Is chess for old people.

Well I hope someone or something else will make you laugh again today. As much as I’ve enjoyed this forum, I need to get some sleep. It’s after 4am with me, and I have to get up in 3 hours. I wish you all good night, guys

Humans discovered the most logical and accessible ideas first. That's why it's useful to look at the games of the (objectively tremendously strong) players of the past like Capablanca, Lasker, etc. (Anderssen, Morphy, Steinitz, not so much, although Morphy is good for tactics / active play in open games)

Modern players stand on their shoulders, and play games and ideas that are harder to understand. So you start from the beginning like all the humans who came before you

Opening theory, in isolation, is disgustingly pointless. Real opening study means learning about the middlegames your opening moves are aiming for. Reaching the end of memorization on move 10 and having no clue what to do is... I don't have words for how wasteful that sort of study is.

If you want to study openings here's my advice:  study a collection of GM games that feature that opening. Start with historical games, and mix in some modern games too. After a few 100 of those, then you can use a database to hash out a specific repertoire.

AND IF that advice sounds not very useful (and for most people it should not strike them as useful), then ignore openings for now. You need to learn the basics in all the other areas (endgame, strategy, and tactics) before you can properly tackle openings in the way I describe (by looking at GM games and understanding the middlegame positions your openings will reach).

That's my advice, FWIW, as a non-titled player. If you want a GM's advice go ask a GM.

Thanks, and 'night

Although I may sound like an @ss kisser for this, I’d like to say to the people who took Llama to be a foul person that you are being rather hasty in your judgements.

I’ve PM’d him prior and he has answered my questions swiftly and rigorously with no benefit to himself.

I’ve also seen similarly instructive and well put together posts by him answering the questions of a wide variety of players on these forums.


Now, I have a decent understanding of physics, so now and again people (both online and in person) ask me for answers to physics questions, as well as recommendations for scientific literature.

While I’m usually happy to oblige, at times it can get rather tiring to write up a quality answer, especially when at times I must scour the internet for citations and/or further reading, especially when the person could probably answer their own questions with a few minutes of focused google searching.

But I make a genuine effort to answer their questions in a satisfactory manner.

Often times these individual PM’s that I make can take upward of an hour to write up, and then the person replies with another string of questions a few minutes later!

What I’m getting at is many people don’t appreciate the effort that long, detailed, and informative replies require to write up, and that they are being made largely out of good will to people you don’t even know.

When taking this in mind, I think that Llama is among the more likable people I’ve come across on this site, perhaps not always in words, but certainly in actions.

Good night to you all. :)

Thanks man, <3

LMAO

i feel if its for old people then why is it so fun to play?you don't have to be like 60+ to start liking chess and you might  not like chess even when your old i find it so strange that people think chess is for old people altho a fair point and opinion i think that its definitely more for how your mind is formated and what you find fun less then your age.

No, it is for people who have patience and willing to learn new things!

 

I have zero patience, but I still love chess

You sound sincere.  Dont worry about what others may think.

lots of hamburger

Thanks for all the feedback