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My Starcraft coach tells me that if I want to get better I have to practice about 10 hours a day. So although, like chess, the game may hold some benefits for

My Starcraft coach tells me that if I want to get better I have to practice about 10 hours a day. So although, like chess, the game may hold some benefits for the brain [1], the opportunity cost is astronomical. Improving your brain while destroying your life . . . well, one could do worse. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070350 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

dimino 11y ago
Are you already GM level? If not, then your coach is nutso.
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- mafuyu 11y ago
  Agreed. StarCraft is not as hard as people make it out to be. The path to Masters is pretty straightforward and achievable in under 3 hours a day. You just need to be smart about how you practice.
stcredzero 11y ago
the game may hold some benefits for the brain [1], the opportunity cost is astronomical. How do you measure such "astronomical" opportunity cost? There's no meaningful, factual way of establishing the "what if" possibilities for any given individual. Instead, to make a scientific determination, we'd have to examine the lives of populations who engage in activity X versus those who do other things, controlling for other factors. Is there an "astronomical" difference between economic outcomes for those who play chess at the highest levels, versus those who play football, for example? Could the same thing be said for Starcraft?
- dimino 11y ago
  Even if you're only 10% efficient, 10 hours a day is a lot, in fact especially if you're 10% efficient, you only really have 1.6 hours in your day of effectiveness, spending the majority of that daily time on a leisure activity is... costly.
- toyg 11y ago
  Football does not require 10 hours a day of training. Even pro players train just a couple of hours per day, with maybe an extra hour of tactical work. In fact, you'd struggle to find any physical sport that requires that much dedication, because overtraining is very dangerous. I knew a few teenagers in professional basketball teams and whenever they were seen around playgrounds they were soundly rapped by their coach. The only exception is pre-season conditioning, but even then you will not get anywhere near 8 hours, let alone 10. (aside: several retired players alleged that there are loads of unreported cases of depression among top-flight pros, mostly due to the fact that they simply don't know what to do with most of their time.)
Nimitz14 11y ago
I used to be mid-GM in EU, I didn't play that much.

dimino 11y ago

Are you already GM level? If not, then your coach is nutso.

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mafuyu 11y ago
Agreed. StarCraft is not as hard as people make it out to be. The path to Masters is pretty straightforward and achievable in under 3 hours a day. You just need to be smart about how you practice.

stcredzero 11y ago

the game may hold some benefits for the brain [1], the opportunity cost is astronomical. How do you measure such "astronomical" opportunity cost? There's no meaningful, factual way of establishing the "what if" possibilities for any given individual. Instead, to make a scientific determination, we'd have to examine the lives of populations who engage in activity X versus those who do other things, controlling for other factors. Is there an "astronomical" difference between economic outcomes for those who play chess at the highest levels, versus those who play football, for example? Could the same thing be said for Starcraft?

dimino 11y ago
Even if you're only 10% efficient, 10 hours a day is a lot, in fact especially if you're 10% efficient, you only really have 1.6 hours in your day of effectiveness, spending the majority of that daily time on a leisure activity is... costly.
toyg 11y ago
Football does not require 10 hours a day of training. Even pro players train just a couple of hours per day, with maybe an extra hour of tactical work. In fact, you'd struggle to find any physical sport that requires that much dedication, because overtraining is very dangerous. I knew a few teenagers in professional basketball teams and whenever they were seen around playgrounds they were soundly rapped by their coach. The only exception is pre-season conditioning, but even then you will not get anywhere near 8 hours, let alone 10. (aside: several retired players alleged that there are loads of unreported cases of depression among top-flight pros, mostly due to the fact that they simply don't know what to do with most of their time.)

Nimitz14 11y ago

I used to be mid-GM in EU, I didn't play that much.