Chess Thread

Psyche · Post Post #23 (isolation #0) » Mon Apr 09, 2012 4:48 pm

I want to get better and cess and it's kne of my favorite games, but I often wonder to myself what the point of it all is...

Is it worth getting better at? After all, it's really domain specific and won't improve your capacities in other areas of life..

Psyche · Post Post #25 (isolation #1) » Mon Apr 09, 2012 5:02 pm

In post 24, Thestatusquo wrote:Is this not true with basically any other hobby you could have? Isn't your question basically "why do people bother getting good at things they enjoy?"

Which seems like a pretty dumb question.

It's true. I need to learn that enjoyment is as good a justification for doing something as any other. But that's actually quite difficult.

Anyways, what sorts of books do you guys find are best? Wikibooks only gets me so far.

Psyche · Post Post #29 (isolation #2) » Mon Apr 09, 2012 5:52 pm

I'd think that would be mainly for show and only useful in certain mid and endgames. But surely not regularly...Vulnerable kings not only limit defense capacities, but hinder many attacks as well.

Still, the king is a pretty decent piece that has uses in attack formations...

Psyche · Post Post #32 (isolation #3) » Mon Apr 09, 2012 6:21 pm

But...the mit encyclopedia of cognitive sciences...speaks of limitations on these benefits.

"For example, a chess expert displays advanced memory for arrangements of pieces on a chessboard but ordinary memory for digit strings."

I think (hypothesize that) this finding might likely extend to visualization, as well.

As for studying and will to win, I don't think these skills are developed so much by playing chess.

I'd love to study individual differences in 'stupid error' prevention, though. I do those a lot. But I'd bet that the metacognitive monitoring required to do this might also operate situationally. In other words, reduced instances of stupidity in chess games might also not equate to reduced stupid errors irl.