Why It's Time for Me to Quit Chess

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blueemu
GuavaShoe wrote:
blueemu wrote:

I'm 64. I didn't pass 2000 until I was in my early 60s.

Maybe you just haven't peaked yet?

That's inspiring!  I would love to pass 2000.  May I ask how you got there?

Never had a trainer. But if I had to recommend a couple of chess books that changed my way of looking at the game, they would be "My System" by Nimzovich and (especially) "Pawn Power in Chess" by Kmoch.

Other than that... play slow games. Analyze them afterward. Study games by the old masters (from before the computer era). Study tactics, model mates and typical endgames. Learn the typical central Pawn formations and their effect on middle-game planning.

Players nowadays spend far too much effort memorizing openings, when middle-games and endgames would benefit them more.

scottliu1223

Im 1100 rank of puzzles

m_connors

Generally, nothing that's not fun is worth pursuing. And, if something isn't fun, it's also very likely it is something that will never be excelled in.

If you play only for the rating and your rating isn't going anywhere, then maybe it is time to leave chess behind. If, however, you can forget about ratings and get back to the simple joy of the game, then maybe it's worth staying with a slightly adjusted perspective. Good luck either way. happy.png

autobunny
blueemu wrote:

I'm 64. I didn't pass 2000 until I was in my early 60s.

Maybe you just haven't peaked yet?

You're just a late blueemuer.

Phantom_Beast23

remember kids, if you're mad about how bad you are....

 

 

 

 

Think about me and ill guarantee you'll feel better

autobunny
Art0fArcane wrote:
Bruh someone has to snap that bunnies head off.

Been there done that 

snoozyman
I know how you feel. I’ve been playing chess for over 2 decades since I was 9 and I also used to play in Yahoo Chess. I joined chess.com in 2013 and my rating is still right around 1200 like you.
Bulliedofthesite

Been playing since 1975. Rating is 900 ish. Don't care. Just enjoy playing.

BroiledRat
Why it’s time for me to quit chess- Because you make the same foolish mistakes day after day, year after year, decade after decade, making zero actual effort to improve and then blaming the game because you don’t have the integrity to admit that your plight is exclusively your doing.

It’s akin to whining about being homeless after deliberately burning your own house down.



Hamilton68

For most of us, chess should be about the joy of playing the game and not the numbers. Rating aside, do you enjoy playing chess? That's the question to pose to yourself. 

However, I recognize the value in ratings as a motivator to improve and as part of the enjoyment (and pain) of playing. 

BestSell
GuavaShoe wrote:

How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points? 

Improvement comes from study, not from playing.

Playing is primarily to practice what you've studied.

If you only play, without reviewing, analyzing, or studying, then you're not making any serious effort to improve.

You might want to improve, and you might hope to improve, and you might even think you're improving . . . but unless you're actually putting in the work to learn the game at a higher level, you'll just be doing the same thing every game: trying to figure out your moves over the board, without any sturdy foundation of knowledge to draw upon.

LadyMelly

It would be nice to play chess time to time and meet new friends

yuann
GuavaShoe wrote:

I've really just had it with this game.  It's time to give it up entirely.

I'm nearing 50 years old.  I've known how to play since I was 10, and I've played various accounts online first in Yahoo then on Chess.com for the past decade.  I'll bet I've played 15,000 games in that time.  And I've never improved much beyond 1200 in any category.  I didn't take the time to sit down and read "Reassess Your Chess" or "Silman's Complete Endgame Course."  I don't have the patience, and I had other things to do, like raise two children, build a happy marriage, make sure I was paying my mortgage, and get eight hours sleep a night.  

How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points?  I'm a relatively intelligent person in most regards.  I can read Aristotle, do some calculus, write essays on political theory for peer-reviewed journals, and even read a little Latin. I know how to teach a class of teenagers how to improve their reading and writing skills.  I can read medical journals.  But I can't seem to improve my chess game.

I wish I would have gotten a good coach when I was younger.  Maybe he or she could have forced me to sit down and read through books by grandmasters or just spend more time thinking through opening and middle-game patterns while correcting my errors.  Heck, I could have hired such a coach as an adult.  But instead, I chose the road of playing 5-minute games ad nauseum without ever really analyzing them afterwards.

It's ridiculous to be frustrated and hate the game because I'm not good enough when I never put the right effort in to learn.  How irrational is it to get so angry when I lose decisively to a player 100 or 200 points below my already dismal rating?

It's time to walk away.  I'll replace those hours wasted with something more valuable to me.  Maybe I can spend more time with my kids.  Maybe I can finally read The Illiad or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  Maybe I can go make myself useful by volunteering at the local homeless shelter.

I have simply to finish one last daily game.  I'm certain to lose.  That would be an appropriate ending to an utterly banal and pointless waste of my time.

If you wanna improve, then you gotta put the time to study, No criticism here *holds hands up* but in the end, maybe your start in chess wasn't as good as others in the end... 😞 

yuann
BroiledRat wrote:
Why it’s time for me to quit chess- Because you make the same foolish mistakes day after day, year after year, decade after decade, making zero actual effort to improve and then blaming the game because you don’t have the integrity to admit that your plight is exclusively your doing.

It’s akin to whining about being homeless after deliberately burning your own house down.



Welp, sadly this is true for @GuavaShoe

Unfriendly_Hacker
GuavaShoe wrote:

I've really just had it with this game.  It's time to give it up entirely.

I'm nearing 50 years old.  I've known how to play since I was 10, and I've played various accounts online first in Yahoo then on Chess.com for the past decade.  I'll bet I've played 15,000 games in that time.  And I've never improved much beyond 1200 in any category.  I didn't take the time to sit down and read "Reassess Your Chess" or "Silman's Complete Endgame Course."  I don't have the patience, and I had other things to do, like raise two children, build a happy marriage, make sure I was paying my mortgage, and get eight hours sleep a night.  

How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points?  I'm a relatively intelligent person in most regards.  I can read Aristotle, do some calculus, write essays on political theory for peer-reviewed journals, and even read a little Latin. I know how to teach a class of teenagers how to improve their reading and writing skills.  I can read medical journals.  But I can't seem to improve my chess game.

I wish I would have gotten a good coach when I was younger.  Maybe he or she could have forced me to sit down and read through books by grandmasters or just spend more time thinking through opening and middle-game patterns while correcting my errors.  Heck, I could have hired such a coach as an adult.  But instead, I chose the road of playing 5-minute games ad nauseum without ever really analyzing them afterwards.

It's ridiculous to be frustrated and hate the game because I'm not good enough when I never put the right effort in to learn.  How irrational is it to get so angry when I lose decisively to a player 100 or 200 points below my already dismal rating?

It's time to walk away.  I'll replace those hours wasted with something more valuable to me.  Maybe I can spend more time with my kids.  Maybe I can finally read The Illiad or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  Maybe I can go make myself useful by volunteering at the local homeless shelter.

I have simply to finish one last daily game.  I'm certain to lose.  That would be an appropriate ending to an utterly banal and pointless waste of my time.

lmao he lost

BattleChessGN18
GuavaShoe wrote:

I've really just had it with this game.  It's time to give it up entirely.

I'm nearing 50 years old.  I've known how to play since I was 10, and I've played various accounts online first in Yahoo then on Chess.com for the past decade.  I'll bet I've played 15,000 games in that time.  And I've never improved much beyond 1200 in any category.  I didn't take the time to sit down and read "Reassess Your Chess" or "Silman's Complete Endgame Course."  I don't have the patience, and I had other things to do, like raise two children, build a happy marriage, make sure I was paying my mortgage, and get eight hours sleep a night.  Well, there you have it: you saw nothing valuable in chess materials to help improve your game; because that's the kind of worth you put on it. You single-handedly created Chess into the kind of game that would eventually become boring for you; because that was the attitude you had of it, to begin with.

How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points?  I'm a relatively intelligent person in most regards.  I can read Aristotle, do some calculus, write essays on political theory for peer-reviewed journals, and even read a little Latin. I know how to teach a class of teenagers how to improve their reading and writing skills.  I can read medical journals.  But I can't seem to improve my chess game. Heh...HEH...

I wish I would have gotten a good coach when I was younger.  Maybe he or she could have forced me to sit down and read through books by grandmasters or just spend more time thinking through opening and middle-game patterns while correcting my errors.  Heck, I could have hired such a coach as an adult.  But instead, I chose the road of playing 5-minute games ad nauseum without ever really analyzing them afterwards.

It's ridiculous to be frustrated and hate the game because I'm not good enough when I never put the right effort in to learn.  How irrational is it to get so angry when I lose decisively to a player 100 or 200 points below my already dismal rating? Who else are you to be "angry at" but yourself? But, I seem to get that that's what you were trying to say.

It's time to walk away.  I'll replace those hours wasted with something more valuable to me.  Maybe I can spend more time with my kids.  Maybe I can finally read The Illiad or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  Maybe I can go make myself useful by volunteering at the local homeless shelter. You can and should have been doing those things while you also enjoyed learning about chess. Life is simply what you make of it to be.

I have simply to finish one last daily game.  I'm certain to lose.  That would be an appropriate ending to an utterly banal and pointless waste of my time. I'm sorry you feel that way. I really am. I would like to think that, of the 1000+ years of chess's existence, the game will not end with people disappointingly quitting it because they simply got board, er, bored of it in their lives.

It's particularly why I became a Chess game inventor; having more than 6 finished variants at this point, working on a 7th.

But, hey, don't take my word for it. That's just me.

LadyMelly

Please don't stop playing chess. My father really loved playing chess and when I was young he would bring me gifts just to let him teach me how to play chess. I'm his only child, and probably he would be happier if I have a brother whom he can relay the torch. I was never really interested with it and I never absorbed much the things that he taught me. But now that he passed away,  I miss the times when we were playing chess and everytime I play a game, I feel that he's being proud of me (he wouldn't really expect to win, lol). Although chess was just his past-time, he was so passionate in teaching me and passing his talents to me. I now understand that chess was a part of him, and now I deeply regret how I took it for granted. 

I'm sure your kids are proud that their father is a chess enthusiast. And probably they will really love learning it from you. You can volunteer in your local homeless shelter and teach the children there how to play chess, and you may save them from turning to illegal drugs or violent games.

TCSPlayer
I was feeling stupid too, I stuck around 2200 for a year now. I was improving 100+ a year, but not much progress last year. All my opponents know the opening very well and I usually get out of opening either equalized (when I’m white) or worse (when I’m black). I know what I don’t know and what I should study, but don’t have the courage. I was expecting to go high, to at least 2500 without further study, but apparently it doesn’t work for me.
ponz111

Applaud your decision.  There is much more to life than chess. tongue.png

ESP-918
BroiledRat wrote:
Why it’s time for me to quit chess- Because you make the same foolish mistakes day after day, year after year, decade after decade, making zero actual effort to improve and then blaming the game because you don’t have the integrity to admit that your plight is exclusively your doing.

It’s akin to whining about being homeless after deliberately burning your own house down.



👏👍