< Random thoughts

~ns

I've been on and off on chess for many years, but I'm nearly 1700 on Lichess now (AKA good enough to beat any casual player, but bad enough to get crushed by anyone who studied seriously at all). In my experience, the best way to get better at chess is to not play it. It's to study. Make sure you have good fundamentals: being able to spot hanging pieces, identifying weaknesses in your own and your opponent's structures, taking control of the center, developing efficiently, etc. If you stopped playing now, and just practiced tactic puzzles and watched some YouTube videos on opening theory and high level game analyses, you could be at 1000 rating in under a month.

Of course, actually playing is significantly more entertaining. One of my hobbies is speedcubing, and I've been stuck at the same skill level for probably upwards of 6 years, around a 15 second average. If I had spent all the time where I was grinding out solves and put it towards conscious improvement I could probably be under 10 seconds on average now. It's the same story with Rocket League, too. If I had spent more time doing conscious and intentional practice, I'd be much more highly rated than I am now.

Practice is hard, and it's just way more fun to play ;)

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~ahirusan wrote:

Thank you for your reply. Hey, I'd try speed cubing too, with an awful time for speed cubing 😁 I have to get out my speed cube from my moving box and maybe practice again (and see for new algorithms).

Otherwise, I continue to do some beginner lessons from chess.com and resolved some puzzles. I use analyse functions after parties as puzzles too.