I love chess but honestly I'm just not very good. How do you guys get better?

Trilink26 · 1 day

You'll be working on it for a while. First, there's seeing what's on the board right now. Then comes seeing what's a move away. Then two moves away. It goes on and on...

The good news is that you'll start seeing payoffs in your games pretty soon. There are things I never, ever miss now that I only saw once in a while before. I went through a streak of queen sacks either by pinning the queen to the king or a check with discovered attack on the Q. I recognized a pattern for a queen sacrifice / smothered mate and that was awesome. Seeing these patterns also helps you in defense, since you can see when you're vulnerable to a tactic and fix it, or not make a move that would leave you hanging.

If you like to read and think, please supplement your chesstempo activity with Predator at the Chessboard, a free online book in tactics that does a fantastic job of covering tactics.

buysomeapples · 1 day

I'm doing it now. It's nice to help with pronunciation and getting some basics down, but it's not at all "fun." It's no more fun than any spaced repetition type thing, but that repetition serves its purpose. If you're the type to get frustrated at such things then save your money. But if you think you can handle it and want to add something good in your drive time then it might be a good fit for you.

buysomeapples · 1 day

When searching for that I saw this in the zero-click info box: Japanese children's television series.

jazzilla · 5 days

Perhaps I did not say it right. I should have left it at "sugoi!"

jazzilla · 5 days

それはすごいな !

sartakdotorg · 6 days

Sounds great. Whenever you put out an update I will try out the new timing.

mitton87 · 6 days

Norwegians I've met all speak excellent English, with better grammar than many native speakers, and little trace of an accent. But for some reason they seem shy when talking with us native English speakers, as if they feel their English is not adequate. Is this true? Why?

sartakdotorg · 6 days

Thanks to you for writing this app.

extend the initial wait a little bit

You might consider extending all the waits a bit. Once the characters start going it's all very fast, and quite visually disruptive to me and actually makes it harder to pick, even when I know the answer extremely well! I find myself thinking that I could write お on paper quicker than I could find and touch it, because of the visual disruption. I'm sure not everyone has this complaint, but I really doubt I'm the only one. If you ever have a "Settings" section perhaps you could add a slider for delay speed.

pronouncing the character you just answered

I agree that isn't useful. I think a much better use would be to have them spoken instead of displaying romaji, as an alternate question method. For me, I've found that all the warnings against using romaji are true. No matter what, I see "KE" and my English reading/speaking brain says "key" and I incorrectly pick き.

mitton87 · 7 days

I clicked in expecting to see something nice, but hardly expecting awesome. You know, everything is awesome. But your experience actually is... awesome. Very cool!

sartakdotorg · 7 days

Just downloaded and tried it a bit. Very nice and intuitive, and I really like it so far.

I agree a bit with ePants' point that with no sound at all it feels a bit odd. Even just a ding for correct and buzz for incorrect would be better. It's not a deal breaker for me, but it would add to the feeling of a finished product.

One thing that I can see bothering me more and more as I play... it begins to take away too soon. I only got to stuff I already know well, but still it began taking away things before I'd even looked at all the characters. Just wait a bit longer before taking things away.

EDIT: I have absolutely no problem with the price. I think if you get good ratings and reviews then people will pay for this.

Kaffeeklatsch · 10 days

Hopefully someone has specific personal knowledge to help you. Otherwise or in addition maybe this will help: http://chess.meetup.com/cities/gb/17/london/

biotroll · 10 days

Don't be put off. It's a great documentary. Even with as many hours as it is they still couldn't cover everything in detail, which is bound to disappoint some people.

Watch it for what it does cover, which is an awful lot.

dwchandler · 11 days

Thank you for that! The Michel Thomas course is significantly less money, so that's another difference. I went ahead and ordered the Pimsleur Japanese I course and I'm fairly happy with it so far. I wouldn't mind just a little more explanation about the differences in pronunciation between the male and female speakers. The female says "wakarimasen" and the male says "wakarimasem" with no explanation at all, and a few other differences.

kerbuffel · 12 days

That's just not true, and you can't re-educate them out of it. And they're still bees just like the rest and should be able to get married. Oh, wait... I was thinking of something else.

herbert1820 · 13 days

I agree.

But I also support people raising these issues. The article characterizes them as bullies, but they are not in a position to be bullies. Not only should they be free to protest, but I'm glad they are doing so.

There's a positive benefit to be gained by such protests: people who've attained eminence in their domain may hesitate to use their position to put forward views on which they have no more expertise than do I. When someone in a position of authority speaks about something they haven't considered well then they should be called out on it. There's always a price to be paid, it's just a matter of who does the paying. I'd rather it be the person who incurred the cost, rather than the audience who will pay by lending credence to nonsense based on unrelated accomplishments.

cat6manbearpig · 14 days

Yes, and OP should realize that if they played regularly then dad was also getting practice and experience.

dwchandler · 18 days

No, thank you for the "wall of text." It's this kind of information that helps other make their own informed decisions.

dwchandler · 18 days

Someone mentioned it here earlier today and I had a look. I think I will use it. Thanks!

RankWeis · 20 days

Analyzing your games is useful at your level. Not too long ago I was hovering around the same level, and now I've added a couple hundred points. No magic book or intensive study. Just taking the same old advice, reviewing my games, and practicing some tactics.

As for your idea here... More power to you! But don't wait for a study group. Analyze your own games, by yourself, with an engine, whatever. Keep playing, and make yourself follow the advice you already know you should follow. This is where I still fall down. I make a rushed move, or I get ahead and go on a rampage instead of consolidating my advantage, or some other thing like that.

skreendreamz1 · 20 days

You might want to read Kuhn, who has some interesting things to say about this issue in general.

But... I don't think you're on to anything here.

Tinyiota · 21 days

In a very real sense, computers are not inferior to human players. All the wonderful positional abilities in the world fail to win against the best computers except in some special circumstances (blitz using hand-crafted tactics). Positional play is a heuristic, and a very good one. But like any heuristic, sometimes it will lead you to select a less than optimal move.

ahasensei · 22 days

My previous experience with learning Spanish was that a major shift was thinking in Spanish, which happened much quicker and was easier to maintain with immersion. I think that after the thinking shift occurs and is "stable" then immersion becomes less important.

steenie · 23 days

Why 360? It's a good approximation for the number of days in a sidereal year.

dwchandler

TROPHY CASE

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