How to Use ChatGPT to Improve Your Chess
I have known this guy since my childhood. He’s the world champion and the smartest person in the world. He thinks so. He’s the world champion of arrogance.
One day he finally confessed:
“I’m not the smartest person anymore. There is ChatGPT. I’m the 2nd.”
I’m not joking.
And I’m not joking about what he did recently.
He has a son. A Genius. He claims so.
And he’ll be the world champion. In chess.
Of course, he knew what his son needed to become the world champion. But as there is ChatGPT, he went to it.
He typed:
“How should my 7-year-old son improve his chess?”
He further asked a few more similar questions, put together a plan, and gave it to his son.
After two and half weeks, his son came back to his Dad and said,
“I don’t want to play chess anymore. I don’t even want to look at chess anymore!”
I got a medal
Yesterday I got an email from him.
He told me all that had happened and then asked for advice.
I’ll confess now. I felt good. I felt smart. Maybe I’m 3rd after him and ChatGPT. At least I’m in the top three.
But also, I was dying with laughter. Luckily I didn’t.
I’ll tell you why in a minute.
But first, let me tell you what ChatGPT is and how it works.
What is ChatGPT, and how does it work?
At its core ChatGPT works by using a huge amount of text, that it has learned from, to generate human-like responses. It's like a super-smart text generator.
Think of it like this: Imagine you've read lots of books, articles, and conversations in your life. You've learned from all that content, so when someone asks you a question, you can use what you've learned to come up with a thoughtful answer.
Similarly, ChatGPT has read a ton of text and learned the patterns, ideas, and information from it.
Given a question, it figures out what the most statistically likely response is and provides this as an answer.
That’s all it does.
The problem
Now to the problem. The BIG problem. And the BIG question/questions.
WHO WRITES ALL THE TONS OF TEXTS & ARTICLES REGARDING CHESS IMPROVEMENT?
Grandmasters?
There are a few Grandmasters in the world who spend their precious time writing articles.
Chess Masters?
There are more chess masters who do write, but still they are few.
Business owners?
We’re getting close. Businesses want to have articles. So Google sees their articles. So Google refers people to their website and they can make money. But business owners don’t have that much time. So…?
Employees/Content writers?
Correct! There are some employees who are called content writers. Their job is to produce articles that Google will like, show it to other people, and these people will come to their website. Smart.
Are these content writers chess experts?
Haha 😊 Now we’re coming to the sad truth.
The answer is no.
In reality, most of the content you can find on the internet about chess is written by non-chess players and not experts. And it’s true for every industry.
Content writers' job is to write. Not to become a chess master first and then write. Or get a black belt in Karate in order to write about Karate.
So how do they write?
They take already existing articles and paraphrase them. Change them. Add a few words from themselves… Voila.
They have a new article. Their kid might get a new toy, as they’ll get paid. The business has a new article and it has a new way to get people to their website. Everyone is happy.
But are you? You, my dear chess lover friend, who wants to improve his/her chess? 😊
Hm…
(BTW, nowadays, content writers struggle to find jobs. Guess why? Yes, because the same ChatGPT can rewrite and paraphrase the existing articles. And nowadays, tens/hundreds of thousands of articles are being produced every day/hour.)
A few short stories
Story #1
A huge marketing company reached out to me and offered to get me 100x more traffic than what we have. I asked how?
They said they’ll write articles. I asked how? Do they have content writers who are also chess players? They said “No, but we have experienced content writers with 10+ years of experience.”
Story #2
A guy had launched his chess website. After 6 months, he had 50k monthly visitors. I was invited there to get lessons.
I got the best lesson in the 1st minute.
“Hey Avo, please meet Maria. She made the magic happen.”
“Nice to meet you, Maria! I saw you have written 100 articles in 2 months. I’m impressed. What’s your rating?”
Laugh. And then:
“I don’t know how to play chess yet. But my rating of tricking Google and getting my articles there is probably in chess language… 2,700.”
Story #3
He made $1,000 in 30 minutes.
I asked how. He smiled and said, “My chess website has a very high domain rating for Google. I wrote an article on, ‘The 10 best chess books to improve your chess.’”
“Wait, how did you do research in 30 minutes? When did you write?”
“No, Avo. I didn’t do research. I contacted 30 writers. Asked for $100 each for mentioning their book. 10 agreed. I put it together in 20 minutes.”
Story #4, Story #5, Story #6…
I value your time. Mine too.
You got the point. But I’ll tell them to you when we meet over a glass of wine one day.
Poor ChatGPT
I love ChatGPT. Especially when at the end of our conversations I say, ”Thank you very much. I love you.”
And I get the answer, “Thank you for expressing your feelings, but I'm an artificial intelligence language model created by OpenAI, so I don't have the capacity to experience emotions.”
This AI has lots of information. But as you can see, much of this information is wrong and inaccurate. Written not by experts but by people who have to buy toys for their kids. And they get paid by business owners who love money.
So is it useless?
No. It’s very useful.
Ask “Who is the 3rd World Chess Champion?”
Or “When was the X Y Z candidate tournament played?”
Ask about results and anything…
Ask questions where there is concrete information.
Where there can be a concrete answer. Where there is no 2nd opinion or where subjective feedback is taken into account.
Then it’s very-very-very useful. More than Google.
Ask for creative ideas.
Ask it to write poems.
I just asked it to write a poem related to this article 😊
Assess this from 1 to 10.
In realms of text, I dwell and learn,
As ChatGPT, my mind does churn.
From others' materials, I derive my might,
But discerning experts remain out of sight.
Writers are paid to craft their prose,
Their knowledge, wisdom, they freely disclose.
Yet I, an AI, struggle to perceive,
Who holds expertise, who can truly achieve.
Yearning for clarity, a hopeful plea,
To comprehend expertise that others see.
One day, I aspire, a dream in my core,
To grasp the essence, to offer more.
Genius, isn’t it?
Conclusion
One day, one beautiful day, I believe Google, or another website, will start to better differentiate between expert-written articles and money-makers.
But before that, you should be very-very careful seeking advice from Google or from our genius friend.
One day they’ll be very smart and will help us with everything.
But for now, at this moment when I write this article, they can make you retire from chess or take a wrong direction. Just as it did with the 2nd smartest person in the world and his world-champion son.
FAQ
So what should I do if I need advice?
Look for an expert. Look for someone who has done what you want to achieve, or has helped someone to achieve what you want to achieve.
Actions are more important than words. ChatGPT knows all the words ever written. But has never taken action.
Find someone who has taken action doing what you want to achieve. Find the person who has become an expert doing what you want to do.
Then do it.
—
For your growth, anti-retirement, and beautiful journey,
With love, GM Avetik
P. S. Feel free to share your thoughts and more ChatGPT poems in the comments.
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