<story><title>Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months</title><url>https://mbuffett.com/posts/chess_improvement_thoughts/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wpasc</author><text>I often wonder if chess players have a natural &amp;quot;peak&amp;quot;&amp;#x2F;&amp;quot;optimal&amp;quot; age range in the way that professional athletes do. Being a thinking game that requires strong brain functionality combined with accumulated experience, I wonder if there is an age range that is best for most players.&lt;p&gt;Trade offs may be something like in yours teens and early 20&amp;#x27;s your brain may have the most plasticity and ability to visualize (plan 10+ moves ahead) but you might not have accumulated enough experience.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m purely speculating here and just wondering aloud. (I bring it up in response to this comment because Magnus&amp;#x27; prodigious talent is so noteworthy I wonder when Magnus will stop being able to &amp;quot;beat&amp;quot; Magnus of 1 year ago.</text></item><item><author>SamBam</author><text>&amp;gt; That seems like a meaningful interpretation of &amp;quot;600 points&amp;quot; that applies to anyone&lt;p&gt;It does apply to anyone, but it is more or less meaningful depending on where you start, so the meaningfulness isn&amp;#x27;t equivalent.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s as if you say you can double your money, but it only works once and with a value &amp;lt; $1.&lt;p&gt;The idea that, say, Magnus could increase his chess playing abilities in 6 months (or even 6 years) to be able to beat the current version of himself 99% of the time would be insane.</text></item><item><author>anandoza</author><text>Doesn&amp;#x27;t gaining 600 points mean that you are able to beat the &amp;quot;old you&amp;quot; (or more precisely, people who you used to be even with) with 99% probability? (Or perhaps more meaningfully, you can now beat someone who could beat someone who could beat someone who could beat someone who can beat the old you, all with 80% probability?)&lt;p&gt;(I made up the exact numbers, but the idea is there.)&lt;p&gt;That seems like a meaningful interpretation of &amp;quot;600 points&amp;quot; that applies to anyone -- though the difficulty of actually making this improvement definitely varies with your starting rating.</text></item><item><author>kthejoker2</author><text>Pedantry alert: As ELO ratings follow a logarithmic curve, &amp;quot;gaining 600 points&amp;quot; is a dimensionless metric.&lt;p&gt;These are good tips for beginner to intermediate growth. The things that definitely help the most are:&lt;p&gt;* Pattern recognition - the best courses for this level are things like &amp;quot;Common traps in &amp;lt;some random opening&amp;gt;&amp;quot;, applied with Woodpecker method. Once you&amp;#x27;ve memorized all the mistakes in the Scandi or London system, you can really crush a lot of people who play haphazardly.&lt;p&gt;* Study your own games and games of people at or just above your level. Four simple methods:&lt;p&gt;1) during the game, write down (Lichess has a notes section on the left) 3 candidate moves for every move in the middle and endgame, why you&amp;#x27;re making a particular move, and what you think the opponent&amp;#x27;s response will be&lt;p&gt;2) use the &amp;quot;Learn from your mistakes&amp;quot; button after each game during analysis&lt;p&gt;3) check the most common moves in the opening that are different than yours, play through a couple of masters&amp;#x27; games to see why those positions are preferred.&lt;p&gt;And my last tip which helped me a lot just with the &amp;quot;meta&amp;quot; of playing chess ...&lt;p&gt;* Use more time. Be okay with losing games because you run out of time thinking. Always, always, always try to play the best move, even if it means spending a lot of time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cosentiyes</author><text>Someone posted some basic analysis with mild QC on elo vs age for FIDE rated players as of 2014: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chess.com&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;LionChessLtd&amp;#x2F;age-vs-elo---your-battle-against-time&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chess.com&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;LionChessLtd&amp;#x2F;age-vs-elo---your-ba...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think there are a lot of confounders to consider. Though GMs like Anand show a drop in standard rating (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ratings.fide.com&amp;#x2F;profile&amp;#x2F;5000017&amp;#x2F;chart&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ratings.fide.com&amp;#x2F;profile&amp;#x2F;5000017&amp;#x2F;chart&lt;/a&gt;), his blitz rating is near his all-time-high (ie. is his standard rating drop due to decreased mental performance or a shift in interest&amp;#x2F;focus to blitz?). Similarly, I suspect a lot of strong players who fall in the `2000&amp;lt;FIDE rating&amp;lt;2300` realize they may not be the next magnus and shift focus when&amp;#x2F;if they make the decision to pursue a career outside of professional chess.</text></comment>
<story><title>Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months</title><url>https://mbuffett.com/posts/chess_improvement_thoughts/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wpasc</author><text>I often wonder if chess players have a natural &amp;quot;peak&amp;quot;&amp;#x2F;&amp;quot;optimal&amp;quot; age range in the way that professional athletes do. Being a thinking game that requires strong brain functionality combined with accumulated experience, I wonder if there is an age range that is best for most players.&lt;p&gt;Trade offs may be something like in yours teens and early 20&amp;#x27;s your brain may have the most plasticity and ability to visualize (plan 10+ moves ahead) but you might not have accumulated enough experience.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m purely speculating here and just wondering aloud. (I bring it up in response to this comment because Magnus&amp;#x27; prodigious talent is so noteworthy I wonder when Magnus will stop being able to &amp;quot;beat&amp;quot; Magnus of 1 year ago.</text></item><item><author>SamBam</author><text>&amp;gt; That seems like a meaningful interpretation of &amp;quot;600 points&amp;quot; that applies to anyone&lt;p&gt;It does apply to anyone, but it is more or less meaningful depending on where you start, so the meaningfulness isn&amp;#x27;t equivalent.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s as if you say you can double your money, but it only works once and with a value &amp;lt; $1.&lt;p&gt;The idea that, say, Magnus could increase his chess playing abilities in 6 months (or even 6 years) to be able to beat the current version of himself 99% of the time would be insane.</text></item><item><author>anandoza</author><text>Doesn&amp;#x27;t gaining 600 points mean that you are able to beat the &amp;quot;old you&amp;quot; (or more precisely, people who you used to be even with) with 99% probability? (Or perhaps more meaningfully, you can now beat someone who could beat someone who could beat someone who could beat someone who can beat the old you, all with 80% probability?)&lt;p&gt;(I made up the exact numbers, but the idea is there.)&lt;p&gt;That seems like a meaningful interpretation of &amp;quot;600 points&amp;quot; that applies to anyone -- though the difficulty of actually making this improvement definitely varies with your starting rating.</text></item><item><author>kthejoker2</author><text>Pedantry alert: As ELO ratings follow a logarithmic curve, &amp;quot;gaining 600 points&amp;quot; is a dimensionless metric.&lt;p&gt;These are good tips for beginner to intermediate growth. The things that definitely help the most are:&lt;p&gt;* Pattern recognition - the best courses for this level are things like &amp;quot;Common traps in &amp;lt;some random opening&amp;gt;&amp;quot;, applied with Woodpecker method. Once you&amp;#x27;ve memorized all the mistakes in the Scandi or London system, you can really crush a lot of people who play haphazardly.&lt;p&gt;* Study your own games and games of people at or just above your level. Four simple methods:&lt;p&gt;1) during the game, write down (Lichess has a notes section on the left) 3 candidate moves for every move in the middle and endgame, why you&amp;#x27;re making a particular move, and what you think the opponent&amp;#x27;s response will be&lt;p&gt;2) use the &amp;quot;Learn from your mistakes&amp;quot; button after each game during analysis&lt;p&gt;3) check the most common moves in the opening that are different than yours, play through a couple of masters&amp;#x27; games to see why those positions are preferred.&lt;p&gt;And my last tip which helped me a lot just with the &amp;quot;meta&amp;quot; of playing chess ...&lt;p&gt;* Use more time. Be okay with losing games because you run out of time thinking. Always, always, always try to play the best move, even if it means spending a lot of time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spekcular</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s some data for your question. A list of the world&amp;#x27;s top players (over 2700 Elo) is maintained here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;2700chess.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;2700chess.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;p&gt;With the exception of Anand at 51, they&amp;#x27;re all quite young.</text></comment>