A mind not made for chess

Bobby Fischer said you can only get good at chess if you love the game.

 How many books on mathematics have you read and studied, and how many on chess?

I'm also a master of multi-variable calculus, etc. but so-so at chess.

I think my weakness is a lack of pattern recognition.  I tend to have tunnel vision in life.  There are new stores on the main highway between my home and my sister's home and I don't notice them until my sister points them out a year or so after they've opened.  The reason, I think, I miss them is that I'm too focused on where I want to go and don't pay attention to what I'm driving by.

That may affect my chess play as well.  Perhaps I focus too much on a Knight outpost and miss a combination for or against me that I should have been considering.

In the past year, I've done more than 1000 tactics problems here and at another site.  When I finish the problem - and I always go back and look/find the correct solution if I get it wrong, I look at the names of the tactical motifs involved and ask myself why it took me so long to notice them.  Both here and at other sites - though it may require paid membership - a list of how you did in problems involving various tactical themes is available.  I look at the Tactical Motifs I overlook the most and work on them.

Hopefully, it will make me a little better and a little quicker.

I don't expect to become a master - currently at age 67 - but the game is still a lot of fun for me.

I'm at the point where trying out openings I avoided when younger are fun to try out.  It's disappointing to lose, but that's more than offset by exploring and improving your game, no matter how little as well as enjoying the victory.

People usually consider me pretty smart as well, since I'm a university professor with two doctorates from prestige universities, but I'm a natural idiot at chess.  After more than twenty hours of lessons with a chess grandmaster I managed to shave 400 points off my rating by losing to everyone and his brother, and I finally realized that the only way to stop the draining away of points was just to stop playing rated games.  Bobby Fischer once described his mother as having "an anti-talent for chess," so I assume I must have that as well.  I fight against it and I've learned a lot of theory about the game, but somehow I just can't put it into practice.

Someone might enjoy chess as a game but find all the negative feedback from playing and losing all the time to be sufficiently negative to overwhelm what he likes about chess.  Struggling intellectually with all the problems in a game and constantly getting the wrong answers has to be demoralizing, even if you find solving chess puzzles interesting.

I have this same thought every time I get beat (often) but it immediately goes away after a victory. IDK sounds like youre just human.

Use some youtube videos. If you like dry humor, Ben Finegold is hilarious. I also really enjoy agadmator's videos and the book "logical chess" was my favorite chess book. Everyone says learn tactics, as that is important, but learn openings too. A good knowledge of openings will allow you to achieve good positions.

I think that chess might be even more a skill then it has something to do with intelligence or knowedge.

Thus training getting experience and getting in a good shape  is more importent then to gather knowedge. 

    What has yet to be addressed is aptitude.  Not one of us is good at all things but we can be good at a few things.  Chess is a difficult game to master at the upper levels.  I have always believed that if a person is able to think 2 or 3 moves ahead in a game, that I can beat 90% of the people that play for fun.

     The rating systems that are significant are USCF and ELO.  Both involve OTB play and are an indicia of one's true strength in chess.  I played in OTB tournaments early on but soon realized that I did not have the time required for study to climb the ranks.  I then only played blitz for some time.  I turned back to OTB tournaments and I studied with the idea that it would help my blitz games which it did.

     Chess is not like a video game where practice makes perfect.  One needs a certain aptitude and sufficient time for study if you really want to improve and master the game.  The current hero is Carlsen who loses a game now and then.  

     If you have the aptitude for chess you will improve quicker than if you don't.  There are various ways to study this game but there is no substitute for study.  Memorization of openings will only get you so far.  I like to get opponents out of 'book' and just play chess.  But do memorize end games.  Nothing more frustrating than having a winning position and not knowing how to win.

     You got 'it' or you don't.  Peace out!

Use engine. Cheat. But don't get caught. Be a sneaky bastard. 😈