"Not strategy, not memorizing opening lines, not practicing your end-game technique, not studying the Great Games of History, not drilling with puzzles to get better at tactics,"
"In my games, the player who committed more blunders lost 86% of the time."
Goodness I wonder what methods one could use to reduce their blunder rate.
it's simple. if i were playing the game, i would make moves that lead to victory, and i wouldn't make moves that lead to defeat. that way, i would always win.
making mistakes seems really stupid and i'm not sure why anyone would do that.
These things all help, but ultimately reduction of blunders is the result of consciously checking whether you're blundering something, not being a genius calculator. Most blunders in chess (outside of the higher-levels) aren't the result of failing to see some 5-move tactical sequence, they're just hanging a rook because you were hyper-focused on your own initiative. Controlling your blunder rate is IMO a game of attending to your own mental state: ensuring that you're giving proper consideration to your opponents threats, being realistic about your advantages, and preventing your imagination from running away on you. Obviously study and puzzles can help you do these things more effectively (for example making you more likely to pick up material when your opponent blunders), but they are a necessity not a sufficiency. At the end of the day 'not blundering' is about staying humble, playing slowly, and not freaking out; everything else is points on the margin.
I think the point is to, instead of being on the lookout for the winning strategy, put more of your limited attention on preventing basic mistakes. It's about shifting focus, presumably, there's a baseline of competence in the endeavor at hand.
> Goodness I wonder what methods one could use to reduce their blunder rate.
Checklist:
1) Is there a checkmate? Yeah, you might want to stop it if you don't want to lose.
2) Is there a check? Checks are forcing and can make you do things you don't want to do. You probably want to prevent them.
3) Is there a capture? A piece with no defenders that can be grabbed probably needs to have something done about it.
4) Is there an undefended piece? Undefended pieces become capturable. Defend it.
5) Do you have any plan at all? Even a bad one is better than none at all.
The problem is that there are lots of these on a board. When you first start doing this, it's a slow process, and it is not fun. But you will get much better very quickly.
Really? I find that it makes it so much more pleasant and easy to read. I read it much faster than I would have without bold. The author is telling you which parts of the sentence are most important, so your brain frees up that processing part where you have to figure that out.
"
system upgrades aren't done on the live system
packages changes are applied on the next boot
you can roll back a change
Depending on the implementation, a system may offer more features. But this list is what a Linux distribution should have to be labelled "immutable" at the moment."
Immutable. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I use Ubuntu at work and at home. It's a great experience and I am so happy to not have my OS controlled by Microsoft. (Or Apple, but those are for different reasons.)
I came here to say something similar. A lot of us code as a hobby as well as professionally, and certain languages and paradigms tickle us. Sometimes I find almost tantric beauty in c++ for goodness' sake.
"In my games, the player who committed more blunders lost 86% of the time."
Goodness I wonder what methods one could use to reduce their blunder rate.