It's a long, never-ending story of improvements, practizing openings and learning from past mistakes. Very life-like (psst jack mallers (npub1cn4…3vle))
But improving in chess is also about learning to see patterns, calculating variations, but above all recognizing your own behavior -- mindset and physical relaxation even more so than brainpower or opening knowledge (at my paltry level, anyway)
While chess is an open info, objective game it's so unbelievably spiritual and psychological as well: I play better when I'm calm, life is in order, and there are no immediate distractions. If I'm annoyed, haven't moved my body, worry about money or work, or there's something else bidding for my attention, I play noticeably worse.
I play better in the morning and afternoon than in the evening. I play better when I take my time and carefully analyze the position (which means occasionally losing on time) than when I try to rush my opponent's clock by playing fast. I play better in 5min games than in 3min games.
The stats and the undeniable trend is what most fascinates me. For an average of about 13 games a day over the last year, the pattern has been the same: improvements followed by steep collapse before slowly and carefully getting back better and stronger. Anti-fragility etc
Final fascinating observation: Look at the bottom numbers for how unbelievably small the edge is. I win about 48% of games and lose 46%. And that small, invisible difference is what propels me upward.
Nothing feels more soul-crushing than when I'm on that downward trajectory, losing hundreds of points in a few days. But it's _just_ small margins shifting -- shooting me in one direction or another. Over time they correct themselves, law of large numbers in operation.
Important to remember: small margins, small improvements -- even in a noisy and volatile environment -- repeated day in and day out, create progress.
Peace out.
#chesstr #chess #bitcoin #chesslife #64squares #selfimprovement #reflections
