Very interesting article!
As a player who easily gets caught up in the vanity of trying to improve his elo and goes after the immediate rewards of winning, I would immensely appreciate it if Lichess could look into ways to combat that.
While reading the article, the idea of enabling players to opt out of immediate rating adjustments came to mind. Providing the option of, for example, monthly adjustments can be very beneficial, I believe, for persons with predispositions to this sort of addiction. Moreover, it can help many more to move away from the continuous stress of ranking, allowing them to enjoy the game more, and build a healthier relationship with it.
As a player who easily gets caught up in the vanity of trying to improve his elo and goes after the immediate rewards of winning, I would immensely appreciate it if Lichess could look into ways to combat that.
While reading the article, the idea of enabling players to opt out of immediate rating adjustments came to mind. Providing the option of, for example, monthly adjustments can be very beneficial, I believe, for persons with predispositions to this sort of addiction. Moreover, it can help many more to move away from the continuous stress of ranking, allowing them to enjoy the game more, and build a healthier relationship with it.
Good article, to be a chess player in the online age is the ultimate struggle of the slow grind of progress vs the easy gratification of playing bullet & unfortunately I'm not winning.
I started playing in university in 1998, my dormmate across the hall asked if I played and I said I did, I played like I played Risk or Parcheesi, in other words I knew the rules.
He proceeded to smash me over & over again with a rook off, getting me very angry & motivated to beat him. He sadly died almost 20 years ago without ever having played a USCF tournament but I'd gauge his rating @ around 1300 (and mine @ that time maybe 600).
I joined the college chess club, we hung out, we drank (don't recommend but @ the time was fun), there were even a few girls in the chess club. We had no idea about centipawns, the top kid in the small university was around 1500 and he seemed like a chess god, once he forked my king & rook & didn't even take the rook until a move later, I was wowed.
There was online chess, I would sometimes play 10 minute games on Yahoo.com in the school library but it was pretty boring compared to playing with my friends.
We'd play in the school cafeteria & it would be brimming with activity, students everywhere, then I'd look up from my game & there were just a couple of kids left watching the TV in the corner.
The game that captured my focus now has become a distraction technique I use when I'm stressed, fire up a few bullet games which leads to a few more, and for what? The comradery & smack talking & friendly competition are missing. After playing bullet or even blitz for over an hour I feel dirty, wasted, like a wanker.
And without real life chess the motivation to improve is more abstract. Back in the heyday of my tournament play I remember preparing for a game vs an Expert drilling the opening I suspected he'd play & winning the Club Championship of the small New Jersey chess club I attended (and was roommate's w the owner). Getting my online rating up, meh, it feels kinda good but it's a hollow kind of good.
This parallels how I feel about online social life in general, chess may be a game that translates to 2D but without the community much is lost & I don't think in 2024 I would've gotten the bug like I did over 25 years ago.
I started playing in university in 1998, my dormmate across the hall asked if I played and I said I did, I played like I played Risk or Parcheesi, in other words I knew the rules.
He proceeded to smash me over & over again with a rook off, getting me very angry & motivated to beat him. He sadly died almost 20 years ago without ever having played a USCF tournament but I'd gauge his rating @ around 1300 (and mine @ that time maybe 600).
I joined the college chess club, we hung out, we drank (don't recommend but @ the time was fun), there were even a few girls in the chess club. We had no idea about centipawns, the top kid in the small university was around 1500 and he seemed like a chess god, once he forked my king & rook & didn't even take the rook until a move later, I was wowed.
There was online chess, I would sometimes play 10 minute games on Yahoo.com in the school library but it was pretty boring compared to playing with my friends.
We'd play in the school cafeteria & it would be brimming with activity, students everywhere, then I'd look up from my game & there were just a couple of kids left watching the TV in the corner.
The game that captured my focus now has become a distraction technique I use when I'm stressed, fire up a few bullet games which leads to a few more, and for what? The comradery & smack talking & friendly competition are missing. After playing bullet or even blitz for over an hour I feel dirty, wasted, like a wanker.
And without real life chess the motivation to improve is more abstract. Back in the heyday of my tournament play I remember preparing for a game vs an Expert drilling the opening I suspected he'd play & winning the Club Championship of the small New Jersey chess club I attended (and was roommate's w the owner). Getting my online rating up, meh, it feels kinda good but it's a hollow kind of good.
This parallels how I feel about online social life in general, chess may be a game that translates to 2D but without the community much is lost & I don't think in 2024 I would've gotten the bug like I did over 25 years ago.
@dekatix said in #2:
> While reading the article, the idea of enabling players to opt out of immediate rating adjustments came to mind. Providing the option of, for example, monthly adjustments can be very beneficial, I believe, for persons with predispositions to this sort of addiction.
You can disable displaying of ratings in your profile and only enable it once a month to check your progress. But I'm afraid for some of us it would require quite a lot of mental strength not to take a peek now and then.
> While reading the article, the idea of enabling players to opt out of immediate rating adjustments came to mind. Providing the option of, for example, monthly adjustments can be very beneficial, I believe, for persons with predispositions to this sort of addiction.
You can disable displaying of ratings in your profile and only enable it once a month to check your progress. But I'm afraid for some of us it would require quite a lot of mental strength not to take a peek now and then.
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I'm quite surprised by how little attention this article has received, it's so well written. Gamification is being used everywhere, and we're just getting started, so the idea of life simply being "I picked the math games when I was 7, so now I'm going to be a programmer" or "Damn, I should have played more biology games when I was younger, now I can't be a doctor" makes no sense in 2024, but we will surely hear it more and more.
This seems crazy, right? But nowadays we have gamification in pretty much everything, when I go to the gym with my phone I will use an app called Growth to count my sets, reps and weight. When I'm bored, I can choose between the 5 gamification apps I've downloaded: Duolingo, Math Games, Seterra, Periodic Table, and Hand Talk. And to be honest... I never use them, but when I open them, they give me a feeling of learning, like: "Wow, I didn't know that the capital of Switzerland is Bern" I have a similar feeling in chess: "Wow, I didn't know that I should play Nf3 before Nc3".
And after all that my conclusion is: idk, I guess everyone is a pigeon, we like to hear clicking sounds *checkmate*
This seems crazy, right? But nowadays we have gamification in pretty much everything, when I go to the gym with my phone I will use an app called Growth to count my sets, reps and weight. When I'm bored, I can choose between the 5 gamification apps I've downloaded: Duolingo, Math Games, Seterra, Periodic Table, and Hand Talk. And to be honest... I never use them, but when I open them, they give me a feeling of learning, like: "Wow, I didn't know that the capital of Switzerland is Bern" I have a similar feeling in chess: "Wow, I didn't know that I should play Nf3 before Nc3".
And after all that my conclusion is: idk, I guess everyone is a pigeon, we like to hear clicking sounds *checkmate*
Usually the rating frenzy tends to go down the more you play, Im less obsessed with my rating than I was when I started playing chess online.
I agree with a certain number of points in the article. I myself had developed my own perception of rating, such as setting a limit for games or events (tournaments) for example. playing exclusively in tournaments is much less addictive than random play since in tournaments, there is a limit, the ranking freezes at the end of regulation time (arena) or there is an equal number of games for everyone (Swiss tournament) .
having been quite proficient at video games myself (I was a former world top200 player on FIFA mobile, before the franchise change), I noticed that the quick and random match system tends to be much more attractive and addictive , thanks to the promise of a fast game that can be played anywhere, anytime. and of course, taking a revenge or a second game triggers the addiction. if you only play competitions, you will have limited room to maneuver which will force you to give your best and prioritize this event, rather than random games.
there is also a whole phase of mental preparation, for getting out of addiction.
I was addicted to chess at a certain period (I think I used to play 100 games a day every day, playing all the variants and control times) and I'm not happy about it. it was mentally and qualitatively a disaster which prevented me from progressing with dignity, since I preferred the number (rating) to the quality
I have never been addicted to gaming because I have known people who had this problem, so spending more than two hours on a video game was impossible for me and staying at a good level of performance was too hard and I I preferred to devote my time to something that I really enjoy doing and that I could also do IRL unlike FIFA mobile. so I remain faithful to chess because it is much more human in every sense of the word
having been quite proficient at video games myself (I was a former world top200 player on FIFA mobile, before the franchise change), I noticed that the quick and random match system tends to be much more attractive and addictive , thanks to the promise of a fast game that can be played anywhere, anytime. and of course, taking a revenge or a second game triggers the addiction. if you only play competitions, you will have limited room to maneuver which will force you to give your best and prioritize this event, rather than random games.
there is also a whole phase of mental preparation, for getting out of addiction.
I was addicted to chess at a certain period (I think I used to play 100 games a day every day, playing all the variants and control times) and I'm not happy about it. it was mentally and qualitatively a disaster which prevented me from progressing with dignity, since I preferred the number (rating) to the quality
I have never been addicted to gaming because I have known people who had this problem, so spending more than two hours on a video game was impossible for me and staying at a good level of performance was too hard and I I preferred to devote my time to something that I really enjoy doing and that I could also do IRL unlike FIFA mobile. so I remain faithful to chess because it is much more human in every sense of the word
The first picture i see it is Doulingo :O
i'm too obsessed with my rating on lichess and irl