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Outside of the opening, Chess players tend to call them combinations, and it's not really memorisation as such, it's pattern recognition, and it's a very diffic

by eterm 2y ago

Outside of the opening, Chess players tend to call them combinations, and it's not really memorisation as such, it's pattern recognition, and it's a very difficult skill to master. Outside of the opening, it's not rote memorisation, it's a mix of pattern recognition and calculation. You have to spot familiar patterns, but from a "distance", and calculate whether the differences in your specific instance are crucial or not to the pattern. Chess is incredibly difficult.

zwnow 2y ago
Yea played myself for a while but didn't want to remember 300 openings for both colors. Chess is only fun if both people are equally bad at it.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  You should probably pick one or two openings and focus on those rather than trying to learn every opening right from the beginning. Like almost every game, chess is more fun when the two players are equally matches. Playing online (chess.com or lichess.org) lets you play an opponent who is perfectly matched to your level.
- bluGill 2y ago
  You don't need to remember 300 openings. Remembering openings is the most straight forward thing to study - you just need to remember them and then select in game as your opponent gets a choice as to which of those 300 you are playing as well. That is hard to do in practice, but it is easy to explain. For most people you are better off ignoring all that though. Instead you should train tactics and endgames. Both are easy enough to explain, but it isn't useful to just memorize them. You have to see when they apply even though there are other unrelated pieces on the board. You have to see when they apply even though the pieces are in slightly different positions from what you studied. You have to see how they will apply after complex sequence of moves even though they don't apply yet.
- sigbottle 2y ago
  I never understood this complaint outside of pure snark. Over the years I've noticed many games have pretty bad tendencies, simply because they've floated to the top through what essentially amounts to luck (also modern games have "balance changes" that often push novelty + profit over actual fun). However, most bestselling games always have that one core part that's pure beauty, and that's what people keep coming back to. If you don't like opening theory, that's fine. There's plenty about chess to be enjoyed outside of memorizing theory. I play chess tactics or alt gamemodes exclusively because of this. Not planning to be a chess professional. But the creativity is vast in this space. If we want to make better games, first start by breaking down the core parts that are good and the core parts that are bad, then iterating on it, just like how many disciplines (both scientific and artistic) operate.
kamaal 2y ago
>>Chess is incredibly difficult. Its not exactly difficult. Or more precise, It can appear difficult as people don't show how the work is done. You see this even among the Math people as well. It appears as pure magic. But in reality its mostly understanding what the axioms and rules are. Then starting at some point, and making the most smallest atomic change possible to a thing and seeing it its consistent with the rules. Else move to making new change(s) and test if it works/consistent with rules. This can resemble working down trees of changes. At the end its basically having the patience to sit for hours, and then days full of such hours- And then work things on paper(paper work). At the end you will find yourself with lots of paper work, basically trees of decision branches, that you made while making small changes. Think of it like a trial of large change log. And forks. When people see this from the outside, they only see the start point to end result, not all the decision trees. So there is a tendency to imagine the Math guy thought up a perfect solution in exact number of steps. The paper work is hidden and it all looks like pure magic. When it comes to chess, more top people need to come out and show how they are working through their decisions. Their prep work, their though log etc. Long story short, they are showing you a magic trick, like a excellent display of sleight of hand. Once you see the practice and the trick is revealed it doesn't appear as difficult.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  > Its not exactly difficult. Or more precise, It can appear difficult as people don't show how the work is done. What is difficulty other than priori repetition of a sequence? Anything difficult can be trivialised to this requirement.
  - kamaal 2y ago
    Exactly. I also believe a lot of these magic like fields in the current era sound so 'meh' largely because the mechanical processes behind achieving results is revealed. >>What is difficulty other than priori repetition of a sequence? Its not easy, but its not where it was either. Only a decade or two back these things were restricted to nerds and was somewhat like rare occult knowledge. You had to be part of some club to even participate. While you still need to practice a lot to work in the upper level in competitions and all. It no longer has a magic like appeal.

by eterm 2y ago

zwnow 2y ago

Yea played myself for a while but didn't want to remember 300 openings for both colors. Chess is only fun if both people are equally bad at it.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
You should probably pick one or two openings and focus on those rather than trying to learn every opening right from the beginning. Like almost every game, chess is more fun when the two players are equally matches. Playing online (chess.com or lichess.org) lets you play an opponent who is perfectly matched to your level.
bluGill 2y ago
You don't need to remember 300 openings. Remembering openings is the most straight forward thing to study - you just need to remember them and then select in game as your opponent gets a choice as to which of those 300 you are playing as well. That is hard to do in practice, but it is easy to explain. For most people you are better off ignoring all that though. Instead you should train tactics and endgames. Both are easy enough to explain, but it isn't useful to just memorize them. You have to see when they apply even though there are other unrelated pieces on the board. You have to see when they apply even though the pieces are in slightly different positions from what you studied. You have to see how they will apply after complex sequence of moves even though they don't apply yet.
sigbottle 2y ago
I never understood this complaint outside of pure snark. Over the years I've noticed many games have pretty bad tendencies, simply because they've floated to the top through what essentially amounts to luck (also modern games have "balance changes" that often push novelty + profit over actual fun). However, most bestselling games always have that one core part that's pure beauty, and that's what people keep coming back to. If you don't like opening theory, that's fine. There's plenty about chess to be enjoyed outside of memorizing theory. I play chess tactics or alt gamemodes exclusively because of this. Not planning to be a chess professional. But the creativity is vast in this space. If we want to make better games, first start by breaking down the core parts that are good and the core parts that are bad, then iterating on it, just like how many disciplines (both scientific and artistic) operate.

kamaal 2y ago

>>Chess is incredibly difficult. Its not exactly difficult. Or more precise, It can appear difficult as people don't show how the work is done. You see this even among the Math people as well. It appears as pure magic. But in reality its mostly understanding what the axioms and rules are. Then starting at some point, and making the most smallest atomic change possible to a thing and seeing it its consistent with the rules. Else move to making new change(s) and test if it works/consistent with rules. This can resemble working down trees of changes. At the end its basically having the patience to sit for hours, and then days full of such hours- And then work things on paper(paper work). At the end you will find yourself with lots of paper work, basically trees of decision branches, that you made while making small changes. Think of it like a trial of large change log. And forks. When people see this from the outside, they only see the start point to end result, not all the decision trees. So there is a tendency to imagine the Math guy thought up a perfect solution in exact number of steps. The paper work is hidden and it all looks like pure magic. When it comes to chess, more top people need to come out and show how they are working through their decisions. Their prep work, their though log etc. Long story short, they are showing you a magic trick, like a excellent display of sleight of hand. Once you see the practice and the trick is revealed it doesn't appear as difficult.

philipwhiuk 2y ago
> Its not exactly difficult. Or more precise, It can appear difficult as people don't show how the work is done. What is difficulty other than priori repetition of a sequence? Anything difficult can be trivialised to this requirement.
- kamaal 2y ago
  Exactly. I also believe a lot of these magic like fields in the current era sound so 'meh' largely because the mechanical processes behind achieving results is revealed. >>What is difficulty other than priori repetition of a sequence? Its not easy, but its not where it was either. Only a decade or two back these things were restricted to nerds and was somewhat like rare occult knowledge. You had to be part of some club to even participate. While you still need to practice a lot to work in the upper level in competitions and all. It no longer has a magic like appeal.