Learning chess later in life

I used to play as a youngster and now, approaching 50, I'm eager to play again. I owe a lot of it to The Queen's Gambit, but also because I want to keep my mind sharp. g

I'm in the same boat, picking up chess later in life. The lessons here are good and the tactics/puzzles and drills are also very helpful. Chessable has a lot of great stuff and a lot of it is free. I've heard that anything by Yasser Seirawan is good. I'm doing his Chessable Tactics course. I also have Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move, which has also been recommended a lot. People say to focus on general principles, rather than specific openings, etc. There are some good blog posts about things for beginners to focus on.

And it's sharp, apart from the bloody typos, that is 🤣

I'm a Queen's Gambit returnee, too ;-)

I played a lot as an early teen, then left for other pursuits, and after watching Queen's Gambit recently, started picking it up again at age 63.  Yeah, almost a half-century gap!  Things have sure changed since then! ;-)

Learned chess as a boy in Moscow. Then, played a little in high school. Now 44, saw queen's gambit and started to play on chess.com. I say, it's never too late, just don't expect to be gm. With my Cerebral Palsy and 200000 year old, de-evolutionized monkey head, I will probably never reach 1200, even.

There is small difference in play beetween 1200 and 1500, it all comes on "blunder control", be optimistic and belive that you can, analayse your games and you will improve... If you have 1000 now, there is no chance that you cant get to 1200 with practice.

Best regards Ivan

Agreed.

In fact, I would go a bit further and say simply that avoiding silly blunders can get you up to 1600 or so (chess.com rating, not FIDE).

How much does chess.com 1600 differ from fide 1600 in terms of the players ability and knowledge, broadly? Just curious.

I would expect a FIDE 1600 to be stronger. Just a guess, though.

One way it is dissimilar is that both you and your opponent have full information. In that sense there is no such thing as a pure bluff that you have in poker. One way in which you could say that it is quite similar is in active/dynamic or attacking positions. If you put a chess player under a ton of pressure (strong attack) they are prone to make mistakes. That's why attacking is easier than defending. In poker being the agressor also gives you an advantage. And speculative sacrifices can be very similar to semi-bluffs. As long as that attack can continue, the opponent is put under pressure and can collapse immediately. So if you see that a pawn sacrifice will generate a ton of attacking chances, and there is no immediate defense, you can play it. You don't need to be 100% certain of a positive result (i.e. have worked out the entire line). Strong attacking GM's don't work it all out. If you have a 40% chance that your idea will work out, that's fine, cause you also have the 'fold equity' of a 30% chance that your opponent could just crumble under the pressure. Just a random thought. 

lol i also wanted to watch queen s gambit but wasnt allowed 😉

My interest in the game was rekindled by Queen's Gambit, too.

But, hey, it's one thing to think that you'll never become a GM (I think that about me, too), but I don't see why 1200 is out of reach for you.  Keep learning, keep playing, listen to the wise folks hear about *what* to learn (you'll have to figure out who is offering wise words and who isn't), but, above all: enjoy the journey!

I currently have students older than 40 who are nailing it. Don't neglect the idea that you can be a great chess player in the future. If you stick to it, you can overcome the 2000 barrier. 

37, also learning late. My top tip is to let it consume you until your wife leaves with the baby. That frees up an extra 4-5 hours a day for study.

😁😁😁

In what time control? I'm 1568 FIDE and I only surpass that here in daily.

This I still have to achieve it, though.

I'm 73.  I learned how to move the pieces @14.  I loved playing.  I bought a book named Chess Made Simple.  I started to study it and made it maybe half way through.  I could beat everybody.  I recently found out the book was written by a famous GM.  I wish something like Chess.com was available back then.  I stopped playing.

I have visited internet chess sites when I saw them over the years.  My rating stays about the same since I started visiting internet sites.  I do not study daily, bad flaw.  I'm a poker player.  After I started Chess.com my mental game improved at poker.  My poker game has improved way more than my chess game.

Chess.com helps keep my mind sharpe.  

I also had one studend that played poker for living and before he was going on poker table he regulary played few chess games to see his brain funcionality for that day...

Chess definitly keeps mind shaped.

Good luck on your poker way... (it is a great game, who didnt manage when comes in 4 morning to get sleep from poker adrenalin doesnt know what he missed  )