https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1SCXb2WA2U

More entertaining than reading a book on endgame (with apologies to our endgame authors on L19).

I know very little about chess - I played online a little bit, and was around 1200 or 1300. So I know the rules, but nothing about strategy or anything like that.

But in my free time, I've found it amusing to watch chess videos like this. The one you linked is actually one that I already saw - I like most of the videos by John Bartholomew.

Since I started watching some of those videos, though, I started getting YouTube recommendations for various chess videos, and through that, I've come to be most entertained by this GMHikaru guy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCweCc7 ... jEH7HFImng

He's not as strong as Magnus Carlsen, but he's very entertaining. So far, my favorite chess video was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sWXhA_I3G0
It's above my head, but his apparent happiness at 13:36 was fun to watch.

I like watching go videos on YouTube, but there's also something entertaining about watching streams of a game that you know very little about (outside of the rules).

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be immersed

Very interesting. I especially liked the last question where he can't answer looking at the board. He has to get the position "into his head"; at which point he immediately recognises the answer. (If I understood what happened in the video)

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I also like watching chess videos just for fun. I play go exclusivly. I love Ben Finegold's chess comments.

Not quite: the timer on the question (green bar at the bottom) had almost run out, at which point he would have automatically failed the question, so he paused it so he could continue working on the problem in his head.

I find this sort of video fascinating to watch too. Hajin Lee had one a couple years back of her solving tsumego problems that was similarly instructive.

Hikaru no Chess?

BTW, you might like this guy, who goes by the handle, agadmator ( https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... 3agadmator ). I ran across him a few years ago. I have no idea how strong he is, except that if he were a GM or IM, I think he would say so. But he is very good at presenting games.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks for the link.

It seems to me that chess endgames and studies get at the qualities of the different pieces, while go endgames are more about the qualities of localized positions. I think that large scale go endgames can be quite interesting, but they tend to be quite difficult, as well.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Maybe but entertainment does not teach all endgame skills needed by far. It is more an excuse for not investing the necessary effort for learning most aspects.

Fun is very important for many people. It is a big reason some continue to study (anything).

Nobody doubts that fun is important. However, fun does not substitute the necessity to learn what must be learnt.

I understand too little of chess to really compare the video's chess endgames to go endgames, please correct me if I am wrong: their difficulty seems roughly comparable to learning a) values of particular shapes by heart or b) microendgame corridor problems by examples instead of in general by theory.

This misses learning of value calculations of shapes without rote memorisation, and early or late endgame before the microendgame. I.e., almost all endgame positions.

It is like pretending to learn tactical reading by watching others bending their minds to mention the results of their efforts in videos.

Endgame is not just fun examples with intervening fun comments but requires learning theory, applying it together with value calcuations, accelerating one's speed of performing them and decreasing one's calculation mistakes. All of which we acquire first of all by EFFORT. There is nothing wrong with intervening breaks to have fun (watching chess videos or whatever) but the effort remains necessary. Even Carlsen has mentioned his own effort, or why do you think he is strong now?

Nobody in this thread has questioned the value of hard work. Nobody.

Very strange non sequitur indeed.

Let me be the first. Wuwei.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Ad let me be the first to complain about the use of rude four-letter words, viz.: ***k.

Wuwei reminds me of a nice skit in a popular comedy show here (Miranda). The heroine uses the word 'wooing', savours it, and then declares it might be the hardest word to say in English. She may be right, though 'error' could run it close in American English.

And to quote the catchphrase of Miranda's very posh mother in the show: "Such fun!"