Chess

You want Fred Reinfeld's Complete Chess Course. It's a collection of multiple books with updated notations. It's the best place to start because there's such a strong focus on classical "control the center" type chess which is fundamental.

that and chess has never been far from the russian psyche - it's a national pastime over there.
It's even relevant in history: Ivan the terrible died during a game of chess.

Chess up till the 1400-1500 level is just being good at tactics and knowing some openings 5-6 moves in. Go on chesstempo and keep doing the tactics, 20 min daily for a month and you will see the board clearer, which is all that matters at that level

Follow me on lichess. I'm "mashi"

Not beginner like I don't know anything. I have gone 1200 on lichess once, but dropped now. Am I suitable for that book? It's expensive it seems so I want to make sure

How about books to make the game come alive to me? Isn't that what literature is about? What are the stories, the things that makes it worth pushing randomly shaped pieces of wood across some grid?

here's a sample
qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Soviet_Chess_Primer-extract.pdf

Thanks a lot.

Yeah pandolfini's book is good if you are below 1000, Soviet chess primer is probably good for you

Read on Spassky vs Fischer or better yet Karpov vs Kasparov

You can get it on b-ok.cc and buy it if you like it. I don't like to pirate books so I treat it more like a barnes and noble, I can read it to see if I want to buy it.

The learning curve for chess is similar to languages. It's hard to get good.

It'll take you a lot of play - in tournaments rather than just practise - to beat an average club player and there's very little chance to beat payers significantly above your level.

You really need to join a club to improve past a certain level.

Do people unironically enjoy that game?

But for getting good try Jeremy Silman's work.

You need to be maybe c.1500 before you'll get much from this. But it could take you to 1900 if you combine it with regular tournament play.

>play game
>watch gameplay videos to get "better"

you create those yourself

lichess.org/LqszpnHM

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for real this time
lichess.org/ffbcq61Q

lichess.org/j0agZD1T

5:00 + 0:02, I play Black

A feeling of intellectual superiority when won

What if I practise online. That isn't enough?

Chess becomes disappointing when you figure you can win games up to a certain level just by brute memorising moves.

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don't even bother asking how I know you have no fide elo

t. brainlet
You still have to win in the middlegame.

There aren't any tricks to chess. Once you've learned how each piece moves, that's largely it.

There's really no point in reading a load of chess strategy books - sure, knowing a few opening gambits can help set up your initial position better, and when you get to the late game and there are only a few pieces left it can be helpful to know strategies for that. But the greater part of the game is just being able to think your way along more paths that your opponent.

Chess is the intellectual equivalent of a weight lifting contest. Sure, it's important to know your technique, but at the end of the day it's simply a test of raw power.

A positional player would wreck you so monstrously it would be humorous.
The game is not what you believe it is.

You never played chess?

If you don't match the level of knowledge on openings of your opponent, mid game won't save you.

Capablanca didn't study openings and he still crushed his opponents. Frank Marshall prepared an opening over 8 years, the Marshall Gambit, and debuted the opening against Capablanca, who won the game.

“Raw power” only matters at the very top. It separates the GMs from the SuperGms

In that case you can just play sidelines to avoid your oponent's preparation until you reach a leveled position neither of you know and outplay him.

The best way to get good at chess initially is just to play a shitload of games. The best way to get good at an activity is to do the activity.

dunning kruger
marshall didn't have an engine

crime and punishment

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You have no idea what you're talking about

What is your ethnicity user? Unless you're Russian or Chinese you might as well give up

not like I wanna take this up for professionally

The Luzhin Defense by Nabokov is probably my favourite chess related novel.

this

I once asked a grandmaster the fastest way to improve and he basically said the same thing, with one addendum: to do post-game analysis with every game.

i once asked a grandmaster if he thought the numerous hours he'd spent studying a board game were worth it. i expected him to get angry or something, but he just looked at me sadly and said "not really, i guess" before turning away.
felt a little bad desu

I think going beyond a master level competence in chess is just a waste of time. At around 2000 ELO you can follow and appreciate even GM level games and can beat the vast majority of players without much trouble. And it doesn't require that much effort to get there either, just get a good understanding of the endgame, pick one or two openings you like and learn their common variations and practice a few chess tactics puzzles every day to keep sharp.

Even Bobby Fischer, arguably the most chess-obsessed person who ever lived, admitted later in life, that chess is a useless endeavor.

It's possible but nothing beats intense 4 hour OTB (over the board) games.

Join a chess club. Play tournaments. You'll see how hard it is to get good.

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When I played chess in high school I sucked badly at the beginning. Then in a period of about 2-3 weeks I played maybe 200 games (mostly online; would sometimes use a physical board to correspond to the screen) and then suddenly I was beating basically everyone at my chess club. A lot of chess is probably just pattern recognition, and so a person of average intelligence with experience will likely beat a novice with high intelligence but little experience.

>Even Bobby Fischer, arguably the most chess-obsessed person who ever lived, admitted later in life, that chess is a useless endeavor.
Of course it's useless, that's why I love it. Once something is practical it becomes hateful to me.

I think everyone who has played chess seriously understands this. (I think it was Walter Scott who said you’d probably be better off using your time playing chess learning a foreign language instead.) That said, it’s probably no different than wasting your time doing any number of other things. In the case of professionals such as Bobby Fischer there’s at least the argument that they can make some money doing it - not to mention the political importance of what Fischer did.

playing chess is no different than posting on this board

chess is fun

Chess is just a memorization game and is inherently anti social

Every chess move has been played already

Sure, until you meet a Fischer or Tal-type player who shits all over material advantage

Johann

B...bobby?

Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.

I was going to use that as an example, but after thinking it over I'm not sure that it's an equal comparison.

I played chess competitively as a teenager, and while I had a good time doing it I don't think I ever gained any material advantage from it. On the other hand, I've been lurking and posting on /lit since 2011, which—as odd as it may seem—has helped enhance my knowledge of literature, writing, and editing in a manner that doesn't occur in most of my normal interactions with people in real life. When I started lurking on /lit I worked for basically minimum wage at a movie theater. Now I do editing and writing for my employment, and recently landed my first big project where I'm listed as the publication's editor. I suppose one could argue that my lurking on /lit was just a complement of my interest in the written word, but it may have helped hone some of my ability, or at least gave me some encouragement to improve along the way. I get what you're saying though—hanging around a random Yea Forums board probably won't provide much material assistance to your life unless the content is somehow related to other activities you do.

Not OP but thanks for the suggestion. Ordered a copy.

>probably my favourite chess related novel.
Is that actually a genre?

Interesting user. I played at school, dropped it and then, as an adult, took it up again and got to quite a high level.

I found chess to improve my thinking in all sorts of ways. Concentration and clarity of thought improve and if you're in any way interested in strategy or geopolitics, it's invaluable.

Geopolitics is easy for me now and I'm amazed at how others can't grasp it. Political manoeuvring too.

You see the position and you analyse it.

Can't recommend chess enough to those who want to improve their minds.

I can help stalemating when I have a good end game position

Explain?

Not him but:

>Chess is just a memorization game

Not even true for computers. Look at the games between Stockfish and Alphazero.

>inherently anti social

You've obviously never played bughouse or street blitz but there can be a lot of yelling, trash talking and joking around. Chess is not a single player game to begin with.

>Every chess move has been played already

There are approximately 10^43 possible positions in chess, even if you took all the games ever played since the inception of that game, it wouldn't even come close to that figure--especially since many of those positions will be repeated (since many positions would never be reached by human players).