Each option should refer to an approach (ideally through a title with a link to a comment). The option's probability is then the probability that if the approach is followed by a total beginner, then after a month the person has rating >1000 on chess.com in rapid.
The current best approach (the one with the highest probability) will every day be rewarded 100 Mana at random time.
Only reasonable approaches will be considered that don't have other negative effects. For instance: "Use cocaine as a form of positive reinforcement." or "Purchase Magnus Carlsen." is an invalid approach, even though it might have a high probability of success.
Following the approach shouldn't cost more than $20.
This is an experiment on figuring out optimal approaches to problems.
You can read more about the idea here: https://medium.com/@patrik.cihal1234/approdict-finding-optimal-approaches-to-problems-e06491785134
1,000
3.00If you are consistently comfortable in opening positions while your opponents have never seen them before, this is worth way more than stockfish centipawns. This circumstance is unique to online chess, if you play with a club they will just learn and exploit you, but with random players they don't get to learn your repertoire. (unless there are a large cohort of people playing the same openings as you- don't get your crazy gambits from 10 million view youtube videos)
As white, below 1200 elo, your opponents should be blundering >3 points of material in the first four moves in ~10% of games, and otherwise equal. If this isn't happening, you should be playing more exploitative openings. Humans are irrational in repeating ways.
For example,
1 b4 e5 2. Bb2 Nc6 3. b5 Nd4 4. e3 Nxb5?? (7 % of games)
1 b4 d6 2. Bb2 Nc6 3. b5 Nb4?? (2% of games)
1 b4 e6 2. Bb2 Bxb4?? (1% of games)
1 b4 e6 2. Bb2 d5 3. Nf6 Bxb4?? (1% of games)
Memorize these 6 moves and until the chesscom population adjusts, you will win you a full knight or rook in nearly 11% of openings in the 1000-1200 bracket (Rapid chess.com player distribution). In the 800-1000 distribution that you need to beat for this manifold challenge, I think it's more like 20%
Also, hunting for these trick openings is a fun programming challenge completely orthogonal to chess skill, and you have to do it yourself as the community adjusts to any such tricks that get popular online.
Day 1 - Understanding Chess
Article on how to think about Chess (important): https://pastemd.netlify.app/pastes/gLaZhyUL0UzBSw9quFP8
Learn Chess basics interactively: https://www.chess.com/learn
Also buy chess.com membership since it's necessary for puzzles and analysis later.
Next three days
Continue on with the chess.com basic lessons, and strategies explanations, including opening etc.
Make sure that everyday you have time for at least 2 blitz games (5 or 3 minutes). This will give you more hands on experience but faster feedback than rapids.
Week 2 - Playing rapids
Now with more experience reread the first article.
Every day play one rapid. Analyze your mistakes, and figure out what you should have done to prevent them from happening. Imagine in the same situation doing it correctly to memorize it better.
In the remaining time watch educational videos on YouTube from experience players such as GothamChess.
Week 3 - Gambit opening
Continue playing one rapid each day with analysis. Do puzzles after that.
Learn one gambit opening to depth. Play it every single time you get chance.
Week 4 - Final rapid training
Every day two rapids with analysis after.
Keep playing that one opening.
Other tips
Be patient before making moves in rapids and think it through. Give yourself minimum 10 seconds before each move.
When improving use the understanding of what chess is about search and heuristics to figure out what you're lacking.
Make sure to get enough sleep.
Hate to be blunt but this is a case of massive Dunning Kruger and 0.0% chance following any of these suggestions will work. I would be willing to wager a lot of mana against it.
This kind of thing has already been tried before: - https://medium.com/@maxdeutsch/m2m-day-1-completing-12-ridiculously-hard-challenges-in-12-months-9843700c741f
culminating in this embarrassing display: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFNv-FJFGTg
I know you're not trying to beat Magnus, but even 1000 for a total beginner (and not a returning beginner or someone who knows some theory) is a huge stretch
@dlin007 Hmm, guess you can bet them down then. Is 1000 with the right approach really that hard? I imagined that exploiting a certain opening, not making dumb mistakes, thinking moves through and having a basic heuristic is pretty much enough to achieve that in one month.
@timetraveler 1000 is almost 70th percentile for chess.com rapid https://www.chess.com/leaderboard/live/rapid
@timetraveler true, but under the "total beginner, 30 mins a day, for 1 month" constraint, I'd say like 5-10% of people would get to 1000 but it would almost all be down to natural aptitude. For the average person who is already motivated though, i'd say increasing the duration of the experiment, or daily study time or both will yield better results, but still only a minority (30% is a good guess) could do it.
@timetraveler yeah 1000 is so much harder than it looks. A lot of friends who got into chess stalled at ~600 and quit after they stopped improving. Dan Abramov who is an intelligent guy and programming god, had a coach, has been playing for a year is still rated only 187
@Nightsquared I'd say this doesn't apply to rapids as much. At least for me I'm like 500 in blitz but close to 1000 in rapids.
@timetraveler I second the opinion that blitz seems harder than rapid on chess.com. I was trying quite hard to get as high as possible once, and got to ~1450 in rapid, while in blitz something like 1300 was absolutely unbeatable to me, basically a brick wall. And that’s while in blitz the top rated players are actually sitting higher than in rapid, something like 3300+ for Hikaru in blitz vs. 2900 or something for a #1 rapid guy.
Not exactly sure what’s the reason here, but the thing is - you just have to always be sure you’re really trying to use all the clock time you have. Because, like, I think I saw many players basically ignoring it, for some reason…which rarely happens in blitz.
@McLovin I'd say the reason is that fast games are more about heuristics (already developed experience) whereas rapids you can win without it, simply by having more efficient search / being more patient.
@timetraveler I think this advice is good, with the exception that the opening and endgame stuff doesn't matter for this specific goal. 1000 rating is not high enough for learning polished openings and endgames to be very beneficial, outside of maybe some absolute basics of openings (i.e. stuff like "control the center and develop pieces")
@Nightsquared although, thinking about it, you might be able to get to 1000 by spamming the fried liver or something
@Nightsquared I mean stuff like how to push your pawns, checkmate only with certain pieces can be quite useful.
@Nightsquared Also I'd argue that learning one opening could provide an easy advantage that's worth taking.
@Qoiuoiuoiu was this resolved N/A due to expected price issues? If so, have you actually researched this? I have a friend in Germany who has been taking lessons remotely with an IM in eastern Europe and AFAIK it was shockingly cheap