1400 on Blitz. I find you need to play a lot of games to get good at quick time limits.

ABCLAW 6y ago
Playing a lot of games doesn't make you better, unfortunately. Especially not in quicker time controls. It just cements your current habits unless you're explicitly reviewing, changing and working on aspects of your play. You have to be making the right choices, then you can work on speed. Quicker time controls are REALLY good at producing a lot of games for you to identify patterns of your own errors, though! Take a given game, slap on stockfish, then check what tactics you're missing and what positional decisions you made that significantly impacted the bar. On an individual level, not so important, but if you start noticing trends in your errors, you can mass-puzzle the areas you're weak at, etc. That said, this analysis only works if you know your openings. Contrary to the OP, if your openings are mediocre you can't learn that much from your games. Understanding a system or two in depth will help you develop a 'feel' for what positions are dangerous, which positions are full of potential, etc. At a certain point that intuition will stop requiring 10-15 moves of theory to be sound, and you can start free-styling.

georgiecasey 6y ago

> 2) playing with an analysis engine like stockfish. so... cheating?

gjm11 6y ago
I assume they meant not "playing my games against other humans with the help of an analysis engine like Stockfish" but "playing games against an analysis engine like Stockfish". Which is not in any sense cheating.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  Yes, thank you, I assumed it was obvious: I meant playing against a computer while keeping stockfish running, figuring out my next move, and then seeing what stockfish recommends, then trying to follow that line to see if it makes sense. Like asking for help from professor, except you have to figure out the answer, which doesn't always help.

another_cpm 6y ago

I'm below 1600 to 1700 on lichess, though I don't play as much there. I've found that nothing beats playing games and analyzing them afterward. The analysis is first just using my wits, then with an engine. I'm mostly looking to see where I made a mistake or where my opponent made a mistake and I missed it. I build drills to teach myself what moves to play in given positions. I use chessable for that. I agree with the commenter who said that 1200-level players on chess.com do come with opening prep and will try to catch you out with their pet lines. Obviously it's too much to learn refutations for all the crazy gambits out there, but it's worth spending a bit of time understanding openings. The fine article we're commenting on does not go too far -- even for a beginner, it's worth knowing the difference between a Sicilian and a Caro-Kan. Even just learning the first four moves of the common openings is worthwhile, because it will save you time and energy that you need for the middlegame. I agree that learning deep theoretical lines is a waste of time. Most likely you'll be out of book by move five in an amateur game. So learn a small number of moves (ideally, with a good reason why that move makes sense, even if it's just to develop a piece) and have some idea of the common plans that each side has in that opening.

billfruit 6y ago

I am not at any skill level, but I do think that after some time studying endgame patterns, I could easily apply them in finally forcing the mate in end games, whereas studying openings seems more abstract and unclear how exactly it is going to benefit.

todd8 6y ago
There are some endgame basics that new players need to learn, K&Q against K, K&R against K, K & 2 Bishops against K, how to catch a passed pawn and some others. These aren’t difficult to learn, and once you reach these basic positions you can expect your opponent to resign. The reason for the advice to avoid end games is that the real end game contests happen with positions having a few more pawns or pieces. These positions can have a single not obvious winning move out of many alternatives. One false step can lead to a draw or loss instead of a win many moves later. Two almost identical positions can result in different outcomes even with perfect play.

oldstrangers 6y ago

1700 on lichess is about 1400-1500 on chess.com. Lichess tends to be about 200 points overrated on average.

k_sze 6y ago
Wait, how is that even possible? Are they not using the same ELO algorithm?
- nwallin 6y ago
  They have different player populations. A pool of Elo ratings only rates players relative to the other players in the population. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 2400-2600, and you create a new pool of Elo ratings for them, their new Elo ratings will range from 1400-1600. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 1400-1600, and you create a new pool of ratings for them, their new Elo ratings will range from 1400-1600. And so on.
  - slyall 6y ago
    Also both sites use the Glicko rating system rather than a straight ELO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system
  - k_sze 6y ago
    So what does that say about the relative strengths of the players between chess.com and lichess.com? That chess.com has the more elite players from lichess.com and so the lichess.com players are weaker on average than the chess.com players?
    - lightbulbjim 6y ago
      Maybe, but it doesn't really matter in practice. If you play against opponents with a similar rating to you then you'll be evenly matched.
    - archseer 6y ago

unkulunkulu 6y ago

I find modern tactics training with positions taken from real games quite useful. I finally made progress past ~2100 level in them when I stopped looking at the problems as puzzles with a hidden beautiful answer or tactical idea and just started thinking in terms “what I would play in a real game”