Yha, I think you're correct. I hover under and around a 500 rating. Have been for about 2 years. I watched every video I could. If I did study chess It would do nothing for me because I'm barely able to beat other beginners. Even when I do try my best to implement fundamentals, I usually get out played.
FACT: You can't improve at chess
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ImTrashLOL_91 wrote:
Yha, I think you're correct. I hover under and around a 500 rating. Have been for about 2 years. I watched every video I could. If I did study chess It would do nothing for me because I'm barely able to beat other beginners. Even when I do try my best to implement fundamentals, I usually get out played.
Improvement is not linear in anything your trying to learn it's just more noticable in chess
Feb 12, 2025
0
#544
the OP is correct, some people are able to improve overtime because they have a natural ability to get to that level, then they plateau. Practice will only make you better up to a limit imposed by your genetics.
2000Tops wrote:
the OP is correct, some people are able to improve overtime because they have a natural ability to get to that level, then they plateau. Practice will only make you better up to a limit imposed by your genetics.
Nope also the fact that many many people learn ches wrong and therefore plague earlier then they should therres too many factors it's like saying "im not good at adding a+b " even though you can its just easier for you to add A+B+C " your logic is if you can't do a+b that's your limit which is not how people learn it's more like a lot of A a decent chunk of C and some of B plus people have different learning styles .... Intelligence is only one of multiple factors
Feb 12, 2025
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#546
IDK what y’all think I gained 250 elo since new year because I started playing regularly. Earlier I used to play twice a week and was stuck at 700-800 for 1 year. You can always gain elo.
I’ve studied psych ops at war college & must disagree. If you have read the book Flow, this is disputed. Also the pioneering current work being done on the role of positive psychology in coaching, at the University of Pennsylvania, indeed supports this rebuttal.
@optimissed
What was disputed in a Ph.d thesis, is the brain wave activity via CT scans and rate of retention & learning pattern. Clearly this disputes earlier learning patterns from the book, The Bell Jar.
What was disputed in a Ph.d thesis, is the brain wave activity via CT scans and rate of retention & learning pattern. Clearly this disputes earlier learning patterns from the book, The Bell Jar.
idk, I'm better at bullet chess than when I first learned the rules.
Feb 13, 2025
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#550
Optimissed wrote:
MikhailTalfan23 wrote:
@optimissed
What was disputed in a Ph.d thesis, is the brain wave activity via CT scans and rate of retention & learning pattern. Clearly this disputes earlier learning patterns from the book, The Bell Jar.
What was disputed in a Ph.d thesis, is the brain wave activity via CT scans and rate of retention & learning pattern. Clearly this disputes earlier learning patterns from the book, The Bell Jar.
But the Bell Jar, a popular book with many, although it was banned because it was considered obscene, was a semi-autographical work of fiction. Therefore, there could be no firmly held proposition regarding learning patterns, in the Bell Jar, to dispute.
Maybe he’s thinking of The Bell Curve, a flawed wok of scholarship that manipulated data to achieve the predetermined conclusion that Anglo-Americans are intellectually superior.
Feb 13, 2025
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#551
The Bell Curve was published in 1994 and received a great deal of criticism at the time. One of the authors, Charles Murray, had been pushing anti-tax, anti-welfare, anti-immigration policies with shoddy scholarship since the 1960s. The thickness of the book, which is well-written despite flaws in the scholarship, gave comfort to a lot of racists as it seemed to justify their views: Black people and immigrants are pulling the nation downward.
Perhaps folks in Britain ignored the book because its focus was on US data.
2000Tops wrote:
the OP is correct, some people are able to improve overtime because they have a natural ability to get to that level, then they plateau. Practice will only make you better up to a limit imposed by your genetics.
The belief in "natural chess ability" is, IMO, complete nonsense.
No infant is born with a latent chess Elo. Chess is simply: a learned skill.
I view it as comparable to learning a trade, like carpentry. Or perhaps like learning a foreign language ...
In either case, there are steps you can take to improve your learning. If we hit a plateau, it's because we've stopped learning, or stopped learning properly - not because of a limit imposed by some undiscovered "chess genome" in our DNA ...
Feb 13, 2025
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#553
Optimissed wrote:
Ziryab wrote:
The Bell Curve was published in 1994 and received a great deal of criticism at the time. One of the authors, Charles Murray, had been pushing anti-tax, anti-welfare, anti-immigration policies with shoddy scholarship since the 1960s. The thickness of the book, which is well-written despite flaws in the scholarship, gave comfort to a lot of racists as it seemed to justify their views: Black people and immigrants are pulling the nation downward.
Perhaps folks in Britain ignored the book because its focus was on US data.
In 1994 I was just finishing my philosophy degree. I was also working 10 hours per week for our local council and winding down quite a complicated business. I was also responsible for getting our child to and from school since his mum was working full time, home maintainance in all aspects, running the local chess club, keeping myself fit and various other stuff, so I wasn't aware of the book. Obviously it had nothing to do with philosophy!
I finished my PhD in 1994 and was teaching courses on race relations in the US. The book was relevant to my work. I read a portion prior to book publication because it appeared as an article--either in The Atlantic Monthly or The New Republic.
Divya Deshmukh, rating increasing steadily since 2012, with a plateau for the period 2020-2022, then increasing again: https://ratings.fide.com/profile/35006916
psylowade wrote:
Pashak1989 wrote:
You are right. Magnus Carlsen was born with a 2800+ rating.
He had rapid improvement - which I explained in my post if you read it.
I'm asking for an example where it's SLOW and steady improvement over a long period of time
I started at 600 in 2018, and am now 1900+
Feb 14, 2025
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#556
Hard to measure the effectiveness of a book. People bought it and read it. Occasionally, someone will deploy it in an argument. It occasionally comes up in forums here.
Because it deals with IQ, it seems as though it might be what the poster was thinking about when they mentioned The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel doesn’t seem to fit what was put forth.
Yes difficult to improve consistently over time, once you hit the dreaded "barrier". But I say it is possible to make significant jumps over the short term, with some kind of lifestyle change such as giving up smoking and getting lots of fresh air, engage in other physical activities instead of sitting in front of your TV or computer. Sports psychology for chess is an idea that I have considered.
I could use myself as an example, but my OTB tournament days and my internet days are separate. I have a return after 20 years to a major open tournament later this year. My OTB ELO is barely over 1800, but I predict 200-300 improvement based on casual results. Plus I feel stronger. I'll bookmark this discussion then
Yes, I think the term "study" might scare people off, or bore them. But I believe there are many different ways to study chess.
As long as you're learning or discovering new ideas that you can implement into your play, I'd say you're studying chess ...
Right, most people get scared when it comes to the word "study" but the real issue here is love, if you love the game, you'll study it, and you'll slowly improve. One of the best ways to study is to go over your own games, they teach you what you know and don't know and where you need work etc.