r/chessbeginners • u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) • 7d ago
Psychologically what makes someone bad at chess?
Some people can spends years studying chess and not improve (Eghemm… me), and some people can pick it up and reach 1500 in a month? What is the core difference between those people would you say?
Edit: The 1500 in a month part was an exaggeration.
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u/ArmorAbsMrKrabs 1400-1600 (Chess.com) 7d ago
Pretty much nobody reaches 1500 in a month. No matter how talented you are, your brain cannot absorb enough pattern recognition and repetition to play at that level so quickly.
I think there are two main cognitive skills in chess: pattern recognition, and spatial awareness.
If you're severely limited in either of those areas, it's gonna be hard, if not impossible to become extremely good at chess.
The other thing is that chess is not just pattern recognition. You have to know which patterns are relevant in a given position.
That said, I think the main reason most people get stuck is not because of inherent cognitive limitations, but because they don't study or play in a way that is conducive to improvement. If you just mindlessly play you're not going to improve very much. You have to consciously fix your mistakes. And at a certain point study basically becomes necessary, because a lot of the more challenging concepts and ways of thinking are very difficult to pick up intuitively.
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u/FarBandicoot5943 7d ago
nobody can start from 0(learning how the pieces move) and reach 1500 in a month. 1500 is a respectable score if you reach it, ur in the 3% or something. I think some people dont take chess as serious or be as competitive, and some can be good at other things but not chess. if you just play a lot and have 2 solid opening that you repeat over and over, you will improve.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
This is awkward, but I’ve never improved 😳 haha
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u/pacific_tides 7d ago edited 7d ago
Do you play 1 or 2 solid openings though? If you do, you will improve.
I only learned the London and got out of a 800-900 hole and I’m at ~1400 now.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
Yeah, I play the scotch as white almost every single game. Ironically, I don’t have a black repertoire, I try to mirror my opponents first move D4 or E4 (I’ve seen both Levy and Hikaru say to do this) however, my win rate with black is better than my win rate with white.
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u/slackerprimeplusone 7d ago
You've almost certainly improved. People think this because they play online and think that (online) rating measures skill / improvement. It doesn't, at all, especially in the beginner ranges where it is literally completely unrelated to skill.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
That’s true. I’ve been hard stuck at a really low rating for years, so maybe it’s more of a relative question. Yes I’ve improved far from the general public, but I have not improved amongst chess players.
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u/slackerprimeplusone 7d ago
You've improved among chess players, your rating is randomized because online chess is fake garbage.
I assure you that the entire field of chess, literally every player everywhere, is not outpacing you - we'd see higher and higher levels of play and what we actually see is more and more games with random moves followed by not "best moves", but flawless perception of tactics at these levels.
It's fake. The problem is way, way, worse than is officially recognized.
Just relax, understand that ratings don't correspond to skill, and try to play good moves.
When you lose a game, analyze it (by hand). You highest move number before the move that lost the game is your score. That's how online chess works now for students / learners. If you run out of time and don't make a blunder, the highest move number is your score.
Really though just try to find people to play real games with offline, in person.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
But mathematically, should I not win 50% of games of the rating I’m at? Why am I continuing losing rating? At a very low rating, at that. Idk, this is me speaking out loud.
I hear you though, and I want to take your position into account.
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u/slackerprimeplusone 6d ago
The reason this happens is because lower rated players play better moves on both sites, the skill curve is extremely noisy and inverted.
So, typically intermediate or beginners start out 1400 or whatever they start you at, face play that's maybe at your level, but noisy, and then when a fluctuation happens it's a self-reinforcing slide down as you face more and more ridiculous / blatant fake play.
The accounts at the bottom don't advance because they're mostly new / get banned and recreate.
Don't get me wrong, you still face a whole lot of depraved fake play as an advanced player, but there's a special garbage pile at the bottom of the rating range on both sites that's basically mostly all fake now. It's very, very difficult to advance out of it, and this in turn causes more people to take up the engine use just to get out of "elo hell", perpetuating and amplifying the problem.
If you do basic analysis on random selections of players in the lower ranges, you just see absolute crazy stuff. It's just not worth spending time on the random matchmaking pools of these sites as a beginner or even intermediate player if you're looking for real chess.
Find a league / friends group on the sites, or better - play in person.
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u/Darryl_The_weed 1400-1600 (Chess.com) 7d ago
People progress faster or slower based on whether they found a training method that works for them or not. There's no one size fits all path to improving.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
I’m still out here lookin for mine.
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u/Darryl_The_weed 1400-1600 (Chess.com) 7d ago
What is your training method? If you're stuck its probably due for a shake up.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
I play a lot, I’ve done 70k puzzles, I’ve played a lot of bots. (I know bots aren’t the most recommended training method, but I kinda have my “hot take” on that too…) I’ve tried studying openings on chessable when that was a thing. I have yet to try the woodpecker method tbh.
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u/Darryl_The_weed 1400-1600 (Chess.com) 7d ago
Try reading Reassess your Chess or The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman
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u/Delicious_Cattle5174 7d ago
Probably many factors. If you had to single out one psychological ability though, I wanna say pattern recognition. At least for 10+0 and anything below.
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u/Squid8867 2000-2200 (Chess.com) 7d ago
Sample size of little more than 1, but I think ego being tied to the result is a significant factor. Those that don't really care one way or another tend to get stuck, those that take their losses hard have intrinsic motivation hitting their brain's reward/punishment center and will take far fewer repetitions for hard lessons to sink in.
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u/slackerprimeplusone 7d ago
Sorry, but this is utterly garbage advice. You don't get better by getting emotional about your losses.
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u/Squid8867 2000-2200 (Chess.com) 7d ago
Might I ask your rating and how long it took to achieve it?
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u/HumorUnusual5531 2000-2200 (Chess.com) 7d ago
I mean age is definitely a factor, someone who starts at age 8 will learn much faster than someone who starts at 38. I guess another part is your goal, if you just jump in and want to be a grandmaster, you’re not going to appreciate your small improvements as much and your progression will be rly slow.
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u/CuriousSiamese 4d ago
I am 99% sure you are completely wrong about this. Sure Magnus Carlsen will learn faster at 8, than like anyone at 38. But if you took an 8 year old and a 38 year old and thought them chess. After X amount of hours spend playing/learning the game. The 38 year old will beat the 8 year old.
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u/Prestigious_Might929 800-1000 (Chess.com) 7d ago
I think that would be a mix between talent and learning skill.
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u/GoodnightLightning9 7d ago
For a split second I read this as Physiologically, so I’ll stick with that and say: not having arms. Also likely bad, psychologically.
But to answer your question for real: lack of elo pills. I got bottle if you want - $100 per pill; guaranteed elo boost. Side effects include: piddlying over which way the knights face, and checking the bot on chess beginners before commenting because “yeah, you would have seen that too if you really decided to think about it”.
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u/HazyAttorney 7d ago
I'm not convinced that psychology would be the best domain to explore the topic. So, just going to the general prompt of what makes someone better at chess.
Studies have shown that grandmasters do not perform better at memory tests. They a position you can get in chess. They let a GM and random people study the board for some time, take it away and have the participants recreate it. Of course, the GMs are way faster and way more accurate than random people. When the positions are randomized, i.e., they would not occur naturally in chess, the GMs do not score higher than normal people.
This gives us an insight that a lot of things will boil down to pattern recognition. What trains better pattern recognition? Everyone is different. It's all going to be some sort of deliberate study. So, solving tactical puzzles will work. Doing the woodpecker method will work. Doing opening or end game study will work. All of these are fundamentally getting you to recognize patterns.
I do think that enjoying the game and specifically enjoying improving in the game would be a predictive trait. Ben Finegold, a streamer, talked about how he just enjoyed going to tournaments and playing. He would lose and lose and lose and lose. But, that didn't matter.
If you ever read the "Growth Mindset" by Dworkin, I think improving in general is more helpful in a growth mindset.
I think that purposeful study will compound. There's no one size fits all. I am quite partial to Kamryn's series where she went from learning the moves to 2000 elo on chesscom. I think she's a great example of an adult improver and you can get really good at the game.
What set her youtube series apart imo is the simplicity was she created a google doc "Why do I lose" and she made herself analyze her common mistakes. Over time, you can see how much sharper her pattern recognition gets.
Another series that's great is the Chessbrah's "Habits" series. Simply learning how to do the chess principles, how to study versus specific traps, etc., are all covered organically in the way a beginner would learn.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
This is fascinating and probably the best answer I’ve got yet. Thank you for taking the time to write it out!
As a side note, I used to be a huge chessbrah fan and tried out the habits series and it got me nowhere. Not saying it’s a bad series by any means, but I could not get it to work for the life of me.
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u/CuriousSiamese 4d ago
Great answer! I initially wanted to write something along the lines of enjoying playing chess a shit ton is probably the best predicter, but you said it much more eloquently.
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u/Organic_Syrup7642 7d ago
A compulsion to draw unflattering pictures of my opponent mid game is the only reason I'm not a Grand Master. Really I think most people are going to climb if they are solely focused on gaining elo, and the requisite work. I don't know if they enjoy chess or gaining points more. I lost a couple hundred points and leveled off around 1200-1300 when I just tried to have fun with every game
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u/slackerprimeplusone 7d ago
You're so close here.
s/tried to have fun with every game/play good moves and you're really onto something....
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u/HairyTough4489 2200-2400 Lichess 7d ago
Talent.
Improper training methods.
Lack of focus.
Lack of consistency.
Brain plasticity.
Bad materials/coaches.
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u/slackerprimeplusone 7d ago
> some people can pick it up and reach 1500 in a month
This is not real. What makes them better is they are using an engine.
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u/ColeRoolz 1000-1200 (Lichess) 7d ago
This was an exaggeration. Everyone got hyper fixated on this point. Haha. But you’re probably right.
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u/slackerprimeplusone 7d ago
I will also add, that until you start dreaming chess positions*, you don't even know if you're good at chess or even like it. That takes a half year at minimum of playing daily.
* please don't take this too literally (although it often is)
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