Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

Yes, a top level player. Not relevant for most players.

It's boring as hell.

I have played less than 100 games of classical and I am already bored by it.

2 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

If openings don't matter, then there's no reason to stop playing classical chess.

And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle.

[AtmanIsBrahman]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's boring as hell.

Ok, but we were talking about openings. Now you're changing the subject.

 

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle

You claim openings matter, I claim they don't with much more experience in the domain. If you want to disagree, ok, but you're just wrong on this.

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

Ok, but we were talking about openings. Now you're changing the subject.

Openings are what make chess boring. Directly germane to the subject.

Quote

You claim openings matter, I claim they don't with much more experience in the domain. If you want to disagree, ok, but you're just wrong on this.

You frame your claim as something objective when it is your opinion.

I get too little enjoyment from classical chess. And that matters.

I could play tic-tac-toe, but I don't.

Your experience level is irrelevant to my level of enjoyment.

Edited 4 hours ago by Leo Gura

[AtmanIsBrahman]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I get too little enjoyment from classical chess. And that matters

That's fine, I was just pointing out that some of your thinking on this is wrong. 

The enjoyment reason is totally valid, it's just the other insights you gave about chess weren't accurate and I felt the need to correct them

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

That's fine, I was just pointing out that some of your thinking on this is wrong. 

The enjoyment reason is totally valid, it's just the other insights you gave about chess weren't accurate and I felt the need to correct them

Your position forces me to memorize shit that I do not want to memorize. So that's the bottom line and the deciding factor.

You want me to memorize things just to play a less varied and less creative game. This is a lose-lose proposition. The only reason for me to do that is conformity. And then you try to dress this up as a dispute over some objective factors and experience level.

If I don't play your memory games then I cannot play classical chess at 2000. That is the issue. I have to spend months memorizing shit just to be competitive. Why would any intelligent mind do that?

Edited 4 hours ago by Leo Gura

[AtmanIsBrahman]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Your position forces me to memorize shit that I do not want to memorize

Look, you don't have to memorize anything. You can play 1.b3 with white and 1.g6 with black every game and take it from there. Playing fischer random because you prefer it is fine, it's just that your opening claims are overblown.

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

Look, you don't have to memorize anything. You can play 1.b3 with white and 1.g6 with black every game and take it from there. Playing fischer random because you prefer it is fine, it's just that your opening claims are overblown.

You are grossly oversimplifying how chess works.

And why would I want to play the same damn opening every time? This is insane.

[Joshe]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It's boring as hell.

I have played less than 100 games of classical and I am already bored by it.

Reminds me of that time Elon Musk said chess was too simple for him. 😂

What would make someone say such a ridiculous thing? Identity management. Musk opts out of the game because he thinks it's a reflection of his intelligence, and since he realized he was getting beat by 13 year olds, well, he just couldn't have that. Which ironically says a lot about his intelligence. 

Leo, chess.com makes it just as easy to play real people rather than bots. Why not play real people instead of bots? Your rating would be more accurate and the gameplay would offer more variety. All you gotta do is click the other button. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Joshe

[Leo Gura]

Musk is not wrong. Chess is insanely hard to master at a competitive level, but it is simplistic and frankly boring for a more creative mind. After a while you get the gist of chess and all chess games become the same except for minutia.

Chess is way over-rated as a game, similar to classical music. Classical music is technically good but it is so boring in the grand scheme of things.

You have to be insane to invest your whole life playing chess.

Chess being simplistic doesn't mean being worldclass at it is easy. It's just tedious to do it. Any sane mind must quickly ask itself, But why??

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Joshe said:

Leo, chess.com makes it just as easy to play real people rather than bots. Why not play real people instead of bots? Your rating would be more accurate and the gameplay would offer more variety. 

Because playing real people brings ego into it, which I dislike. And real people means waiting for them to make moves which takes a long time.

Edited 3 hours ago by Leo Gura

[AtmanIsBrahman]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

real people means waiting for them to make moves which takes a long time.

You can play as fast as you like. 1 minute chess and 3 minute chess are among the more popular time controls

[Leo Gura]

Just now, AtmanIsBrahman said:

You can play as fast as you like. 1 minute chess and 3 minute chess are among the more popular time controls

I don't like quick chess. I think slow and careful, not like a squirrel on meth.

[AtmanIsBrahman]

Time for me but not for thee 

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

Time for me but not for thee 

Time is relative.

[Joseph Maynor]

One thing I like about openings is you can see what kind of chess you prefer.  For example, I prefer e4 as white where black plays a Sicilian defense.  

I love this video:

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Joseph Maynor

[Joshe]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Musk is not wrong. Chess is insanely hard to master at a competitive level, but it is simplistic and frankly boring for a more creative mind.

Chess is not simple at all. It has simple rules and a simple structure, but that's not the same as a simple game. Go has even simpler rules than chess and it's one of the deepest games created. 

I understand how the structural contraints of the game can make it feel boring, but this is a preference thing and is distinct from the game's actual complexity. You and Elon could simply just say "I prefer more open domains of creativity without as much constraint". But for some reason, there's a need to call that which is complex, simple. 

And I totally get it - chess can get old because of its structure, but that doesn't make it simple.

To watch Elon Musk call it simple - alongside him saying he never lost a chess game - reveals exactly why he needed to diminish the game in the first place by conflating its constraints with simplicity. He needed to manage the identity of being intellectually superior. Which is funny because chess skill has very little to do with general intelligence in the first place. The game only threatens your ego if you've decided it's a valid metric for your intelligence. 

Also, it might be the case that you haven't played enough to understand the amount of creativity on offer within those 64 squares and 32 pieces. Depth reveals itself the deeper you go. You can't see it from the surface. 200 games isn't enough to see it. 

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Joshe said:

Chess is not simple at all. It has simple rules and a simple structure, but that's not the same as a simple game. Go has even simpler rules than chess and it's one of the deepest games created. 

Simple can still be deep.

It is hard to calculate the combinatorial explosion in chess. But it is still simple, I would say. The human mind just can't handle so many combinations easily.

Chess is a fine game. But I do feel it is overhyped. Obviously that's just my taste.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Joshe]

9 hours ago, PenguinPablo said:

I've probably played 10,000 Chess games yet I'm only in the top 65% of players.

Am I stupid?

I think just doing the thing is not enough. But serious analysis and curiosity is necessary along the way to notice the gaps in your approach.

I think in the majority of cases experience will suffice to see radical improvements and transformation but I think their can be bottleknecks depending on intellectual aptitude, trauma, etc...

The tricky part is sticking with a process long enough for it to produce results. 

I'm no expert but if I decided I wanted to really get good at chess, I'd exhaust the ideas from this video. It's basically spaced repetition for tactical motifs. This isn't typical chess Youtube stuff. This is probably the highest quality chess learning video I ever came across.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Joshe