> I’m a high school dean and former teacher and chess coach.
> While new students playing chess is great, and I see it all the time at school, unfortunately it’s the result of Andrew Tate’s influence. I’ve asked many students lately while they started playing, and Tate is brought up almost every time.
I had a year in school where everyone became obsessed with chess. The teacher allowed kids to play chess who finished their work before everyone else was done. Haven’t thought about that in years.
I like chess but naturally I learn games by trial and error until I develop an intuition for it. You just can't play chess like that, you have to study strategies and moves. I play against computer sometimes but I have 0 time I can invest into learning the moves. I feel like for those of us not in the top 1% of intellectually capable people what makes or breaks your chess ability is the amount of time you put in studying strategies and effort you put into practicing but the former more than the latter.
You most definitely can, it'd just take more time since you have to rediscover a lot of things that could be given to you as advice.
>I play against computer
Don't play against the computer if you're a beginner and want to improve, bots play in an exotic way and that won't help you.
>I have 0 time I can invest into learning the moves
I don't spend time learning opening theory either (I am just 1800 on Lichess), I just play and use the engine to see where I screwed up and what was the better move (I advise you to use Lichess (https://lichess.org/) over chess.com because open source + don't have to pay for engine analysis and puzzles). Talking about puzzles, play a lot of them, they'll train you to spot tactics.
Finally, don't forget to have fun :)
No, it improves many skills, including logic, memory, pattern recognition, visualization, calculation, decision-making, abstraction, time management, risk management, etc.
EDIT I'm leaving the link for any posthumous curiosity, but I'll be removing the quote since fellow commenters here have made me realize they might not be entirely truthful in their assertion.
Your comment piqued my curiosity, so I decided to see if their comment history supported their claim...yeah, a two year old account with a high karma count but no comments older than 12 days ago....i think I'll edit my comment, they might not be honest
As a high school teacher with years of experience, the other thing I've heard a lot is that they picked up chess because of 4chan posts that Trump was playing chess while Hillary was playing checkers.
That's bullshit but if I'd posted it on Reddit, someone on HN could've quoted it.
Another commenter raised a similar red flag, so i have removed the quote. I am not an American so I am not as up to date with American high school culture, apologies for any misinformation.
My 9yro and 18yro regularly play. Including with each other on some online deal. Kinda cool how the internet lets them play together even when the 18yro is off at uni on the other side of the country.
We played chess in high school. I learned a lot about life, other people, the consequences of one’s actions. Attempting to ascertain the intentions of another based on their actions…
I remember the lessons I learned playing chess in the coffee shop more vividly than I remember any of the lessons I learned in class.
He gave up chess because he couldn't make grandmaster. The original book written with his father, "searching for Bobby Fischer" is much better I think. It's not the same as the movie, which is mostly imaginary.
I think chess is an absolute waste of time. It is like spending your time doing long division for no reason. You learn nothing at all that is applicable to any domain outside of chess. You could spend your time reading a good book instead.
..flummoxed?? Strange choice of a word. I was delighted when my son took up, chess when he was seven years old. I think chess should be something that is taught in school, alongside music, art, and history.
https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/12n0yxh/article_teac... :
> GoodNormals 35 points 4 hours ago
> I’m a high school dean and former teacher and chess coach.
> While new students playing chess is great, and I see it all the time at school, unfortunately it’s the result of Andrew Tate’s influence. I’ve asked many students lately while they started playing, and Tate is brought up almost every time.