ShoneRL

Why is this on HN when it's clearly political in nature and contains suspected propaganda (let's not argue about this one)?

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Can we just get a 2FA app that's cross-platform and synchronized? I understand the security implications of that but I don't care, I would rather have my social media hacked and have it convenient than just have to go grab my phone whenever I want to login into something.

Authy is discontinuing their desktop app...

I feel like this doesn't belong on the front page, not really trying to be negative here but it's a quite sloppy UI kit for something I don't like (Tailwind, after extensive research & some usage).

If you say it that way, nothing is worth talking about in life and nothing is worth doing because we all just die and end up wherever as is per the usual nihilism doctrine. The quote I cited, indeed, potentially applies to a lot of things but hey, we are talking Chess.

I appreciate this community since I can voice out things that people might be contemplative about and my negativity filled post was really just no false positivity comment about the reality of Chess in a random world country which I experienced time and time again.

The OP is "How to learn chess as an adult" and as I saw it, my first question in my mind was "Why should you learn chess as an adult?" and then I saw the lengths this person went to improve and while I don't want to be a toxic or negative bub about it, I also feel like I can contribute to this discussion by sharing my own opinion since I directly have a lot of experience with Chess. Now, I don't say that in an elitist way, I don't claim to be an expert but I feel like this blog post and similar posts are quite misleading and might trap uninformed people into thinking that Chess is something really worth learning as an adult or just increase the bias that Chess is some unique sport when it's just really a overrated game, kinda like Monopoly or any other game.

I spent a lot of time on Chess and I am glad to have provided some information on what it was like for me, because I think that it's really valuable for someone to read this and take away whatever they can from my experiences. I don't claim I have it all figured out, but generally, I suggest to keep Chess in moderation and no, you don't need to get better at it because it doesn't really get more fun.

Have a nice day! Thanks for reading.

Local football team has people who are mostly mediocre and they make decent money, since I know one of the players. I don't mean to belittle their efforts or the time invested but generally, it is a competitive sport but it's also at same time providing more opportunities overall.

I suppose it depends on where you are and how competitive it is.

You do have a point about elite sport though the argument extends to casual as well, where casual football, tennis or even basketball is just healthier than sitting over a chess board. Pardon me, I might be a bit biased here since I am maybe too conscious about sedentary chair-lifestyle since I work from an office and spend a lot of time in a chair and lately been trying to get more active.

I remember I saw some website which allowed you to select some 960 position and it would show like some commentary on how to proceed as either side and what should be prioritized and showcase past games with the same position, this was like a year or two ago.

By middlegame theory, I meant that there is a lot of resources on Chessable that go into middlegame theory of an opening if both sides played early opening by the book, so even middlegame is quite covered in terms of variants and the otherwise general strategy ideas are actually incorporated as part of the theory and studied as such.

As for endgames, I don't think the theory is too difficult but it's also been a situation where people are guided towards books like Dvoretsky's endgame manual and 100 endgames you must know and stuff like that which again is just thrown at you and told to go study it because a lot of the people read these books.

Now, generally, I agree, you can play Chess by intuition to a really good level but I've had games where my opponents just told me my moves were sound, made sense and in a way they were "good" but they fell to a part of their preparation theory that was like 8-9 moves deep and honestly, I really didn't like that and I absolutely didn't want to join this "rat race" because I think for me it would be a unhealthy life to aimlessly keep studying Chess just so I can be competitive against other people who do this same exact thing of studying.

Anyways, hope I clarified things and thanks for chipping in!

I suppose it does to a certain extent but most of my experiences were with Chess, Football and Boxing. People say Chess is a sport but it's not really physically-exerting like some other sports or even healthy at all.

In terms of other sports, I think football (soccer) is a sport you don't really have to be 100% at, since that sport is somehow globally recognized and profitable so even subpar players can live well off it and it also seems much healthier than Chess and then there's the whole team aspect of it.

While I absolutely understand your point, I also feel like it's sometimes beyond someone's control to get sucked into something. I started playing with friends on school breaks and soon I was joining a Chess club with them and soon I was googling ways to get better and soon I was skimping out on social interaction because I felt it was better to stay home and play online chess because starting up a game was far easier than having to go somewhere physically and wonder if it's gonna be a good time and all.

Chess is a bit weird. I enjoy playing it. It's just a game but we place intellectual superiority on people who play it (well) but that's not true, a great Chess player wouldn't necessarily be a great engineer or an architect. There's some point of prestige to playing Chess, even in your wording, why is the elderly person playing Chess at a park a "gentleman"? It's because they play Chess and playing Chess is just classy in pop culture.

Anyways, my original comment was just an introspective on what Chess really is about on a higher level in my experiences, generally I see Chess as bit of a flawed game, since the better you get, the less interesting the game is and it just transitions in an overcomplicated memory game.

There's no glory to Chess. Good players were just kids that got shoved into this Chess lifestyle and kept at it. Adult players can get better but if you haven't played Chess as a kid, your talent is very limited and your progression speed is much worse, it's not impossible per say but it's also not likely.

"I am learning Chess so that if one day I find an elderly gentleman at the park with a board, I can sit for a game and a chat."

Since I quit actively playing, this is exactly my thought, it doesn't hurt to know how to play but any effort towards improving isn't really important, nor should it be any sort of priority. Take it slow, enjoy the ride but don't get too entangled.

A wise man once said, "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." and that just resonated with me, deeply, because it is really true on every and so many levels.

A bit of an unhinged, unpopular opinion take: Chess is a very overrated game that's overglorified to the limit and it's an unhealthy addiction for a lot of people and I think modern media needs to stop flaunting Chess as something of a high-horse type of thing.

To put simply, I believe Chess is good as something of a brain exercise for when you're younger or if you are a parent and want to develop your child's logical thinking and that's it, no more and no less.

So what happens if you take Chess further?

People don't know when to stop and I've seen with my eyes this happen because there was this kid at Chess tournaments who was a much better player than I am, however the kid just lived Chess, there was nothing else to the kid, he was socially very unintelligent & awkward, didn't really do much anything else since his parents shoved him to Chess when he was 6 and made it a daily routine thing for him to focus on Chess and his school studies. Gradually, Chess took over his entire identity and he's now a titled player and from people who see him on an everyday basis, they all still don't say much about this now-adult other than that he's still just focused on Chess. The general sentiment of everyone who knows this kid is just pity because it's just a very one-dimensional life. He achieved success but it sacrificed a lot of his childhood, and for what?

Chess players, even titled ones don't really make a lot of money from tournaments and if you want to be good at it and play at tournaments, you have to dedicate basically all your time to it and have good discipline to keep at it, day after day. There's the coach hustle but that also requires you to be at least above average and also I haven't met a coach who's not just living Chess so it's about the same, you still get sucked into this lifestyle.

Chess at a higher level is pretty draw-ish and ultimately a memorization contest. Most strong players will not slip up if given a slight advantage and they will be able to convert this slight advantage into at least a draw. Strong players already have a good grasp on tactical motifs and can spot opportunities easily but that's where Chess theory comes into play. There's many openings and every opening has variations, which have optimal moves and then of course inaccurate moves and blunders. Just Sicilian theory is enough for someone to spend years of their life memorizing moves and building a repertoire.

Ultimately, Chess doesn't get more fun the stronger you get and that's counter-intuitive because people want to get better. I played Chess for a few years both casually and professionally, I won some tropheys and have some medals to show for it. I beat titled players (2300+ rated) but I quit all of it to focus on software engineering because Chess got boring. For me, Chess got to a point where further improvement depended on memorizing opening theory, middlegame theory and endgame theory. Just memorize and nothing more. I refused to do that so I often drawn/lost games in situations where I played less than ideal moves and my opponent knew the theory to punish my very slight inaccuracy. What I liked in Chess was the calculation, so something like Fischer Chess (Chess960) was fun but did you know people actually made theory even for that? So games got more and more boring, in casual games I would purposefully play bad moves to throw my opponent off their theory and to get into unknown territory in terms of tactics. I'd do that just to try to make the game fun again, but obviously I was burned out and there was no coming back from it.

In my country I am friends with a lot of Chess people. I saw a lot of things, like titled players throwing games for .. $10-$20. They spent about 20-30 years of their life to get good at Chess and now they have to throw games for money. Do I want to be that guy? How does it feel to study and play something for 30-40 years then just have to throw games for $20? Probably awful.

Also, general health-wise, most Chess players I know are sedentary, playing Chess isn't really healthy as you are sat in a chair for hours on end. It's very competitive, which can lead to stress and stress just leads to burnout often.

To end this post, I want to say that I luckily didn't keep on this path. In my opinion, life needs variety and so I have done much more and I am happier than the years I spent on Chess. Studied hard, got a job as a software engineer, went on many vacations, enjoyed food & drinks everywhere, had friends/love come and go, played many games, read books and watched movies and I just lived a more fulfilling life than my past Chess lifestyle because it's frankly, a stark contrast between the two.

TLDR: Trying to logically explain my distaste for Chess in modern times.