Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

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To be clear myself: I work in sports analytics, I have chosen my side of history and I'm happy with it, but there are plenty of people who _don't_ like modern basketball. There are also plenty of people who don't enjoy the increasingly conservative tactics in the Premier League in soccer etc. I don't think there's any harm in having empathy for those points of view. Either way, perhaps we can agree there are different layers of preparation: one is attending to a specific problem in front of you and putting in the work to solve it. Another is more pure practice so that you can problem solve in the face of emergent situations in-game. Some people find the former very satisfying, some people the latter. Some people are lucky to excel at, and enjoy, both.

What's your game of choice, out of interest? I personally love Magic: the Gathering because it is a brilliant balance of preparation ahead of time, whilst rewarding quick thinking in game (with a fair dose of variance).

I think we CAN agree on that!!! 1000% I was just annoyed at that guy when I read about him because it just seemed like he didn't want to spend the time up front, and I actually get it, but that's what it takes to play at the world class level I think? Business is mine. Love it to death, not for everyone and not everyone likes to play it the way I do, especially not those I play against, but I love to play business as a strategic zero sum game, I spend a lot of time studying it, practicing it, researching my plays etc. And to your point, many many people who like to play business hate modern business as it's all research grind at this point. (outside of HN and some youtube, it's how I spend almost all my time)

It's hard to defend Fischer because he was a massive weirdo. Magnus has had far more skin in the game long term though, so I'm generally willing to hear him out.

I mean, massive weirdo, and maybe not Magnus... but he didn't invent Fischer Random Chess because chess was too hard for him. He dominated for several years, right? The game wasn't as advanced or computer prep dominated as it is now, but he seems like he was arguing from a very similar position and mindset as Magnus.

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