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And the dismissiveness comes about because your intellectual ego is wounded from having a poor rating.
This is spot-on, I'll admit. I feel like I should be doing better because of my intellectual superiority, plain and simple.
I mean, if you're rated hundreds of points higher than me and we're playing and you do the French opening or something and I'm *supposed* to play A3 (for example) and I don't, you'll automatically capitalize and destroy me because of a blunder I made by not having some pre-determined moves memorized. Is that not how 99% of chess matches go?
No, you can recover. Here's a true story:
At the World Youth Chess Championships, I messed up the move order of some 4...b5 line against the Reti and ended up an exchange AND a pawn down ...in 10 moves! I created an attack, and later ended up winning (!) the game
But was that person rated 100's of points higher than you? Or were you evenly matched? I can come back from a screw up as well, just as long as my opponent has a score close to mine. But one mis-step against a higher-quality opponent and I feel like it's game over.
a mensa level IQ is what exactly?
Just a clue that its another troll/idiot.
Why would you say that? I come on here with a genuine interest in discussing this issue, and you assume "troll". Look, I'm new to this, so maybe this board is full of trolls or something, I dunno. But don't be so paranoid.
I mean, if you're rated hundreds of points higher than me and we're playing and you do the French opening or something and I'm *supposed* to play A3 (for example) and I don't, you'll automatically capitalize and destroy me because of a blunder I made by not having some pre-determined moves memorized. Is that not how 99% of chess matches go?
No, you can recover. Here's a true story:
At the World Youth Chess Championships, I messed up the move order of some 4...b5 line against the Reti and ended up an exchange AND a pawn down ...in 10 moves! I created an attack, and later ended up winning (!) the game
But was that person rated 100's of points higher than you? Or were you evenly matched? I can come back from a screw up as well, just as long as my opponent has a score close to mine. But one mis-step against a higher-quality opponent and I feel like it's game over.
yes, some 100 points higher rated
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You imagine that chess players don't have to think? You imagine that chess does not massively involve dealing with positions that one has never seen before?
Not at my primitive level. I think it's mostly memorizing the things that have gotten you beat in the past, then applying them to some other newbie. Note the quote you used referred to GM games. Might be very well 100% correct. But not sure it relates to the primitive things I do when playing.
However, if I claim that because I'm intelligent then I should be capable of writing poetry in French, at least better than those Frenchmen that are less intelligent than me, the only thing I'll accomplish is to raise doubts about my intelligence.
My response would be that the Frenchmen that are less intelligent that you but can write better poetry would come from the fact they have the "in's and out's" of French "memorized" from speaking it their entire life. Similar to a low IQ person like Forrest Gump playing the Italian Game a bunch of times and then using it to beat an inexperience guy like me.
You miss the point. Just because someone has spoken French during all his life doesn't mean he can write poetry, same as just because someone knows how to move the chess pieces doesn't mean he understands what to do with them.
Simply put, there is an aptitude for the task involved in playing chess.
Now, since you use your own experience as a fact for your argument, I'd say that most below 1000 ratings (that is the people you've been playing against) don't study nor memorize chess, meaning you're losing because you make more mistakes than them and not because chess is 99% memory.
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And the dismissiveness comes about because your intellectual ego is wounded from having a poor rating.
This is spot-on, I'll admit. I feel like I should be doing better because of my intellectual superiority, plain and simple.
This self-realization could actually be an excellent first step to becoming better at chess. Humility is a far better attitude and character trait than puffing oneself up with airs of intellectual superiority.
Best of luck, and please enjoy the journey of chess playing and chess studying!
?
And the dismissiveness comes about because your intellectual ego is wounded from having a poor rating.
This is spot-on, I'll admit. I feel like I should be doing better because of my intellectual superiority, plain and simple.
This self-realization could actually be an excellent first step to becoming better at chess. Humility is a far better attitude and character trait than puffing oneself up with airs of intellectual superiority.
Best of luck, and please enjoy the journey of chess playing and chess studying!
Ugh, I mean, I know you're right...for example, earlier on I cited the example of opponents who would move their knight into forking position for my rook and king, and I'd never worry because I thought I'd just take the knight with my queen, then I'd find out they had a bishop protecting that knight and so I was screwed. I eventually caught on and started defending that before it happened, and it felt good, like some improvement was being made by myself.
The thing is though, I've never really worked hard at something like this. I mean, if math was hard for me, I would have given up back in grade school and got on a different track in life. I just have never worked through adversity, it's easier and less painful to just give up (hence why I resign immediately if I lose an important piece lol).
But if it takes work to improve from about 700 to let's say 1200, what's the point? How can you enjoy something if you have to work hard at it? Do you enjoy weeding the garden if it's a 100 degrees and humid out? Do you enjoy swimming against the tide in a rough ocean?
If it was just pawns and a king, this game would be a lot more evenly matched between beginners and grand masters.
My response would be that the Frenchmen that are less intelligent that you but can write better poetry would come from the fact they have the "in's and out's" of French "memorized" from speaking it their entire life. Similar to a low IQ person like Forrest Gump playing the Italian Game a bunch of times and then using it to beat an inexperience guy like me.
You miss the point. Just because someone has spoken French during all his life doesn't mean he can write poetry, same as just because someone knows how to move the chess pieces doesn't mean he understands what to do with them.
Simply put, there is an aptitude for the task involved in playing chess.
Now, since you use your own experience as a fact for your argument, I'd say that most below 1000 ratings (that is the people you've been playing against) don't study nor memorize chess, meaning you're losing because you make more mistakes than them and not because chess is 99% memory.
Ok, but how does one get this "aptitude" that you speak of? Do I need to treat this like I would a class in school, where I buy a book and do homework?
errr...
Which of my posts got you to groan like that, lol
errr...
Which of my posts got you to groan like that, lol
its not a groan, its a synonym for [No Comment]
I used to know the answer to this, but now I've forgotten.
To be serious, no. Chess is mainly about being in positions that you have not seen before and finding a good move. This is partially based on instinctive evaluation, based on similar (but not the same) patterns, but is also based on analysing possible continuations (the longer the time control, the more important this is).
Saying chess is just memorization is as false as saying tennis is just memorization.
… a low IQ person like Forrest Gump playing the Italian Game a bunch of times and then using it to beat an inexperience guy like me.
Can you identify very many specific documented examples of this?
... But one mis-step against a higher-quality opponent and I feel like it's game over.
Perhaps the opponent is "higher-quality" because of a combination of talent and work at learning?
… You imagine that chess players don't have to think? You imagine that chess does not massively involve dealing with positions that one has never seen before?
"... there will come a time, whether on move two or move twenty, when your knowledge of theory runs out and you have to decide what to do on your own. ... sometimes you will leave theory first, sometimes your opponent. Nothing will stop this happening. It happens in every well-contested GM game at some point, usually a very significant point. This is a part of the game: an important part, something you have to get better at. ... to improve you have to challenge yourself; ..." - IM John Cox (2006)
Not at my primitive level. I think it's mostly memorizing the things that have gotten you beat in the past, then applying them to some other newbie. Note the quote you used referred to GM games. Might be very well 100% correct. But not sure it relates to the primitive things I do when playing.
The quote was from a "Starting Out" book and intended as advice for a player who is doing that. Here is an example of another not-for-GM discussion of improvement.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627094207/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman02.pdf
If a person refuses to work, then the result is perhaps that the person becomes an easy target, but chess improvement is not usually seen as an activity where one's goal is only to be able to defeat those who refuse to work. Even against a non-worker, chess isn't exactly a picnic activity. Here, a BYP game actually turns out to be of some interest:
At this point, we have a position that has been seen (and led to a White victory) countless times before, but can a "Forrest Gump" (as White) necessarily expect to win? The game continued 7...Ke8 8. Bxd5 Qf6 9. Bxc6+ bxc6 10. Qxc6+ Qxc6 11. c3 Qe4+ 12. Kf1 Ba6+ 13. Kg1 Qe1#.
... if it takes work to improve from about 700 to let's say 1200, what's the point? How can you enjoy something if you have to work hard at it? Do you enjoy weeding the garden if it's a 100 degrees and humid out? Do you enjoy swimming against the tide in a rough ocean? ...
Some people like the combination of work and talent involved in chess improvement. There is no reason why you have to be one of them.
... there is an aptitude for the task involved in playing chess. ...
Ok, but how does one get this "aptitude" that you speak of? Do I need to treat this like I would a class in school, where I buy a book and do homework?
Improvement generally requires work. The amount depends on the individual and the amount of desired improvement. There are many discussions of the type of work involved in improvement. Here is another example:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-start-out-in-chess
However, if I claim that because I'm intelligent then I should be capable of writing poetry in French, at least better than those Frenchmen that are less intelligent than me, the only thing I'll accomplish is to raise doubts about my intelligence.
My response would be that the Frenchmen that are less intelligent that you but can write better poetry would come from the fact they have the "in's and out's" of French "memorized" from speaking it their entire life. Similar to a low IQ person like Forrest Gump playing the Italian Game a bunch of times and then using it to beat an inexperience guy like me.