About this episode

Matt Rathkey discusses how his background in jazz music has influenced his chess improvement and learning strategies.

Can a background as a professional jazz musician help you improve at chess? Matt Rathkey says “yes.”. Matt is this week's guest on The Adult Improver Series. Like many players, he fell back in love with chess during the COVID pandemic and soon found himself playing regularly, watching top-level broadcasts, and solving puzzles. Along the way, he drew upon lessons from years of studying music, particularly the role of pattern recognition, deliberate practice, and improvisation. After years of dedication, Matt has raised his Chess.com blitz rating from roughly 1200 to over 1900. Matt also has a fascinating day job. He is a learning designer on Duolingo's chess team, helping build what has quickly become one of the largest entry points into chess in the world. Launched last year, Duolingo Chess now has more than 7 million daily active users, most of whom are new to the game. Matt shares his improvement advice, discusses the parallels between jazz and chess, and reflects on what he has learned about the science of skill acquisition. This was a fun conversation, and it is encouraging to see so many new players discovering chess through Duolingo. 00:00 Introduction Join the free…

People in this episode

Host: Ben Johnson

Guest: Matt Rathkey

Topics covered

• chess improvement
• jazz improvisation
• learning how to learn
• pattern recognition
• skill acquisition

Keywords

• chess
• jazz
• improvisation
• learning design
• skill acquisition
• COVID pandemic
• pattern recognition

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Duolingo, Chess.com

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