Hacker News Reader

Comment by ll931110 | Hacker News Reader

Assuming your goal is to be a better chess player (reaching expert/master level or up), the answer is no. Grandmasters typically charge exorbitant price (at least $50/hour, I recall that Lev can charge $300/hour), but the main problem is that unless they have so much experience teaching chess, they won't understand why amateurs struggle at certain positions (since they get such idea effortlessly). The rule of thumb for choosing a coach is picking someone about 400 points higher than you (either USCF or FIDE works), who has gone through similar struggles and practices to get to that level. Honestly, getting GM coach only worths the money when you are 2200 and up.

Disclaimer: never have a personal coach before. Did play for a while in a chess club where the team leader is about 2200 FIDE.

View on HN

> Grandmasters typically charge exorbitant price (at least $50/hour, I recall that Lev can charge $300/hour)

Sorry, I'm rather confused. How are these prices exorbitant for professional coaching? I can't imagine you can get a tennis coach for your kid for less than $50 per hour.

This is sound advice. I did have chess coaches when younger. I reached 2100 at 17 but stopped playing shortly after to focus on school and other things (competitive chess play and study is extremely time consuming). Even when I was 1900ish my coach was only about 100-200 points stronger than me, but it worked out great. It's all about getting you yourself to put in the work. To identify your weaknesses and shore them up. Think of it like a personal trainer. Getting an old GM as a coach would be like getting Arnold Swarzenegger as your person trainer.

How is $50/hr exorbitant? Lots of people on HN charge more than that for software development, which (at least to my mind) is substantially easier than being a chess grandmaster.

Sorry slightly off topic, how does one get their chess level measured? Thanks

You get an initial rating by playing a number of tournament games against rated opponents.

The results of every rated game (played at tournaments etc) are reported to a rating body. Back when I played (low level) competitively, rating lists were published every couple of months in paper form; nowadays it's all online, of course.

>The results of every rated game (played at tournaments etc) are reported to a rating body

Sounds like another instance of centralization that must be disrupted by the blockchain

You can chess go on lichess.com and get a rating by playing games

If you’ve ever heard of the ELO ranking system it was developed for ranking chess players, and predicting the outcome of matches.

The system has been tweaked over the years as there small statistical oddities.

But official ranks are determined after playing 10-25 games in “official” tournaments.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

Reply on news.ycombinator.com