Exept racing kings every variant improves you in standard chess
Antichess can help you with coordinates/board awareness
@SrikaraSoulOfTal Oh I didn't realize that you can upvote your own comment, thanks, that's kind of cool. However, I don't follow you on how every variant exept (sic) Racing Kings improves your standard chess. For example how does Hoard help>? Now, don't get me wrong, variants can be fun af, but they don't improve chess because Hoard is not chess. Just like Chess 960 is not chess and playing it will not make you better at The London System or the Sicilian Defense because you are not devoting any time, or burning calories studying openings. Follow me?
In my opinion antichess can help u get better at standard chess. @PepsiNGaming , I agree with you.
#22, care to explain why you think that? :-)
OP's discussion topic is a subjective matter that will differ based on each player's personal experiences. Opinions won't all be the same, and that's completely okay. As someone who has played more variant games than standard chess on lichess, here's my take.
From my experience, all of the variants available on lichess can help you progress with your standard chess as well. There's a number of BUT's to that statement though:
- If your goal is to improve in standard chess, you should study standard chess. Eventhough the experience from playing variants might help you in some ways, they aren't the golden key to positional understanding or the miracle cure to your lack of board vision or problems with tactics. You should play variants for the love of the variant itself :-)
- Just "playing" variants is not how it works - you shouldn't expect anything with just a couple dozen games. The positive effect that everyone is talking about only occurs when you take a variant seriously, and study all aspects of the game for a longer time. Many of the people commenting here are experienced variant players, who have spent thousands of games and dozens to hundreds of hours studying their lost games and their variant in general. They've learnt what it means to better understand a chess game, and have been able to translate that experience to help them improve in standard chess too.
Learning new variants can definitely widen your horizon and I would absolutely recommend trying out all 8 of the lichess variants
In my opinion, the effect of variants making you "worse" at standard chess is a lie that people tell themselves. Learning something new is not the reason that you get feel like you're worse at your previously acquired skills.
What might have happened is that people
- Play too much variant games and abandon their standard chess. If you start playing less standard chess because you choose to spend your time on other things (e.g., variants in this case) you cannot expect to keep up your peak performance. It's similar to when you started a new hobby as a kid, and over time started to forget the details of what you had learnt before. Don't blame it on variants; spend more time focusing on standard chess instead!
- Play standard chess when they're not completely focused, (slightly) tired from playing variants or other factors, and blame it on something.
- Are unable to make a clear mental divide between the variants that they are playing or learning. I'd be interested to hear people's experiences, but in my opinion it's nothing that can't largely be fixed with a more conscious approach to the game, to what it is that you're playing. Alternatively, this may be caused by spending way more time on variants than on standard: see my first point.
Playing fast time controls can be much more detrimental to your standard chess understanding than chess variants will ever be. Bullet doesn't train you to properly think and calculate, and requires reaction speed more than anything else. It also is a great way to get tilted and go on a losing streak. If you want to improve, focus on blitz time controls for variants and rapid / classical for standard chess.
If anyone has questions about the nature of our chess variants, the tactical motives and positional themes that make them so unique - just ask away! There are plenty of top players reading this thread that would love to pitch in their thoughts and experiences :-)
OP's discussion topic is a subjective matter that will differ based on each player's personal experiences. Opinions won't all be the same, and that's completely okay. As someone who has played more variant games than standard chess on lichess, here's my take.
From my experience, all of the variants available on lichess can help you progress with your standard chess as well. There's a number of BUT's to that statement though:
- If your goal is to improve in standard chess, you should study standard chess. Eventhough the experience from playing variants might help you in some ways, they aren't the golden key to positional understanding or the miracle cure to your lack of board vision or problems with tactics. You should play variants for the love of the variant itself :-)
- Just "playing" variants is not how it works - you shouldn't expect anything with just a couple dozen games. The positive effect that everyone is talking about only occurs when you take a variant seriously, and study all aspects of the game for a longer time. Many of the people commenting here are experienced variant players, who have spent thousands of games and dozens to hundreds of hours studying their lost games and their variant in general. They've learnt what it means to better understand a chess game, and have been able to translate that experience to help them improve in standard chess too.
Learning new variants can definitely widen your horizon and I would absolutely recommend trying out all 8 of the lichess variants
In my opinion, the effect of variants making you "worse" at standard chess is a lie that people tell themselves. Learning something new is not the reason that you get feel like you're worse at your previously acquired skills.
What might have happened is that people
- Play too much variant games and abandon their standard chess. If you start playing less standard chess because you choose to spend your time on other things (e.g., variants in this case) you cannot expect to keep up your peak performance. It's similar to when you started a new hobby as a kid, and over time started to forget the details of what you had learnt before. Don't blame it on variants; spend more time focusing on standard chess instead!
- Play standard chess when they're not completely focused, (slightly) tired from playing variants or other factors, and blame it on something.
- Are unable to make a clear mental divide between the variants that they are playing or learning. I'd be interested to hear people's experiences, but in my opinion it's nothing that can't largely be fixed with a more conscious approach to the game, to what it is that you're playing. Alternatively, this may be caused by spending way more time on variants than on standard: see my first point.
Playing fast time controls can be much more detrimental to your standard chess understanding than chess variants will ever be. Bullet doesn't train you to properly think and calculate, and requires reaction speed more than anything else. It also is a great way to get tilted and go on a losing streak. If you want to improve, focus on blitz time controls for variants and rapid / classical for standard chess.
If anyone has questions about the nature of our chess variants, the tactical motives and positional themes that make them so unique - just ask away! There are plenty of top players reading this thread that would love to pitch in their thoughts and experiences :-)
The strategies involved in any given variant are completely different so even though there may be a teeny tiny benefit but overall its a waste of time. Its like saying one can achieve success in english by studying french because after all both are languages.
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No one can read your messages @RoyalManiac... Don't even try anymore hahaha. :D
@MilaGugi777 don't say facts which you don't know if they are true. I read @RoyalManiac 's whole message.
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