[HN Gopher] Life advice from NYC chess hustlers ___________________________________________________________________ Life advice from NYC chess hustlers Author : gautamcgoel Score : 185 points Date : 2022-04-03 17:47 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (annekadet.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (annekadet.substack.com) | DantesKite wrote: | That was a nice read. It felt like I was taking a stroll through | a New York city park. | zitterbewegung wrote: | I have played a chess hustler in Chicago a few times when my | parents took me to the air and water show when I was in high | school. Note that these chess hustlers were playing at around $1 | dollar a game. I would say that the average person doesn't even | understand how to get into checkmate (even fools / scholars | mate). So the game against most people is much less than five | minutes. | | But, I was rated in my prime around 1000 ELO. The hustle has to | conclude within five minutes or less. If you get past that state | they basically either won't play with you or let you use one of | their boards. The easiest way to do this is to lock the board and | don't get into any situation where a piece is capture and don't | capture the their pieces. In Chicago the hustler was playing | multiple people I believe (simul) which their rating would be at | minimum 1000 ELO | wdb wrote: | How's this tax free? | TrackerFF wrote: | I guess he meant "tax free" as in "cash only" - not something | I'd want to say in public, but what are the chances IRS will | pursue these guys. | goatlover wrote: | Cash under the chess board. | sydthrowaway wrote: | Aren't gambling winnings tax free? They are in Britain. | Fezzik wrote: | In the United States gambling winnings are fully taxed as | income (and gambling losses are deductible). | imglorp wrote: | Not in the US. Officially you are supposed to voluntarily | declare all income, even crime: they caught Al Capone on tax | evasion, not his main business. | | If you win from company like a casino or lottery, the company | withholds the tax and you report it when you file. | rhexs wrote: | The tax code isn't enforced at the cash / low income level. | | Thus you can vote for increased taxes to fund increased social | spending and not actually take part in the taxation. In fact, | you'll likely even get additional money back filing taxes when | there's no record of your cash income. | | Convenient, eh? | empthought wrote: | "Gotcha!" - Lucky Ducky | | https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2003/06/14 | RockyMcNuts wrote: | And yet the poor get audited more than the rich -\\_(tsu)_/- | | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-audit-eitc-five-times-as- | li... | rhexs wrote: | At low incomes, your tax return is highly likely to be | incredibly simple. If you're doing something so wrong that | it generates an audit, the IRS clearly knows they're going | to strike oil with the audit. They aren't stupid. | | What's your solution? The poor should be able to commit tax | fraud because going after millionaires is more important? | | Everyone should have to follow the tax code we've | collectively created. It makes changing it far simpler when | everyone is impacted equally. | leephillips wrote: | I don't know about the guy who was quoted, but I think that | some people who are accustomed to normal jobs with tax | withholding are actually unaware that they are obligated to | pay taxes on cash income. For many people the only purpose in | filing a tax return is to get a refund, as most people with | normal jobs are victims of over-withholding. | brianwawok wrote: | Things you shouldn't post while using your real name; that you | have a side job that you don't report income. | Nav_Panel wrote: | This is great, thanks for sharing. I've always walked by these | guys but never expected that the roots ran so deep. I also love | this little bit near the end: "To me, the Bible is Basic | Information Before Leaving Earth--B.I.B.L.E." | everly wrote: | Not sure if this is the genesis of that acronym but that is a | song on GZA's classic album Liquid Swords [0]. Interestingly, | the album cover [1] and lyrics include chess references | throughout. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Swords#Track_listing | | [1] | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/GZALiquidSwor... | ray__ wrote: | I love this, just subscribed. My favorite piece of advice: | | "I'll give you a lesson, a half hour for $20. I have some | children that come just to see me once a week and I give them a | lesson--$20 for a half hour. And there's a lot of NYU students | that come by, we give them a discount for being students. One | hour for 40 bucks." | swores wrote: | I think (or maybe your choice of quote just accidentally gives | the impression) you're interpreting that as making NYU students | believe they're getting a deal despite paying the same price as | "some children", but actually in the previous paragraph: | | > _If you want a game, I say one game, five dollars, five | minutes._ | | So the children and NYU Students are both getting a discount | (40/hr for both types of student vs 60/hr for non-teaching | games). Although I suspect he'd be willing to negotiate to the | same 40/hr to play 12x timed 5min games if someone asked. | [deleted] | curiousllama wrote: | 5min games are up to 10min long - 5min for each player | rvieira wrote: | That was a really nice read. Thanks. | mellosouls wrote: | For those of you who like this stuff, there are loads of those | sorts of games on youtube, e.g. the Coffee Chess channel, which | has recently been featuring Hikaru and the Botez Sisters (who | themselves have been touring various places including the famous | NYC hustlers). | | Coffee Chess: | | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq6gYeqi8RIvVeF-sJwdaBg | SeanLuke wrote: | I used to play Chinese Chess on and off in Hong Kong. | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi). Just has NY has chess | hustlers in parks, Hong Kong has Chinese Chess hustlers in parks. | The hustlers were always excited to see me, a white American, | stopping by and asking for a game and some tips: I was fresh | meat! They'd gather in big groups to watch the sucker. But after | my first move (the "P-K4" of Chinese Chess: Canon to beneath the | center Pawn) their faces would change radically, as it suddenly | became obvious that I knew somewhat how to play. :-) | | Now while Chess strategy transfers reasonably well to Chinese | Chess, I'm not particularly good, and certainly not better than | the hustlers. But I'd often beat them because they couldn't get | it out of their heads that they weren't playing an American | patsy, and so they kept making showy moves rather than good ones. | It was a lot of fun. | nojs wrote: | > And let me tell you something. People make mistakes early in | their life. I made mistakes early in my life. I got locked up | when I was living in Maryland, selling drugs and stuff. But that | doesn't mean that the game was over. That's how I equate chess | with life. | | Maybe true in life, but not really true in chess. If you blunder | early against a decent player, your chances of winning are very | low! | btilly wrote: | I used to live in NYC 20 years ago. | | I played a few of the hustlers. Some you will lose to, but most | aren't actually that good. They are entertaining though. | | One moment that I will never forget was watching two hustlers | play each other for fun. The position was something like white | had a pawn at a4 and a king at c7. Black had a pawn at h5 and a | king at f3. Black to move. Black offered a draw, white said OK, I | let out an involuntary, "WHAT?" They drew and black said, "You | really think white can win here? I'll bet you $5 on that. I | agreed so we played. | | ... h4 a5 h3 a6 h2 a7 h1(Q) a8(Q)+ | | Black was in check, and no matter where he moved his king, his | queen was toast. | | Easiest $5 I ever made. | joe_the_user wrote: | One of the things with hustlers is they need to encourage | people to play and bet. So you never know when a hustler is | just letting something happen and hoping that when you win a | bet or game, it will encourage you to start betting and then | they'll make more serious money. Which isn't saying this is | what happened, just sayin' you don't know for certain that | isn't what happened. | hutrdvnj wrote: | Do you remember the complete PGN of the game? | btilly wrote: | I have no clue. It was a blitz game and I was just a | bystander. | daveevad wrote: | Isn't that essentially the same endgame at the ending of | Searching for Bobby Fischer? | adharmad wrote: | Yes the same. The pawn race and subsequent diagonal pin are | the same. | smarmgoblin wrote: | That's wild! I'm not very good but if black offered me a draw | in this position my thought would be "his pawn is faster, so | why would he offer a draw? Unless he thinks he's losing for | some reason..." which would be the hint to look for the tactic. | | I guess in many queen/king endgames you can have perpetual | checks, but accepting the draw wouldn't be my first instinct. | btilly wrote: | Their thinking was, "We both queen, and queen+king against | queen+king is a draw." And normally it is. | WJW wrote: | I assume there were still other pieces? Otherwise he can just | trade queens and it would still be a draw. | topynate wrote: | It's a skewer - the White Queen on a8, the Black King on f3 | and the Black Queen on h1 all lie on the long diagonal. The | King has to move and it can't protect the Queen on h1. | WJW wrote: | Ah now I see. I didn't visualize the board enough and only | checked that none of the kings were close to the promotion | squares. Thanks for explaining :) | [deleted] | every wrote: | I had a chess phase. I used to play a guy with some national | ranking. He wiped the floor with me. He told me my game pretty | much sucked but he enjoyed playing me because I was always seeing | and doing things that would have never occurred to him. And that | was the apex of my chess career... | INTPenis wrote: | Heh that sounds just like my story with my dad. He was national | champ in the 80s. I never had enough interest in the game to | get good, would rather play Doom on his DOS computer than | chess. | | But whenever we did play I'd make brainless moves and he'd get | this puzzled look on his face and start thinking. He once told | me the same thing, that I make unusual moves that forces him to | rethink his strategy. | tonguez wrote: | thanks for sharing | pmoriarty wrote: | I used to play a lot of chess, and it totally took over my life. | So I never play it anymore, because for me it's too addictive. | | For some people (like some of these hustlers and others who can | make a living from it) that's ok, but for me I wanted more from | life than just playing chess all the time and thinking about | nothing but chess.. but for certain types of people it has a way | of sucking you in and can be a way of avoiding life. | | However, there were plenty of positive things I learned from | chess, like thinking ahead, being able to concentrate in | distracting environments, and having lots of patience. | tartoran wrote: | I've had my chess learning period followed by obsessive play up | to a point that after playing a few hours daily I'd see those | patterns in my mind's eye for a while afterwards. I realized it | 's not something healthy and I stopped playing altogether. | | Recently I started playing online from time to time and want to | make sure it never becomes an obsession again. Learning how to | lose gracefully is an important milestone in one's quest for | maturity. | | Generally chess has some wisdom that can be carried out in | other areas of life. One point worth mentioning is that no | matter how complicated a situation has become there's quite | often a good way out of it if one keeps calm and looks out for | solutions. | toss1 wrote: | Yup | | My grandfather said that "Too many great minds have been wasted | playing chess.", and so always played checkers with me, always | kind and teaching, but never rolling over. It took me years to | win, but I still remember the three times I did before he | passed away when I was 13. I've hardly ever played again. | Played enough chess in HS to learn how, a few openings and just | enough games to understand the intensity. I could definitely | see what he meant, and it's probably a good thing my passion | was already for alpine ski racing, which has similar intensity | but is naturally a bit self-limiting (e.g., the lifts close and | you have to go in). | | I've since read the saying to the effect that "Being able to | play chess is a sign of intelligence, being able to plat chess | very well is a sign of a wasted life.". Seems to ring true, | except for the true greats. | bluedino wrote: | First one is Einstein(?) and the second is Paul Morphy | AmericanChopper wrote: | "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The | ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." - | Paul Morphy | | There's absolutely no limit to the amount of time your could | spend getting better at chess. I personally lost interest due | to the excessive levels of memorisation involved, which was | also one of Fischer's main complaints about the game. | pmoriarty wrote: | _" I personally lost interest due to the excessive levels of | memorisation involved"_ | | You could play Fischer Random Chess (aka Chess360), which | relieves players of the need to memorize openings, as there | are way too many opening positions to make memorization | practical. | paulcole wrote: | Same for me but with Scrabble. Saw the same thing in that | scene. I don't necessarily want more from life, but I didn't | want to be obsessed with Scrabble any longer. | jamiek88 wrote: | And it's just 100% memorization. The French champion doesn't | even speak French for example. | paulcole wrote: | Don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but it's | definitely not 100% memorization. You have to know the | words and which one to play. The "right" one to play is | usually obvious, but on 2-4 turns per game, the strategy | becomes very very very important. | | With perfect word knowledge and garbage strategy you could | probably be around the 25-50th best human player and with a | fair bit of luck, would win some big tournaments | eventually. | mi100hael wrote: | I've noticed that the #1 positive thing I learned from chess is | rarely mentioned by others, and I'm not sure why that is. For | me it was: | | Pattern recognition. | | I many cases (at least at the intermediate level), | winning/losing games doesn't come down to who can "think three | moves ahead," it comes down to whether someone can recognize | that a pattern of three moves will result in a particular | outcome. It may be a nuance, but it's actually an important one | because it eliminates the notion that someone has to be of | above-average intelligence and discover new moves on the fly to | succeed. | | In actuality, that skill of pattern recognition can be | practiced, honed, and applied in numerous areas of life. | Playing chess is such a pure form of the skill that it opened | my eyes to how many other activities can benefit from a similar | approach. | curiousllama wrote: | Definitely agree. It's not even super purposeful recognition. | It's a feeling like "this seems bad", and looking for why, | only to figure out your opponent's likely plan. | | It's much better to be less intelligent and have that | feeling, than be more intelligent and not even know to look | for the danger. | riotnrrd wrote: | That's a well-known aspect of "expert" level chess player | thinking! There's a famous experiment that demonstrated this. | Researchers briefly showed set-up chess boards to novices | (little to no chess experience) and expert players (2000+ | ELO) and then asked the players to recreate the board they | just saw. If the set-up was from a real game (not necessarily | a famous or studied game) experts performed far, far better. | However, if the chess board was just a random scramble of | pieces, novices and experts had the same recall ability. | Essentially, expert players saw the patterns at work in | legitimate mid-game set-ups and this helped the recall task. | weekendvampire wrote: | There's also a guy who plays in Times Square in the evenings | who's really fun to talk to. I've played him twice and lost badly | both times, but one day... | saucymew wrote: | I've played in the NY parks, Marcel is the best player of the | bunch interviewed here. Sadly, after COVID most of the | Bryant/Union Sq games seem to have disappeared. It's mostly | Washington Sq now. | | But there's this one guy who comes and goes. Always wears these | dapper, beautiful robes, and plays up to $100/game. I've yet to | work myself up to step up to play him... | | Can't wait to visit the park games next time. | georgeoliver wrote: | There were a half dozen or so tables in Union Square a week | ago. Bryant unfortunately wasn't happening, though I noticed | the chairs on that side of the park were chained up, so maybe | they haven't opened it yet. | everly wrote: | E.G.G.S. was my favorite: | | "This guy over here, Abdul. He's Vice President of the Pace | University Chess Club. Now, you hear somebody tell you they're | the vice president of a university chess club, you're going to | automatically think they're good. So when he tells people they | have a 95% chance of beating him, they think he's hustling. But | it's actually the truth. He's not very good." | jsnodlin wrote: ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-03 23:00 UTC)