Finally got my chess game above 1500

Wow. I had three sisters too. And I was once married and still have a daughter.

And your reaction above is generally my own as well. Given my own personal experiences down through the years.

But: Does the explanation for this lie more in the genes or in the memes?

Let’s face it, for folks like σάτυρος and some men here, it’s all about the biological imperatives embedded in gender embedded in testosterone and estrogen.

I played chess a lot myself once I picked it up in the Army. Back then of course the soldiers I interacted with were all men. But even when I went to college and beyond and played many, many games, I can only recall a few women that I was ever up against.

Gratz. I play on the same site as ‘jonkoca’ (cough 1750-1800 ish on a good day :smiley: ). Maybe we’ll be able to play each other some time. I play speed chess though. With 5 minute games. Hate the long ones lol.

youtu.be/S2jE8XmmOB8
youtu.be/YYw-KqqTNEA
youtu.be/PFHy2D30avc

youtu.be/sSV2IFNgqI4
youtu.be/ybrY9JWVBv4
youtu.be/CUShDeUhO-I

The case of the Polgar sisters suggests that it’s mostly nurture. Their father set out to prove that genius could be trained deliberately, and so he made his daughters into chess prodigies. All three achieved FIDE ratings over 2500, one is an International Master, two are Grandmasters, and Judit got as high as #8 in the world. If deliberately trying to create a chess prodigy out of a girl can create the 8th best player in the world, it can’t be that women are generally unable to be great at chess.

Peter’s hypothesis that men value things/women value people is probably true, but I think that too is largely learned. Raising daughters, I am struck by how early and how aggressive the socialization is, and it pushes girls to value how they look over how they think. Perhaps an alternative way of expressing the things/people distinction is to say that men are valued for how they perceive, and women are valued for how they are perceived. Beginning that pressure at effectively zero could well push women away from chess. (I do think this is changing, but currently it’s still a kind of have-it-all princess/scientist girl power hybrid; it’s an additive fix that, in my opinion, doesn’t address a lot of the toxic superficiality we push onto women).

I play here as Wax. Currently 8k, down from a peak of 3-4k.

Very nice. Ive added you to people I follow so I can see when you’re online… Id like to try out my luck.

The three daughter case is compelling but its one case and the three girls share the same genes, namely of a father who is interested in chess, so it wouldn’t make for scientific case by itself…
In general, our attraction to an activity tells a lot about our capacity to perform at it, is my experience. I do well at what Im fascinated by, badly at what bores me.

Go - I registered to the site but damn it takes very long before there are any consequences. It is very different sort of thing, seems to require a very meditative state.

Ive been playing like a drunken idiot the past days, half of the time actually drunk, and yet Im still above 1500. I have no idea how that is possible given how hard I worked to get here. It seems players are a bit more mellow beyond this threshold.

There is probably a genetic component, and it’s true that both parents were well above average. Still, there are many couples of that level of intelligence, and very few who produce chess prodigies – and none who have raised a daughter who is better at chess than Judit Polgar. It is relevant to the question of whether sex differences in chess ability are innate or learned that focused learning was able to achieve something with a woman that only 7 men were able to out-do. That strongly suggests that the differences are not innate, but cultural.

This may be a confounding factor. By the eldest daughter’s account, it was her decision to make chess the focus of her life, which may suggest an early aptitude. Still, likely many other women have a similar aptitude that goes uncultivated due to social expectations and pressures.

It took me a long time to get into go, but once I did I couldn’t go back to chess. Go is so deep and elegant, it makes chess feel like tic-tac-toe. I still watch speed chess from time to time, but playing feels claustrophobic.

Maybe I should give go a shot. Chess does start to seem a bit like tetris after a while.

Is there an app or a site…? Like lichess…?

online-go.com/ is good, clean interface, live and correspondence games. Also some good learning resources.

I’ve also used an app called Tsumego Pro (for Android), which has daily “life and death” problems.

The learning curve is steep, but the payoff is worth it.

Cheers carleas I’ll give it a go.

Oh yeah? Well, I beat Deep Blue!

Back about 30 years ago, yikes, 40, saw Bobby Fisher play in Santa Monica.

Then followed his career. Remember when he was homeless in Los Angeles
then when he got a million bucks for defying the president by going to Belgrade to play a championship, then to the Phillippines and married there for a while, then to Budapest staying with a woman national champion, then finally to Iceland dying there, Iceland being the only country that have him asylum.

He was near the most highly rated player, his mom or was a Hungarian immigrant.

He was not a happy human being, his life excluded anything but the game.

An interesting bio, it appears.l to be, of a troubled grand master.

Tab just watched you crush a 1900 player and had him run off from the table. Nice!
I did see that last king-pin coming.

Saw earlier that you said you were a junior master. Don’t find it hard to believe.

Yeah, that was close to a perfect game :smiley: , everything just popped, mind you the guy did throw away his queen for a rook for no real reason I could see.

By the way, you and Carleas have sort of dulled the lustre of Chess in my mind by comparing it to tic tac toe, and Tetris. Unfortunately there is some truth to it.
Which is, also, why probably super-masters at it become rather limited personalities. Its not really a terrifically important exercise of the mind.

Hmm.

Not sure how to feel about that.

Once you get into the habit of ‘seeing’ what’s going on most players are transparant. You have to try and break their game. After that they start screwing up.

I’m very good at a certain type of chess game, and bad at others. Being able to take a breath, and see a weird move to make is golden. :smiley:

It’s worth becoming decent at it tbh. It’s just not as hard as the media tropes pretend it is. I always laugh when I watch a film where the protagonists play chess against each other. The deep thought… the wrinkled brows… the epiphanies… Aha!!! Mr Bond etc. Lol.

Sounds a lot like poker, maybe. Players should adopt wearing shades to become less transparent.

Ive recognized that, too.
The most absurdly brilliant destabilizing moves Ive seen came from a man claiming to be Fischer.
youtu.be/8T3WRf-yOs8?t=40

Yes. And in such movies, the genius eureka move is always something like queen takes rook with mate. AH!