Damn it feels good to be a patzer

Sure, there are downsides to being a patzer. Like....well, sucking at chess. But there are a lot of perks that come along with sucking at chess. In no particular order:



1. You get to be a reckless gunslinger.
All that subtle opening advice meant for GMs? Fuck it. It's not meant for me. I can blithely play unsound gambits such as the Englund, and it is not a problem. Indeed it seems to actually be a good thing because it helps me get better at tactics (see #2) and throws my opponents off guard. Yes, playing unsound gambits is said to be a stage, but it sure is a fun stage, and also a helpful stage. If I were better, I'd have to settle into openings my grandma used to play. So, beginners, go ahead and play gambits. You won't be able to forever, so take advantage (and see #2).

2. Tactics is everything.
Sure, I learn other stuff to be well-rounded and all that, to gain an aesthetic appreciation for the game. But in practice 90% of my games are decided by simple tactics, and even more in blitz play. This was true even before I started playing gambits. So there isn't a lot of subtlety about what I need to work on, how I can improve. Until the pieces stop dropping, there is nothing else as important to work on. (Note as my rating approached 1500 at ICC, I noticed this percentage started to drop off significantly, and it seems to continue to drop off as you improve, until games are won by boredom--but by then you will think winning a game because someone dropped a piece to a two-move tactic is boring, so you will be fine).

3. Pretty much no matter what you do, you will improve.
When the temperature is absolute zero, the only way to go is up. Yeah, we bicker about methods for chess improvement here. I am a broken record about the importance of chess coaches, some like to write subtle treatises on motor control and implicit memory and 'knowledge transfer.' But when you suck, none of it really matters. You will improve when following either trendy or old-fashioned study methods, as long as you do something to improve.

4. The learning curve is very steep.
When starting out, you learn a lot of really cool things really fast. The better you get, the more slowly you improve, the less often you have mind-blowing insights into the mechanics of the game. It is the exact same way in any science. When I started out in my neuroscience training, there were these orgiastic insights nearly daily as I gobbled up all the basic facts I could about the brain. Now, even though I monitor all the journals, the rate of such major insights is much lower, very few things surprise me. As a beginner, you get an intellectual feast from the most elementary sources.

Those are the most obvious cool things about being a total patzer. So, fellow patzers of the world, enjoy it! If you can think of any others, let us know. Of course, the list would be much longer if the topic were 'Why being a patzer sucks.' But the up sides shouldn't be ignored. It makes me want to stay a patzer the rest of my life. Yeah, I'm a patzer because I want to be! That's it.

Pic above from one of the best movies of all time, Office Space (click for some scenes).