Coaching App/Game

The Magnus Carlsen app called Play Magnus is very good and has an instruction element to it.

What part of the country are you living in? I could recommend an excellent coach in the Kildare area !

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

Snowflake Sodacat and his techy millennial apps. Not in my day - we had to bring our own boards to events, it was 4 shillings for entry fee, you got to wind your own clock and nobody got a prize at the end, not even the winner; none of this slowflake-grading-prize-for-all nonsense. The way it should be.

What rubbish, we didn't have our own boards, it was tuppence to enter and we used hour glasses not clocks.
If you think I am exaggerating about snowflakes ,,, I was at a chess fun day recently for children where the winners got prizes and the "non winners" (that's what they called them) got prizes too. I am all for encouraging children but in my classes only the winners and runners up get prizes because I find that the losers (yes I still use that un-PC term) try twice as hard to try and be a winner the next time. Rewarding "non winners" for losing gives them no incentive to improve whatsoever. Molly coddling children and wrapping them up in cotton wool does not do them any favours at all.

brilliantboy wrote: »

sounds like a great idea

Mr. Chairman, look into it.

I think that I must not be just from a different generation to you and Retd Capt Loyola but perhaps from a different planet :eek:
I always enjoy "the chase" whether this is on a relationship level, a business level, a personal development level or indeed a sporting level. It strikes me that the pursuit of excellence is actually far more enjoyable than actually attaining it. I think that is why so many sports stars, show business people, artists, musicians and billionaires go off the rails and end up alcoholics, drug addicts or suicidal when they reach the "top".
Much as I enjoy winning I think that if I was to start winning every tournament I entered and hardly ever lost a game I would soon tire of chess. Unless one suffers setbacks and enjoys making the effort to try and improve then victories become hollow and meaningless. You often hear of lotto winners who don't give up their day jobs as cleaners or whatever. Those people understand that happiness doesn't come from getting what you want , it comes from wanting what you get. Diluting competitiveness by rewarding failure actually robs people (children especially) the joy of working to attain a goal and sometimes achieving it. All this rubbish about "non winners prizes" and rating floors being ignored are typical examples of this modern day wishy washy aspiration to make everyone the same. If you have no musical talent you can be a rapper. If you can't draw you can always paint abstract art. If you can't cook you can order a takeaway and if you can't play chess you can have a non winners medal or play in any tournament by asking the organiser to ignore the rating floor. :pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac: