Do you think chess and mathematics are related?

waffllemaster wrote:

kco wrote:

I think we should put mandatory subject like "how to live properly for the future"

They could have Emmet Brown teach it.

Yes, but will he need the flex capacitor, and how many jiga watts.

Some kid in my neighborhood drives around in a Delorean, if you need to get one...

Great Scott!

i think there are books titled  "maths for dummies"  and  "chess for dummies"

so .... related!

ok

Wow, I actually agreed with Looby about something! (even if he did kind of semi-retract it at the start of the 2nd paragraph). 

And meanwhile I'm having macaroni & cheese for dinner again tonight.  Kee-rist.

As musch as I know about mathamatics, the only similarties I can think of are coordinates, move/ point counting, and the most obvious are the statistics tables.

They have a very well known topic for that exact purpose; social studies. When learning history or paths between friends or foes, learning from the causes and effects from ourselves and others. Is the key to building a stable bridge to cross. It will take you from your situation now to your desired future when you know how to get there. When unsure how to get there? Look to someone's past experience.

Obviously that's not helping now is it. look at it now, we have Iraq, Afgan war, war against terriost, Isarel conflict, global crisis like the money, our hospital here in Australia in ppprrrtttfff ! etc etc.

And after all (as Henry Ford pointed out) often those who know past mistakes go on repeating them as well.

Excatly ! but in this case we're just making it worse !

Well, I just don't think we should take an extreme approach, to the point of making, for instance, english, math and science optional in middle school or something like that. It's true that, as psychologically controlled as I try to be, there are classes in school I am forced to do, and learn from, that I would otherwise be too tempted not to do, and ultimately not learn much as a result. This probably applies to many people; perhaps just the concept of "having to go to school" during one's young years applies.

So in a way I sort of do appreciate that I am forced to do certain things in college, and this is coming from a person who tends to have contempt for this "well if the end justifies the means, maybe it's good to lie to our children" kind of reasoning.

I believe the essence of the first paragraph of my last post, just not to an extreme.

Yep, that was psychologically controlled alright.

I would say so. To be more specific, when I say that phrase I'm referring to things like getting tempted to get a lot of points in Tactics Trainer, even if it doesn't improve my play. My logic may tell me that I don't really get a benefit from a big number (TT rating), but it's tempting to want it big anyway and get oneself to believe there is a benefit.

I always want to prove to myself my psychology is impervious to such things; easier said than done

But how do you know it doesn't improve your play?

The way TT is set up you will not be punished for not acting as if it is extremely important to not miss something. In TT, if I know a move is 85-90% sure to be correct, and play it, then I will probably have a net gain in points with this approach -- for every one time I am wrong, the right answers will make up for it. (This net gain does not equate to a gain in actual chess strength)

In OTB, just missing one thing in a critical moment (and there are often many in a game) can lose you the game. It's ok to forget that a mating square you want to place one of your pieces on is controlled in TT because you only lose a few points; in OTB, you will be dumping a piece for free, and it could be game over already.

A 2500 TT player might be 2500 TT because he makes the move when he is 85-90% sure. However, if he were to apply that to OTB, it might not work so well. Meanwhile a 2200 TT player, who sincerely believes in every move he plays on the server might do just as well in OTB as the 2500, despite the fact that he missed out on some extra points.

All doubtless true...but I still believe TT can improve your play.

Yeah, I should rephrase that. I think TT can improve your play no matter how you use it, since it's practicing chess. However, when solving the stuff, I think it's best to try to restrain yourself to only move when you are very sure it is correct, even if you know this extra time you take will result in a net loss of points. Also, try to calculate the entire tactical variation that's important, rather than assuming a tactical move is correct if the first few moves look like they are a solution.

Of course, intuition is an important part of chess too; just don't make intuitive decisions in TT that you wouldn't do OTB.

Of course, I say this as if it's actually possible to achieve; even I don't follow this completely, but I try to be as close to this ideal as possible.

Of course, one could argue that it's not bad to go faster in order to get more puzzles in and thus more patterns. Fair enough.

The point is, don't worry about ratings too much; be more concerned with finding and understanding the tactics, even at the expense of some points.