Non-practice

If you play at Chessmaster‘s highest level, it is likely you will never win a game. But, Chessmaster has a mode allowing you to pick the level of your opponents. So, let’s say you play against someone with 1200 level. The trick to win the game is the following: At the beginning, there are lots of pieces on the table. The computer needs a long time to start calculating possibilities, because each piece has lots of options to move. So, the trick is to gather some good advantage material at the beginning (a rook, two minor pieces). Then, force him to make exchanges, queen for queen, rook for rook. You’ll end up in the endgame with big advantage and, even if the computer can calculate much better now, with fewer pieces on the table, he won’t be able to beat you. The alternative – avoiding confrontation at the beginning and just exchanging the pieces can get you in the endgame with relative equilibrium and it won’t be long until Chessmaster will be able to play on your mistakes and beat you with ease.

Sometimes, I meet people driving expensive cars and running big business who want to negotiate with me things. Making a site, things like that. And what strikes me is their willingness to negotiate. At first, I thought „hmm, they must have made those money by being good with power & negotiation, so this is an explanation”. But I think it’s more than this. Once you reach a level in your life, you get bored of things. You have pretty much everything in life, and nothing really excites you. And you enjoy the thrill of negotiation. You actually like & have pleasure in being better than the person in front of you. Most poor people would have two problems in negotiation: The lack of experience & practice. The feeling that they’re, somehow, inferior when they negotiate. The rich people don’t have any of these problems. They have lots of experience with negotiations (1) and they perfectly know they’re better than the person in front of them (2). The second point excites them, so they keep on doing this. So, the next time a guy driving an expensive car comes to you and tells you you should leave your prices them, try and have your excitement. Negotiate with them, smiling, knowing that you won’t care if you lose them, and enjoy the pleasure of seeing them annoyed by your lack of cooperation. Enjoy the game and don’t let them run over you. But, on the other hand, if you do need the name of that client on your portfolio, …

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Let’s say X does something wrong. What should you do? You have the option of complaining. You’ll help others avoid the same mistake you’ve made. You have the option of putting some rules. If X damages your property, you want to make sure the next time something will be different, from X knowing that the thing is a wrong thing to do, to not having a contact with X anymore. You have the option of ignoring this and moving forward. I’ll talk about this option here: If you ignore the thing X does to you, it will haunt you. You’ll think about that thing, and it will consume you. But, mostly, you will tend to focus on your mistakes in the relationship with X (not filtering things right at the beginning, ignoring some signs, not taking precautions). Thus, you’ll tend to solve things better next time. You’ll be better at handling business the next time. X can change. If X does something wrong to me, yes, I can tell everybody about my side of the story. But I am believer in human improvement. I don’t think that one who did a mistake will always repeat that mistake. That person may do so, but it also may not. It’s OK to give detailed feed-back to X, in order to improve. But, mostly, that feed-back needs to be asked for, not given without a request. You can and may give feed-back chaotically, but it’s not always a good idea. It is possible that if take action and …

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I played some backgammon these days with my father. He says the following: I should focus on winning. I should focus on learning the optimal route. I should avoid making mistakes. He seem to enjoy winning. I say the following: I should focus on learning. The best way to learn something is by making mistakes. I deliberately allow myself to make mistakes, even if this makes me lose some games. I really enjoy the excitement you get by being very close to winning and then to see him try so hard to beat me due to a mistake I make. We have some disputes based on this. :) In chess, I tend to have some fixed moves at the beginning, and then adapt to the situation. My father is very close to having an algorithm good-for-all at backgammon, which makes the game dull and boring. He just have to learn and remember his algorithm. A computer could do this very easily. Chess, and my style of backgammon, are not like that. You need flexibility. Sure, this implies some mistakes, but it’s more fun (I think).

These days, I spent some time playing games (chess and Heroes of Might and Magic, 2 and 3, complete version) and watching some videos. (Bogdan Sverediuk – YouTube & Chris67132 – YouTube) Some thoughts? Travel is good for you – in Heroes of Might and Magic games, the player is rewarded for travelling. Good things come for those who travel – resources, map explored, things spotted. Sure, there are risks – you can be in the North, and the computer might attack from the South. It’s not black & white. But, overall, it’s much better to travel & move than it is to stay in your safe area. You risk, and, most of the times, you win. It all starts from a small area – you don’t need to own a big kingdom from the beginning. If you control a small area, then you expand gradually, then you can control large areas. Why focusing on the time pressure is pointless? I see this in chess blitz games (3 minutes per player). Some players focus on the time, and lose on gameplay. Also, stressing and obsessing on „you have 30 more seconds” seriously hinders your performance. Yes, you win the game on time, but you lost on gameplay. I prefer to quickly move, and win 50% of the games on time, but lose no game on gameplay. Shortcuts are part of the game. In H3, there are lots of magic tricks. The best players not only know those tricks, but know them extremely well. They win games by knowing …

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O reclamă e făcută ca să vândă. Sunt multe lucruri extrem de discutabile aici, dar scopul e vânzarea. Mă irită seria de reclame, îmi stă pe nervi repetiția din final, gluma mi se pare slabă. Dar am reținut reclama mai bine decât pe altele. Îmi place să mă uit la reclame, nu am televizor și când am acces la un televizor, prefer să mă uit la calupuri publicitare (schimb canalul până găsesc ceva), mi se pare că în 30 de secunde sunt investite extrem de multe resurse, cunoștințe, timp, efort, creativitate. În reclama de mai sus vinde umorul, repetiția (final), surpriza. Ești indus emoțional în Africa, căldură, soare, totul e hot. Multe din reclamele de la SuperBowl din ultimii ani mi se par extrem de agresive, și mă irită. Dar mă uit pentru mecanismul din spate, și ca să înțeleg cum gândesc alții.