How to Get Good at Chess, Fast. Edit: This article on chess improvement was unexpectedly popular, reaching #2 on Hacker News and being linked to on LifeHacker. Thanks for your patience as I work through all the comments and emails I receive. Last updated: July 27, 2017 There are many misconceptions about rapid chess improvement. In this post I’m going to lay out a simple but effective way to get good at chess, fast. This system is based on lessons learned from my own chess improvement and from coaching others. The good news is that you can become better than the vast majority of other players with minimal but targeted effort. What does it mean to be “good” at chess? Magnus Carlsen’s meteoric rise to the top ranked player in the world (at age 19), the highest chess rating in history (age 22), and as of a few days ago, the title of World Chess Champion (age 22) has brought with it a renewed interest in chess.
I define “good” as the 90th percentile among the player pool you’re competing against. Results with this system. Attitude Determines Success. The results of your actions have little to do with what you are actually doing and almost everything to do with your attitude. Which is ironic because we spend most of our time creating lists and getting organized and listing resolutions about what we should be doing, forgetting that who we are being is much more important. That’s why we’re called human beings. Not human doings. Your life is full of things that you do. Your business and family and community demand that you do certain things. Some things you are shamed into doing. But doing can mask the hollowness of just going through the motions. If you believe that your best days are ahead of you, then you’ll find a creative solution to even the worst circumstance. You can put on a happy face temporarily when you’re in front of the right people, but your attitude is what determines the decisions that no one else sees until it’s too late.
Your attitude is what ultimately determines if you achieve your goals or if you fall short. The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational. The Interview Question That's Always Asked (and How to Nail It) The 7 Sneakiest Ways Corporations Manipulated Human Behavior. #3. Alka-Seltzer Doubles Their Dosage With a Theme Song Aqualux Alka-Seltzer is one of those weird products that seem to have no competitors. It comes with two tablets you drop into a glass of water, they dissolve, you drink it, you feel better. You may only know Alka-Seltzer as a slayer of hangovers, but if you are old enough to remember the 1970s and 1980s, you remember their TV ads absolutely bombarding prime time television.
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But as one great salesman told me, sales is the greatest laboratory there is for understanding human nature. “You are like a beggar in sales, asking again and again all day,” he said. Why Smart People Fail.