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Always excited when chess pops up on HN once a month or so. As someone who picked it up as a hobby in December, I can attest that lichess is a great app and sit
by wjossey 4y ago
Always excited when chess pops up on HN once a month or so. As someone who picked it up as a hobby in December, I can attest that lichess is a great app and site for folks looking to get back into the game or get started (I’m also a premium chess.com member as I use both products).
For those of you thinking about picking up chess, I’d highly recommend watching the Chess Brah “Building Habits” series on YouTube. Watch the first five or so videos, and just start practicing those habits in rapid games (recommend 15 minute with 10 second increment on lichess, which shows up as 15+10). Embrace the losses, and just keep working on not hanging your pieces for free.
If you’re intimidated by playing other humans, you can try the “Maia 1” bot on Lichess. It’ll likely beat you up for a while if you’re a beginner, but it’s a bot designed to play more like a human, and it’ll help you get the reps to feel more comfortable playing other humans.
From there, just enjoy yourself. Chess can be frustrating because by design you always lose about 50% or your takes, but once you learn to accept the losses, it can be a great mental exercise to keep your brain sharp.
- rearend-dev 4y agoI agree. I would also recommend Daniel Naroditsky's speed run video series. He starts with new account and explains his ideas and thoughts as he progress to higher and higher elo.
- heartbreak 4y agoNaroditsky has the most accessible teaching videos on YouTube as far as I’m concerned. He’s also writing a regular chess column for NYT.
- randomNumber7 4y agoI really like Yasser Seirawan's lectures on youtube. Its amazing how he can talk about a chess game and make it appear exciting.
- QuantumGood 4y agoHe is a fantastic coach and trainer, Bobby Fisher's second in his follow-up match with Spassky, and top ten in the world (1) mid-1990, and with another great coach and writer, Jeremy Silman, author of several great chess books. Three of all the time greats—Kasparov, Karpov, Ivanchuk—were in the top 4 when Seirawan cracked the top ten. (1) olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo199007e.html
- Wherecombinator 4y agoAny tips on handling losses? I’ve become a puzzle only player recently because I end up getting pissed off with myself after a loss
- m12k 4y agoThink of the loss as a form of payment. What it buys you is experience. So whenever you lose, ask yourself what experience that just bought you? What improvement does it allow you to bring into your future games? If your mindset is to become a better player, rather than winning, then a loss is still a way to gain something. And long term, you'll win more games if you think this way
- cjbprime 4y agoPeople will tell you to not care about losing or your rating, but that didn't work for me. What worked for me is "the rating I care about is my rating in three months from now, not today", which gives space for learning from losses etc.
- brian_herman 4y agoYou don't learn anything with a win. You learn a lot with a loss.
- CSMastermind 4y agoI find a lot of beginners have this mentality and skip over analyzing games they win to their detriment. In general, the way to get better at chess, or anything really, is all about intentionality. I'd recommend reviewing every game, win or loss, and looking for things you missed, what your opponent missed, thinking about what your opponent was thinking, why did they play the moves they did, etc.
- alfiedotwtf 4y agoI'm a Lichess puzzle player. I find it more entertaining than a full game, and can fit a puzzle or two anytime rather than a match (even a bullet game is too draining for a quick time-filler)
- 4y ago
- smugma 4y agoCurious, why do you subscribe to chess.com? What does it offer that lichess does not?
- edgyquant 4y agoFor me it’s just leagues better. The UI/UX is nicer, the lessons are nice videos with a roadmap to understanding chess, etc. The only benefit I ever got from Lichess is that it’s open source which is nice.
- jokethrowaway 4y agoThe ux is indeed nice but I'm not paying to have stockfish nnue wasm running on my phone. I personally wouldn't use much more than analysis and I can just get it for free exporting the game. Puzzles feels like their better quality than lichess but I've heard discording opinions.
- Scarblac 4y agoFor puzzles, Chesstempo was the first site to generate them automatically from games, and it's still the best at them.
- throwaway6977 4y agoI disagree with almost everything you just said, as someone who has bounced back and forth for almost 4 years now.
- dubeye 4y agoThe poster only mentioned two things. So you answer just makes me think you just don't admire commercial chess sites! To take the video lessons, chess.com are clearly leagues ahead of lichess. They can pay the contributors to produce quality productions. You can't really open source the time of experts .
- 4y ago
- billfruit 4y agoAlso learn the "London System", and try play correspondence style games.