8thMarch2023 wrote:
Baseball is a minimally athletic game, better examples as far as athleticism and kinetic inteligence present in basketball, boxing and Sumo.
I would recommend watching a video on the reaction time required to hit a baseball. That’s the single hardest task in all of sports.
What is allowed for doesn't matter. The site is free to say you are allowed to use a tab, another player's council or full on engine use if they so choose. and all of them are besides chess. I do not mind if my opponents play improperly but we'd be lying if we said that all of those things don't harm the experience for the user who consults any of them.
Those who are fine harming their own enjoyment, and not playing chess the right way may suit themselves.
This is simply not correct. Those who do (consult an analysis tab, opening explorer, endgame books, et cetera in daily games) are merely making use of all that is available to them, and it will not harm their chess in any way, shape, or form.
Those who consult opening explorer and immediately pick the most popular option or the highest scoring option regardless of any other factors, those are the people who are harming their chess.
In daily games I ALWAYS consult an opening explorer, for two reasons. Firstly, by doing so I eliminate blunders in the very early part of the game, as I can see if a move I thought of has a refutation line. Secondly, I get to play a variation that leads to a middlegame that I enjoy, as I can see “into the future” to see what my opponent may choose in any given line. I hardly ever pick the top option, nor do I pick the highest-scoring option. I do the research to see the logical conclusions of the lines I’ve chosen and decide based on that.
Furthermore, there is no “right” way to play chess. There are most definitely wrong ways, but there’s no one right way. One who exclusively plays classical, one who exclusively plays bullet, and one who exclusively plays correspondence may all be GMs.
Also false, using ANY of these things harms your capacity to play chess fundamentally.
Even using prep, that is learned as in academia, and consulting something learned or rehearsed dooms you to be mediocre *at very best* as a chess player.
Good players not only will decline to use many things that are technically available from them, but have nothing to gain from doing so.
Not a single thing you said above is even approaching the realm of truth. You said, and I quote “… using prep… dooms you to mediocre at very best as a chess player”, and yet, as a general trend, there’s a very strong positive association between prep used and player strength. Anyone on the level of strong IM or above will undoubtedly be using extensive prep, and if they don’t, they suffer for it. Similarly, you’ll not find even the most rudimentary prep among a VAST majority of beginners and weak amateurs. Some stronger amateurs and weaker club players don’t use any prep, while some do. Stronger club players and weaker professionals almost all have at least a decent amount of prep in their opening of choice.
The use of prep (alongside tactical growth) has inflated my ELO 800 points in the past 18 months. I still have never cracked an endgame book, I don’t pay for puzzles, I don’t analyze many of my games, but what I do and the reason I win a plurality of my gamers is extensively research and know the positions that I play. Got my butt kicked by an 1100 the other day in an unfamiliar position in a opening I picked up very recently because I tried something I haven’t before. Lost badly, sat down, analyzed, prepped, didn’t make the mistake again and then went on to win the match in that opening 4/5. Similarly, back when I was 950-1050 (was that really only October 2021? Jeez) I lost four consecutive games to the Fried Liver, cracked my knuckles, analyzed every single possible defense in the Italian Knight Attack, and decided on the Polerio. I prepped that opening to move 12 in four variations and immediately shot up to 1200 as I stopped losing to the Italian altogether.
Now granted, my evidence is twofold anecdotal and hypothetical, but at least there is evidence here to back up my assertions. Meanwhile, you’ve merely made sweeping generalizations backed by nothing but a lot of meaningless words.
I’ll admit, I have no clue what “Chess, and the mind / flow state needed to play it or any other sport / complicated task leans heavily into a mutually exclusive part of the human brain” means, but my closest guess is that you’re trying to say that the skill required to play chess is exclusive to human thought? Which can be easily refuted by the fact that prep is merely the consensus of the most skilled chess minds of all time. Whatever that phrase is supposed to mean, for my sake please try to simplify your future posts.
Anyways, onto “Good players not only…”:
This isn’t true, either. I won’t reiterate exactly why here, but if one reads my earlier posts it should become apparent.
If what you are saying about IM or other titled players is true, and that they DO use prep then I am saying that those players are mediocre at very best.
You don't need move orders or principles in chess, you need to be able to choose moves and plans with lucidity. It's more pliable, it's better and it's more complete.
That said, I am hesitant to consider that the chess world is really that undeveloped, that notable players are really going about it in such a wrong way. More likely is that it is a misunderstanding by players who look up to what they do not yet understand.
Interesting. Personally I tend to be of a different mindset. If I think something in chess is bad but all of the top players in the world for the last half a century disagree, I’ll reevaluate my opinion and adjust it accordingly rather than simply… accuse the best ever of being simply mediocre.
Now this is something I can somewhat agree with... but not fully. I’ll always tell beginners to play e4 as White and to play e4 e5 and d4 Nf6 as Black. As for everything else, you don’t need a response because the amount of games you’ll play in these openings is negligible. However a newcomer will probably be playing upwards of 95% of games in these openings, and as such having a simple response prepared (no more than five or ten moves) guarantees that a newcomer won’t literally lose the game before move 10. It also teaches them where pieces go naturally, and before long I find that most beginners learn instinctively where to place the pieces even in completely unfamiliar territory.
You see, prep doesn’t detract from newcomers’ opening play, it teaches good habits in newcomers’ opening play. Most beginners play nonsense like the Wayward Queen, the Fried Liver, the Scandinavian, the Englund Gambit, or Hippo-style openings because they don’t know any better, and without help it will be incredibly difficult for them to improve on their own. if you teach them something better, not only will they play better in the short term, but they’ll play better in the long term.
It's not a chess thing mind you, It's any game, sport or complex task.
And you're likely wrong about the top players in the last half century doing such a thing, because chess is popular enough that it's likely to have some bright people by now.
If it doesn't, then I am rather curious why would be better players are electing to play team sports, combat sports and other strategy games instead.
I'm not particularly good at games, but I massively out scale and am likely to very early on, out perform anyone who plays / strives to learn in the way that you describe.
You'd be amazed what a better suited player / mind than me would do and how swiftly / naturally.
I suppose the closest thing I can compare it to in the world of sports is baseball. Nowadays, professional batters in baseball will spend hours simply studying a pitcher’s nuances. Watching pitch after pitch after pitch to see if there’s any difference at all between a fastball and a changeup for this pitcher. This is prep. It doesn’t actually improve the batter’s game, but what it DOES do for the batter is allow him to be ready, because if he sees a pitcher’s hand dip slightly slower than usual, he’ll know subconsciously that this pitch will be a changeup and he’ll adjust accordingly and be ready and more likely to actually make contact with the ball. If you compare a batter who does this to a batter who simply hits based entirely off intuition, the batter with prep against that pitcher will inevitably do better, despite possibly having actually practiced less. Similarly, if I spend 6 hours a day working on analysis and opening prep but only 2 hours playing, while you spend 8 hours a day playing, if we play an opening I am familiar with, I will be much more likely to win than you, in spite of you playing the game FOUR times as much as me. The reason is simple. You can play much better than me overall, but my knowledge in this opening, its middlegames, and it’s common endgames will be unparalleled. You will undoubtedly be a much more consistent player than I, but I will be more likely to have a higher ELO, thereby allowing me to play higher quality games, thereby allowing me to improve more quickly than you, and soon we will reach the same level of play despite you having four times as many games. Essentially, I’m investing in my future at absolutely no cost to my present. I’d recommend a reevaluation of your opinion on opening prep.
Investing in your future is not wrong tho, it's just not a very good investment. Like the steroid analogy, or how I could have made analogies about consuming sugary foods and ruining your BMI, or using certain illegal substances and ruining your future.
Using prep, or trying to study chess through rote memorization and standardized learning is like biting the proverbial apple. It leads to ruin and mediocrity. You will never outdo great players, engines or even me by learning that way.
That said, if someday chess becomes solved, and you can prepare and consult a full solution, rather than a theoretical one, then perhaps playing through prep will be functionally just as good.
Until we get there tho, You can make your bed and lie in it.
And were I talking purely of rote memorization, I’d agree with you. But I’m not, and that’s why I’ve nearly jumped a full thousand ELO points in under two years without a coach or any endgame knowledge. Imagine what I could do with a coach, endgame knowledge, and slightly more positional and tactical skill. I genuinely think that in another two years with a coach who teaches endgames, I could become a title: player.