Bit of a fluff piece with a weird title. Yes, GMs use "suboptimal moves" in their games, but the main reason is to take their opponents out of prep, and more importantly those lines are also heavily analysed by engines. They are specifically looking for imprecise moves that are only imprecise if the opponent finds the correct line, which could be 10-15 moves deep (so it might not be feasible to do over the board).
And this isn't something new. Magnus has been doing this for a few years now, after getting bored of facing the same over prepped opponents. He has mastered this technique, and showed that he's still the GOAT at mid to late game positions once the opponent is out of prep. But again, he's not doing this "randomly", he's studying when and where he can do it to temporarily get a disadvantage that will sort itself out later in the game. And engines are heavily used still.
A valuable lesson AI taught me is how bad articles on Bloomberg and Forbes are. They probably have always been this bad, but I were unaware of that until they started writing about AI (because, admittedly, I subconsciously thought well-known = good).
Define "average" and "very good" - it's quite easy to become good enough to beat all your friends and family (as long as you haven't made friends at the chess club or chess competitions). But if you want to do your best at the local chess competition held in a school hall at the weekend against all kinds of people, from little kids to pensioners, then yeah, you're going to need to spend lots of time studying openings, learning end game theory, and solving chess puzzles.
strongly disagree that studying openings is necessary to "do your best" at competitions. In my experience almost all games between players under 2000 (class players) are decided tactically. I'm expertish (2200+ bullet, 2200+ blitz, 1900+ USCF, win most local tournaments in my area etc) and I don't bother studying openings. Chess is 99.9% tactics at the class level. You won't reach GM without opening theory memorization but you wont reach GM anyway.
Also a reminder for anyone reading these comments that chess should be fun! Don't let psychological hangups like thinking u need a good memory, thinking you need to study openings, have a certain level of skill, or need to play a certain format (like avoiding blitz because it is "bad" for your game or thinking OTB is more important) stop you from playing chess! The only rules for how to play chess are the rules of the game; all the other stuff e.g advice about how to get good are just things people make up. Learn and play however you want and in whatever way brings you the most joy! Chess is a game and it is meant to be fun and not be taken seriously
You have to run the computation. Garry Kasporov is great at this. Its like what is the answer to 1 + 1, you can look it up in a table (memory) or you can understand the concept of addition and run the computation yourself to get the answer (best move).
I don't see the sarcasm because it IS especially handy in openings. If you understand the core principles like developing pieces and taking space, you won't need to memorize any openings to become good.
Bit of a fluff piece with a weird title. Yes, GMs use "suboptimal moves" in their games, but the main reason is to take their opponents out of prep, and more importantly those lines are also heavily analysed by engines. They are specifically looking for imprecise moves that are only imprecise if the opponent finds the correct line, which could be 10-15 moves deep (so it might not be feasible to do over the board).
And this isn't something new. Magnus has been doing this for a few years now, after getting bored of facing the same over prepped opponents. He has mastered this technique, and showed that he's still the GOAT at mid to late game positions once the opponent is out of prep. But again, he's not doing this "randomly", he's studying when and where he can do it to temporarily get a disadvantage that will sort itself out later in the game. And engines are heavily used still.
A valuable lesson AI taught me is how bad articles on Bloomberg and Forbes are. They probably have always been this bad, but I were unaware of that until they started writing about AI (because, admittedly, I subconsciously thought well-known = good).
The „AI” messaging barrage is relentless. Stockfish is AI, LLMs are AI, neural nets are AI.
It’s a self reinforcing system. We need a major disruption to move on from it.
Stockfish uses neural nets for its evaluation function, I don’t see how it’s unfair to call it “AI”.
https://archive.is/o69yu
Maybe that's why I don't like to play chess, because you have to have a very good memory to at least be average.
You can for sure be above average without a very good memory if you're good at spotting tactics. But average isn't a super high bar.
Define "average" and "very good" - it's quite easy to become good enough to beat all your friends and family (as long as you haven't made friends at the chess club or chess competitions). But if you want to do your best at the local chess competition held in a school hall at the weekend against all kinds of people, from little kids to pensioners, then yeah, you're going to need to spend lots of time studying openings, learning end game theory, and solving chess puzzles.
strongly disagree that studying openings is necessary to "do your best" at competitions. In my experience almost all games between players under 2000 (class players) are decided tactically. I'm expertish (2200+ bullet, 2200+ blitz, 1900+ USCF, win most local tournaments in my area etc) and I don't bother studying openings. Chess is 99.9% tactics at the class level. You won't reach GM without opening theory memorization but you wont reach GM anyway.
Also a reminder for anyone reading these comments that chess should be fun! Don't let psychological hangups like thinking u need a good memory, thinking you need to study openings, have a certain level of skill, or need to play a certain format (like avoiding blitz because it is "bad" for your game or thinking OTB is more important) stop you from playing chess! The only rules for how to play chess are the rules of the game; all the other stuff e.g advice about how to get good are just things people make up. Learn and play however you want and in whatever way brings you the most joy! Chess is a game and it is meant to be fun and not be taken seriously
Have you tried Chess960?
I am very decidedly above average (1800ish on lichess) and my memory is blank.
If you had to pick 1-2 things, what would you consider key skills that put you ahead of players a tier below you?
I am above average (by a small margin) on Lichess, and it sounds trite but to be average at chess you have to not make blunders.
Things like not leaving a piece hanging undefended, not falling into one move tactical traps (forks/pins etc.), and learning how to check mate.
You can achieve all of that by playing slower games, and doing some puzzles.
Memory helps but another way is just to play the best moves every turn based on the position.
Cool, how?
You have to run the computation. Garry Kasporov is great at this. Its like what is the answer to 1 + 1, you can look it up in a table (memory) or you can understand the concept of addition and run the computation yourself to get the answer (best move).
Totally. Especially handy in openings.
/s
I don't see the sarcasm because it IS especially handy in openings. If you understand the core principles like developing pieces and taking space, you won't need to memorize any openings to become good.