haha I edited my post just before you posted the tai-chi stuff lol. Hey, I don't care. It's a random dude on the internet.
I play and study, and I haven't improved much. So how could I expect to improve without studying? The same can be said for anyone except for the very young IMO, unless we're talking about someone who is very naturally talented and just needs to play to catch up to that natural ability.
Yes, so if you keep on playing a patzer and play him 1000 times your unlikely to get better in fact he might make you a bad player give you bad habits. A young player will 'learn' the bad play.
@ChessOath I'd like to know what your experiences on the topic are.
Because I played a number of tournaments at a certain chess club in Baltimore, until it died recently. That club had a large number of constant regulars, who played every single weekend, and an even larger number of guys who came once or twice a month.
A lot of the regulars, i.e. the guys who played every single weekend for years, were over 30 years old, and while some of them improved a little at the beginning, they almost all hit plateaus and didn't break them. Ever. Despite logging hundreds of games each year. In fact, many of them regressed and were sitting at their rating floors.
Most of them didn't study chess seriously during the week. So this is more or less a perfect demonstration of what the OP is asking about. I don't want to give specifics here, but if asked I can send PMs to show what I'm talking about.
If they had studied, who knows what would have happened! All I'm saying is that there's a point you reach eventually where you need to study more to improve. And if you don't study, you plateau. In fact, you can even plateau if you do study, which has been my situation for the past year. It just shows how tough it is for non-kids to improve at chess. But just be realistic about your expectations.
OK I gave in and I read it. It was exactly what I expected. I'm hoping I'm wrong about nothing good coming of it (although I doubt it), just like I was wrong about not reading it. I lasted a while though... I'm going to be calm and I'm going to keep my point short because if I try to fully explain it I'll get too wound up about just how wrong you are and how I know you're not going to understand anything I'm about to say.
The age of the players in your example doesn't appear to be the only common link between them. In fact, they all appear to also come within my parameters for when people won't improve from just playing.
Now, just think about what you completely ignoring this obvious fact says about you. You didn't listen to anything that I said in the post that you were directly responding to. You open this post with an accusing jab, you follow it up with examples that make no seperation between the reason you gave and the reason I gave, but think that they're making your case, and you end with a bogus and even somewhat irrelevant conclusion.
Tell me how it's possible to have a conversation with somebody who does the above. I knew all of this about you from other threads, hence my previous post.
It largely depends on your age.
I can agree with this.
If you're an older player, just playing won't improve you, and you will need to work very hard
But not so much with this.
We had a guy in his late 60s join our club. He was probably around a 1000 rating. He just played for fun (really nice guy to chat with by the way). He showed up regularly until his wife became very sick... anyway, after 4 or 5 years he was about 1500 strength. I know he played some correspondence style online, but he wasn't reading or studying or anything.
You might say 1500, big deal, but all I'm saying is older people can improve just by playing too... I mean, if the OP were 2000 trying for FM then sure, age matters a lot and he'd have to work. But (no offense to OP) looks like he's pretty new. I think playing regularly will improve his chess.
@ChessOath I'd like to know what your experiences on the topic are.
Because I played a number of tournaments at a certain chess club in Baltimore, until it died recently. That club had a large number of constant regulars, who played every single weekend, and an even larger number of guys who came once or twice a month.
A lot of the regulars, i.e. the guys who played every single weekend for years, were over 30 years old, and while some of them improved a little at the beginning, they almost all hit plateaus and didn't break them. Ever. Despite logging hundreds of games each year. In fact, many of them regressed and were sitting at their rating floors.
Most of them didn't study chess seriously during the week. So this is more or less a perfect demonstration of what the OP is asking about. I don't want to give specifics here, but if asked I can send PMs to show what I'm talking about.
If they had studied, who knows what would have happened! All I'm saying is that there's a point you reach eventually where you need to study more to improve. And if you don't study, you plateau. In fact, you can even plateau if you do study, which has been my situation for the past year. It just shows how tough it is for non-kids to improve at chess. But just be realistic about your expectations.
OK I gave in and I read it. It was exactly what I expected. I'm hoping I'm wrong about nothing good coming of it (although I doubt it), just like I was wrong about not reading it. I lasted a while though... I'm going to be calm and I'm going to keep my point short because if I try to fully explain it I'll get too wound up about just how wrong you are and how I know you're not going to understand anything I'm about to say.
The age of the players in your example doesn't appear to be the only common link between them. In fact, they all appear to also come within my parameters for when people won't improve from just playing.
Now, just think about what you completely ignoring this obvious fact says about you. You didn't listen to anything that I said in the post that you were directly responding to. You open this post with an accusing jab, you follow it up with examples that make no seperation between the reason you gave and the reason I gave, but think that they're making your case, and you end with a bogus and even somewhat irrelevant conclusion.
Tell me how it's possible to have a conversation with somebody who does the above. I knew all of this about you from other threads, hence my previous post.
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I'd be really interested in knowing if this is how you treat people in real life, because if that is the case, I can understand why you have nothing better to do than flame people on chess.com.
To respond to your comment, you're right that the players I mentioned were experienced chess players who had been playing for years. And that is something you mentioned. But that's not necessarily within the scope of the question the OP is asking.
I ask you to please maintain some level of respect for the people you're addressing on these forums, myself included.
Age is a no factor unless you are really old or really young. Chess is a mind game. If your mind is in a working condition, then you can improve. Maybe its slightly harder or easier depeding on exact circumstances. But, all players face challenges at some point or the other. Some progress faster initially and slow down later. Some progress gradually and become faster at later stages. Some go at the same pace. It really comes down to those specific individuals.
About the question:
will only playing enough to improve at chess? I think: yes.
But, it might take awfully lot of time to play and get better(especially as you go higher the rating ladder). So, at higher stages, its easier and faster to study stuff rather than keep playing for a lot of time. However, eventually, its all about playing it on the board.
I cracked above 1700 in tactics trainer with 85% pass rate while just started to study tactics book at the beginning of this year.
If you're serious about improvement, best recommendation I have is to carve out some time for tactics. 30 minutes per day is what I do, and that's a good amount for me since it lets me view lots of problems without tiring my brain out (if you go too long, your calculation skills will drop and it won't be as effective). If you don't pay for membership here, you get 3 a day. But a site like lichess has unlimited tactics per day. The puzzles there don't always match your skill level, though. I prefer chess.com's tactics interface, but it's a good free option if you need it. That'll really get your mind working toward finding common themes and patterns in different positions. Because keep in mind, most games are won through tactics, and they exist in every game, just with different positions. Training your brain to find forks, pins, skewers, and mating nets is invaluable. How else do you think I BSed my rating up to 1900? :)
Age is no limitation to improvement in chess. People just generally plateau after about 7-10 years of play and regular study whether you are young or old. If you are just beginning, playing at a club and reviewing games with other players will greatly help you. However, if you add self-study that includes a mixture of tactics, opening theory, middle games and how to handle endings you should really start to improve. Add to that studying complete annotated games by GMs and you have a lot of what you need to become expert/master.
Improvement for a beginner is not that tough, but the higher you climb the harder it is to continue to improve. At least for most of us.
Depends on what you mean by "Improvement" Sure just playing will improve your chess game. But not as much as more in depth study.
I agree. Just play more games, you will improve w/o doing anything else. And this is more true with otb classic time limit games than any other form of chess.
Didn't Tarrasch, an acclaimed GM and instructor, recommend that a player NOT play until he has learned a substanital amount of chess from studying first?
Also, I read an article by a master who said that trying to learn from playing is far less effective than studying because it is "trial and error" learning rather than high-yield concentrated learning. It is easy to see this at my level... most of my games are decided tactically, so complete analysis is often pointless for the time consumed. To learn tactics from my ~300 or so games is far less effective than studying the six-figure number of tactics I could have done in the same amount of time ... suddenly I wish I hated playing.
If you truley put the work in, Expert is easily reachable. For those that REALLY have the desire then Master is reachable. For someone like myself that until a month ago studied what he wanted, and when he wanted i still made it to USCF A class. Now that i have a coach, Expert is my goal.
Didn't Tarrasch, an acclaimed GM and instructor, recommend that a player NOT play until he has learned a substanital amount of chess from studying first?
Also, I read an article by a master who said that trying to learn from playing is far less effective than studying because it is "trial and error" learning rather than high-yield concentrated learning. It is easy to see this at my level... most of my games are decided tactically, so complete analysis is often pointless for the time consumed. To learn tactics from my ~300 or so games is far less effective than studying the six-figure number of tactics I could have done in the same amount of time ... suddenly I wish I hated playing.
Tarrasch was an instructor and author. No wonder he was trying to exaggerate the importance of coaches & books. I am not saying they are not important. But, there is also a tendency among authors and coaches to exaggerate their own importance.
Coaches and books certainly self-promote, but even while self-promoting, they also encourage playing, though within a context of regular study. I think Tarrasch made his point because he believed it, rather than trying to boost his sales.
The many answers on this subject are along a spectrum ... I simply haven't met an OTB 1800+ who got there by just playing, and all of the ones I have met study daily (all were adults, though, when they started or started getting serious).
In fact, I can't even think of a OTB 1500 player who doesn't study, though perhaps not with the consistency, balance, or intensity of the higher level players' studying. Quite often, I hear higher-level players talk about how other players sit in the class C-B range for decades because they refuse to study or just study openings.
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some tough talking there Chessoath.
I agree Chessoath is a little too loud. But I think norman is being the toughest one. More so to himself for his lack of faith in his improvement.
I beleive rapid improvement is possible up to 19 -20 or so. Also I think speedy improvement is possible up to 25 and so on.