Today I watched Hikaru Nakamura teach Scarra (league ex pro) some chess on twitch.
He talked about making your pieces effective.
Example. Scarra's piece (non-pawn element) wasn't doing anything. It was in the middle of the board. But it wasn't attacking or preventing anything. Scarra was to make a move. Hikaru showed him how when lines up his bishop with his queen, it attacks the king. Not directly, with pawn in the way. But it's exerting pressure and doing a lot. The pawn cannot move, he can line up his rook to attack that pawn, and so on. It's such a stronger position to be in.
Another example. Queen and rook is moved to attack the king. If you can prevent that attack by just one piece (bishop), that's good for you. Your opponent has queen and rook invested in an attack that's prevented by one piece. Your own queen and rook are free to attack. Your opponent's queen and rook can be too far off to help defend.
I noted that you want to move your pieces such that they're attacking or preventing something. You want to avoid putting your pieces in places where they're not doing anything.
I also noted that same thing applies to life, more or less. Note sure how to best transpose it, as an analogy. The important thing is that this concept works in life, too.
The pawns would be your more common activities like brushing teeth, cleaning, shower etc. The pieces would be work, studying, training and learning, things you're naturally more passionate and curious about than other things, things you're naturally better at learning and improving than other things, relationships, working out, play time etc.
You always want your pieces to line up and attack opportunities. You want your pieces to effectively defend threats. You want scenarios where you safely defend an entire threat, otherwise scary, with one piece.
Again, not sure how to best transpose this analogy. But let's say you have some natural and significant interest in drawing or taking pictures or some other area. You can go about it such that it's not doing anything in your life or it can be attacking some opportunity. Or you can practice an hour every day no matter what, which would be the equivalent of lining up your bishop with opponent's rook through a bunch of pieces. Now that natural interest is doing something in your life.
Not necessarily that it means significant contributions and money opportunities now or very soon. Opponent's pawn is in the way. Some other pieces of the opponent may thwart that attack.
Let's say you're working some 9-17 & don't have much time for it. That's in the way. Some other problems, big and minor, can line up to make it difficult. E.g. your phone doesn't work. You don't quite have the money to fix it. You have to work some more. And so on. But the situation develops and this can alter. In some time, you've fixed the phone, as well. Some months pass by, situation shifted, now you can afford 1-2 months to do something.
By doing that, over the course of 6 months, that's 120-180 hours of practicing every day. Sometimes there are 1-2 months where you can afford more time than usual. You are in a stronger position to improve your situation than you'd be if you had 0-20 hours of practice.
So sticking with the choice of working on your natural talent for 1 hour every day, no matter what, was lining up your piece to attack an opportunity.
Likewise, you can dream big, have big aspirations and so on - and that's great, it's very important - but it may actually cost you less time and less stress to just get a 9-17 job for the time being. Secure the threat of running out of money that way.
For me, personally, that has been a relief, and it provided some stability over the past few months. Even though I've basically stepped down from a very profitable & cool job to an entry-level job. That entry-level job's better than no job and huge aspirations. You can also learn and test and train yourself on many different levels, even in entry-level jobs.
Then, push the situation forward for 1 hour every day to get yourself out of the 9-17 to something more of your preference. Maybe your own business. Maybe a very different kind of 9-17. Maybe combining something part time with your own business. Ultimately, closer and closer to where you want to be.
The point is that I thought it's a useful concept to assess yourself and your choices, when I saw it.
That you can look at a scenario through the lens of what your pieces are doing. Which pieces aren't really doing anything currently. How you can line up your pieces so they reinforce each other. How can you move the piece that isn't doing anything so that it's attacking some opportunity. How can you move in ways where you can defend bigger threats with one piece, instead of more. And so on.
I think the idea of efficacy of actions is important for strategizing and getting things done, but it's also important to remember that games are a closed system with a set of rules and no unknown RNG, unlike life. Short-term and long-term planning is lining up your pieces to do stuff, but you can't predict if you'll just randomly lose your job due to a pandemic or if you'll get into a car accident tomorrow, break your leg, and end up with a huge amount of hospital bills. Some days you just may not mentally be able to muster up the will to do what's necessary.
Not taking anything away from your revelation, just pointing out that life functions very differently from chess, which can complicate matters and make "optimizing your life" less ideal than it should be on paper.
EsportsJohn is absolutely right. The randomness of life means that it is very easy to over optimise and trying to be 100% efficient all of the time is just not possible with the variety of life and humans in general.
Some planning and having goals is necessary for your own self worth and purpose. But planning every minute of the day just adds too much stress and makes you overly brittle to the variations of life.
I just wanted to say, Thank you coffee! Your insight resonated with me, well shared! Your post with John's instruction leaflet combined should be framed.
I'd like to see GMHikaru stream more Rook Odds games. It's really wonderful what he's doing with the Botez sisters. Although I've never played a game of Chess, I feel like RTS lets me appreciate the strategy. I also don't understand the principle of Castling with Rook Odds. If you only have one Rook, is it still possible to Castle?
On June 14 2020 13:31 EsportsJohn wrote: I think the idea of efficacy of actions is important for strategizing and getting things done, but it's also important to remember that games are a closed system with a set of rules and no unknown RNG, unlike life. Short-term and long-term planning is lining up your pieces to do stuff, but you can't predict if you'll just randomly lose your job due to a pandemic or if you'll get into a car accident tomorrow, break your leg, and end up with a huge amount of hospital bills. Some days you just may not mentally be able to muster up the will to do what's necessary.
Not taking anything away from your revelation, just pointing out that life functions very differently from chess, which can complicate matters and make "optimizing your life" less ideal than it should be on paper.
Thank you for your response.
There are inaccuracies which paint an entirely different picture than what I've intended. At the risk of sounding fastidious, I will address them because they convey quite a few assumptions that aren't accurate. Not to defend my post but to improve my communication skills. If you misinterpreted it so incredibly much or it was so easy for a reader to add so many unsolicited assumptions, it's my fault for writing it that way.
I'm not out there to prove you "wrong". What you've written is inaccurate, relative to what I meant, and I want to learn how to write in such a way that a reader isn't prompted or easily triggered to start assuming a lot of things, when no assumptions should be made. But that's my writing's fault and method of conveying what I mean that's at fault, not fault of any reader.
Not taking anything away from your revelation, just pointing out that life functions very differently from chess, which can complicate matters and make "optimizing your life" less ideal than it should be on paper.
This implies that if life complicated matters, your attempts to "optimize your life" - as you refer to it - will amount to something less ideal than what you've put on paper. This is an assumption because there are more likely possibilities than just that and the statement excludes them or ignores them, as if they weren't there. And they very much so are there.
Large inaccuracy #1.. Life's complex so it can be less ideal than what you've put paper. It can also be much better than what you've put on paper. It sometimes is much better. How often it's better depends heavily on how you understand planning and how you go about it. It can be, should be in fact, better in more ways than it is worse from the original, fairly often.
Explanation. Planning isn't a linear or one dimensional process, although people mostly think of it that way. Planning isn't about setting a route and then following it. Planning is about mapping branches of routes, likely possibilities and contingencies. Planning is about determining and crafting a simple set of mental and physical tools that will best arm your ability to keep adapting, re-adapting, re-adjusting and re-planning along the way.
Much of planning itself isn't about setting some route to be followed exactly to reach some exact destination. That's an entirely ineffective way to think about planning. It's much more about mapping unknowns, the unexpected, branching carefully and preparing for likely contingencies, murphy's law'ing your way up from securing the worst case scenarios, while maintaining balance and not over-planning, as that's a very good way to create even worse complexities and problems.
The part that lasts - that doesn't change - is the clear intent. This isn't your ideal to reach, not as most people think of these things. This a simple set of criteria to meet that constitute authentic victory for you, whatever that is - relative to what you want and really need to achieve, now, next, and way later on. This determines relevance and shapes everything else. It guides every single decision and adaptation, including planning and re-planning, as you go.
However, this isn't destination itself - as you learn, perhaps another destination or ideal state or goal state or end state fulfills the criteria of your overall intent better than the one you've sketched out now. The original ideal isn't assumed to be the right thing or rightly defined thing. That's a well-traveled road to ruin. Whatever your aim is, it is subject to change. It's assumed to be the right thing until proven wrong.
You don't assume your plan is right from the start. You assume it's the best plan for now until proven wrong (and it will be proven wrong a lot of the time). Planning precedes plans. As you keep planning and re-planning, you adjust and improve your actions and adaptation in response to what unfolds. You assume everything about your plan is potentially wrong or faulty or has missing elements - because you're human and that's absolutely the case. Your confidence about your plan should stem from carefully checking, testing and re-planning, with deep care to keep identifying and fixing problems as early as possible, and to keep micro and macro correcting your course. The only lasting thing, again, is your overall intent, and while you need to break it down into some steps or component building blocks that are concrete, realistic and verifiable, these are, unlike the criteria of intent itself, subject to evidence-based, experiential learning and continuous corrections and modifications.
In short, like driving - you're in the wrong direction 90-99% of the time but you keep watching, adjusting and adapting your course based on real time data. By creating a plan, meaning e.g. first, second, third general route, phases, few likely contingencies (roadblocks, dangerous areas to avoid, fuel & fuel stations and so on) for each phase, you don't set your tracks in stone to follow all that exactly like a robot.
It's the exact opposite - all of this is a line to deviate from. Because you've studied the map, because you've carefully assessed important problem areas and important opportunities, because you've looked at the surrounding environment of your task and understood it better, all your faculties are that much better equipped to adapt on the spot. Then you end up doing most of it slightly, somewhat, very or completely differently - to succeed on your task as safely and effectively as you can - because you adapt to what unfolds in real time and that has precedence.
This is because, as you've pointed out, life's very complex and there are so many things you won't predict. However, and this is another inaccuracy, planning isn't concerned with predicting everything. You know you won't predict even 10% of how it actually goes. Even 1% is pretty naive and arrogant to assume for any larger and/or more complex tasks, if you want to be truthful and account for all the details and what happens on the micro scale of things. Planning is more concerned with readiness for performance in fine-tuning action and adjusting in real time with access to all the details, and less so with macro level changes but they're often needed as well.
In short - planning is about arming your ability to adapt, so as you go and encounter all the expected, less expected and unexpected, you're able to adapt that much more quickly, intelligently and accurately. A plan is a line to deviate from - because you don't have all the data, or all the data right, in the moment you've created the plan. Good plan is flexible and well-adjusted to the reality of not being able to predict everything. While that is true - you can still predict a lot and enough, such that you operate and adapt with much greater effectiveness and quality of adaptation to reach your intents.
Large inaccuracy #2. You write that chess functions very differently than life. That may be true to a degree but you can't predict everything in chess either because you're human. What this means, processing decisions in chess and in life, has differences but also similarities. Even more so, given that the elements of unpredictability very much so still exist. In chess, you don't predict every single thing as a human.
When I wrote about lining up the pieces so that they're doing something - which was the lesson Hikaru Nakamura taught, that's precisely for that reason, at least for me. That's what I meant in my post. To able to adapt better, despite not being able to predict everything. Not in spite of it.
Explanation. I can't freakin' see 1000000000 moves ahead, like some AI. As a human, however, I can conceptualize that lining up my pieces to do something, in terms of attacking or defending, instead of not doing anything, is creating stronger combinations of moves leading to stronger positions. It seems like a good, useful concept for decision making, precisely because of unpredictability and inability to process everything.
If I could just process all the moves, if it would be like tic-tac-toe, I wouldn't need to use any such concepts. I'd just process it. Because humans generally aren't anywhere near of getting close to being able to do that on their own - we use concepts or certain patterns to aid our decision making processes. It also suits the way our brains work, in terms of how all of it involves pattern recognition, and how translating things to visual patterns tends to be that much more effective.
Pointing out that life functions very differently than chess makes absolutely no sense when contrasted with what I had in mind when I wrote the blog post.
It's also, in itself, an untrue generalization - chess does work differently on some levels but there are also so many similarities between life and chess, so many common themes, few other sports or games have that level of similarity, complexity and unpredictability (relative to human processing). I would assume one did not experience or appreciate the deep experience of a lot of chess - a lot of intense battle and stress and struggle in chess - to only focus on how life and chess function very differently.
I don't know what writing mistake I've committed but there are at least 2 readers who understood the exact opposite of what was meant. Either way, I did some writing mistake - perhaps an omission to clarify exactly what it meant - or maybe to clarify what it did not mean - or maybe a set different communication-to-audience errors. I would appreciate if you could share why you assumed that.
However, if that happens, it's my fault. I failed to write it properly and the words were not proper carriers for the meaning to be decoded properly by another. I have to learn how to write more in more concrete and clearer ways.
As for further explanation, in regards to chess and life, Garry Kasparov wrote a book about it - "How chess imitates life". He also mentions that in his talk, "How to achieve your potential" - many of the greatest moves and much of chess player's ability is based on intuition. Not some supernatural thing, as some portray it - it can be wrong and it sometimes is. It can vary in quality, depending on factors such as experience and training. But it's the capacity to reason from the entire reservoir of experience, prior training, things observed and so on, as opposed to just your conscious mind's "logic", which is often pitifully wrong, ineffectively slow and blind to its own errors.
I'm not saying any of it to prove anyone wrong here. I only responded to the inaccuracies that I felt were in need of a response, since they created stark difference in the meaning intended, and meaning received. Nonetheless, your responses are appreciated, thank you. I also could very well be wrong about stuff, so I will make sure to add that remark as well.
Geez man you've really tied yourself up into knots. Analogies are supposed to help explain things in less words, not more. They're not axioms that you have to QED everyone over the head with. If you're concerned about your writing maybe do poetry or something to get comfortable with suggestion and imagery as opposed to pages of pure discursion.
I think another way that chess and life might be similar is that they both should be fun and enjoyed with other people. If your only focus is improvement and analysis then something important is being left out.
Coffee, you can't force people to have insights, it can lead to the opposite reaction. Also written communication, if not done fastidious and mathematical is always imprecise. You put something nice out there, it reached me and I think it will reach other people that are open to it. I also did not read John's post as overly negative or criticizing, more like, if everyone says, hey there is this awesome movie and then one guy goes, nah that is just star wars as a western. Then you go into the movie with more realistic expectations and you might even enjoy it more. If you want to improve your writing, ask for feedback, don't switch into that mathematical, I am a robot mode. You might be more precise, but it also makes the thing you write about dead and not engaging for readers.
A chess master once dropped by when I was in university chess club (basically: drinking beer and playing chess). He explained that mid-game, often he does not have a Grand Plan. Instead his plan consisted of micro-improvements until he was so far ahead he could pounce. Sounds a lot like SC2, come to think of it
For instance, he'd compare his inactive bishop to his opponents' active knight, and then tried to force a trade, knowing that -although base value for those pieces is identical- his opponent would lose a more useful piece given the context.
In another game he would aim for holding on to the bishop pair, because he was experienced in that type of game. That way, although equal on material, he would have the benefit of playing in his comfort zone.
With the risk of stretching a thin metaphore: life is the same way. No Grand Plan needed. Make small improvements, invest in stability if you can. Not only will it get you to a successful end game (define "successful" as you like), but it will make life enjoyable while you're working towards the end game.
On June 17 2020 06:14 _fool wrote: A chess master once dropped by when I was in university chess club (basically: drinking beer and playing chess). He explained that mid-game, often he does not have a Grand Plan. Instead his plan consisted of micro-improvements until he was so far ahead he could pounce. Sounds a lot like SC2, come to think of it
For instance, he'd compare his inactive bishop to his opponents' active knight, and then tried to force a trade, knowing that -although base value for those pieces is identical- his opponent would lose a more useful piece given the context.
In another game he would aim for holding on to the bishop pair, because he was experienced in that type of game. That way, although equal on material, he would have the benefit of playing in his comfort zone.
With the risk of stretching a thin metaphore: life is the same way. No Grand Plan needed. Make small improvements, invest in stability if you can. Not only will it get you to a successful end game (define "successful" as you like), but it will make life enjoyable while you're working towards the end game.
These are some great points.
Preventing fundamental errors = stable basis. Micro-improvements = upwards trajectory. With this, one's in position to see openings. Pounce when opportunity arises. Otherwise, you're getting ahead. Eventually, you can pounce.
- Jocko Willink's an example, for one. Podcast not planned. Didn't know he'd do it. He's good at sensing holes in opponent's defenses. Saw opening. Capitalized.
Side note, like how extremely skilled people simplify. Instead of complicate. Chess GM comes and tells you, no Grand Plans. Micro-improvements until you can pounce. GG, man.
You didn't. You bit at conversing with someone who's not exactly experienced conveying his ideas. At least, not in a manner where intended meaning matches received meaning sufficiently.
I never liked those chess and life comparison. Kasparov used to do that all the time, I find it a bit dumb.
It would imply that life is a game with a fixed set of objectives. It's not. If anything, the goal in life is to give it a meaning, and that's not something you plan and strategize.
Chess analogies are ok when it's about achieving something precise with a very distinct goal.
I would say the grand discussions about chess theories, in particular by Steinitz and Nimzovich carry some wisdom about how to achieve certain things. A bit like the Art of War from Sun Tzu or something. For example:
Focusing on having your assets (pieces) well placed will mean that opportunities (tactics) will naturally occur. A good balance between safety (of the king in chess) and initiative is always paramount. You should always focus on intermediary objectives. You don't need to look for checkmating the king. Sometimes, putting a lot of effort into creating a passed pawn is winning you the game. You should not attack relentlessly regardless of the situation. Accumulate small advantages until the situation calls for an attack. It can be a good idea to let your opponent occupy the centre of the board to better strike it later even though conventional wisdom is (was) to get your pawns there asap.
... and so on and so forth.
But again. You can derive wisdom from every activity. Playing music, dancing, reading, playing chess, practicing kung fu, whatever. Life is still not a chess game. And if it is, it's rather sad and maybe it's time to reevaluate.
However, all that more good and cool stuff in life, how do you explore that if you struggle with basic necessities? The parts or levels of life that allow for not struggling with basic necessities so much, are a bit like chess.
You need to work and perform well at that work. If you don't, you're going to have a ton of problems at a very basic level. That can force you in all kinds of directions that can be extremely unaligned with what you want out of life.
If you are very good at your work, though, this can free you in a lot of ways. Then you can afford much more in terms of exploring levels of life that aren't so much about chess.
To whatever that is substantial or worth achieving in life, there is a degree of opposition to your achieving of it. That's one reason.
Growth plays a huge role in life. Whatever your perceived quality of life is, it is predominantly shaped and determined by how you're growing and how much you grew up to this point. And growth isn't easy. It involves a lot of joy but also a lot of growing pains. It also involves a lot of complications and ways to unwittingly trap, stifle or plateau. That's another reason.
This is why chess analogies, among others, are valuable and practical to explore.
On another note, and this will be a long tangent, your comment suggests that "beating someone, attacking, winning, tricking" is a bad thing. That's a harmful generalization. That's exactly what you're doing in starcraft or chess and there is NOTHING bad about it.
Competition, in itself, with all of its aspects of attacking, tricking, beating, winning, is one of the ultimate forms of cooperation. It's a bundle of innumerable factors that enable a group or groups of entities to become much stronger, vaster, richer, more developed and more joyous in all kinds of ways than they would have otherwise.
Most people, when there is a problem, find some fault that resides on the surface manifestation and environment of the problem. They identify that fault as the reason for some undesirable things that occur.
Competition is prime example of this, as there are many who protest against competition. In my opionion, as it relates to any ethical questions, competition in itself is just that - competition.
It's the context in which competition takes place that can be, and often is, a source of a lot of problems, where it doesn't seem to serve its purpose. Competition is a huge area of life. It extends to all kinds of levels dimensions of life. It can be a source of a lot of pain but also of joys and qualities with which few other things in life can even remotely compare.
In starcraft or chess, for example, individuals voluntarily choose to partake in hardships and difficulties of competing in these intellectually extreme environments. If competition was missing from these environments, they would lose most of their immense value in terms of providing experiential learning and opportunities for authentic growth. It's what makes the incentive system work.
It is highly erroneous to say that life is or isn't about competition with all the beating, attacking, winning or tricking someone, as you put it. That's because competition is a huge area of life that it is intricately woven into the fabric of life - it's not some separate aspect that exists only in some divided sectors like chess or sports or work or some other category. If you draw a dividing line where chess is about these things and life is not, like many people try to do - that line is only in your mind and it's a distortion, there is no such line in reality.
EPT
