Chess

Hi,

I think there was no thread for this (I didn't find one, at least); Now there is.

I dunno if this is the right location, but it's a game, so I guess??

Does anybody play this game, etc.
If yes: seriously or just randomly, are you rated or not, what openings do you play why, etc.

P.S.: Here's a funny thing: www.chesspersonality.com

@gllt when's

ClarenceMage said:

Chessmaster is godlike though. It's the VF4:Evo of Chess.

I have no idea what this is trying to say

Hilary said:

If I could follow chess theorycrafting/discussion better, I would enjoy the game.

As it is, I have a really awful grasp of fundamentals and play in a very short-sighted manner.

If you have any sort of questions, ask away!

BlackRoseAngel said:

2. Once you've done that, find a chink in their armor.
3. Exploit the weakness and move in for the kill.

I have that first one down, 2 and 3 not so much.

This is kind of lacking "Force the opponent to create a chink in their armor".
How are you going to find a weakness if the opponent doesn't suicide?

Jason said:

I played Chess 2: The Sequel

Kristoph made a Sirlin-Chess Thread somewhere.
Please move discussion on the most pretentiously named game of all time there :^)

Kristoph said:

I think the midline rule would be a really good change to FIDE chess though!

I wonder how deep your endgame knowledge goes, to request a flat deletion of half the game.

Why FIDE Chess and not just chess? Do you call it "FIBA Basketball" and "ITF Tennis" and "FIG Gymnastics"?

60% draw rate is annoying =(

Would it really be better for White to win 70%?
And why is it annoying in the first place?
Where do you have this 60% number from btw; what rating range is it for?

And are you even sure that this rule change would do anything about the "issue" for longer than, say, 5 years?

Kristoph said:

to answer your other questions: obvs my endgame knowledge is irrelevant to the point;

Not really.

If you actually knew what you are killing with the King rule, and were able to give reasons as to why you think it's worth killing that, your statement would carry a lot more weight.

If you're just voting for "I don't like draws", we could toss a coin at the end of a drawn match and the winner of the flip gets awarded the full point - 0% Draws right there!
I'd actually figure this might be better than the King bullshit - which is flat removing half of the entire game, because you're averse to half points on the scoreboard.

This is a very important question, because I figure you don't have any clue about anything endgame at all, and thus a change like this doesn't seem very harmful to you.

no 70% win for white would not be better but that's of course an irrelevant strawman

Not really.

Considering the first move advantage, that's precisely what I'd expect to happen if this rule was implemented.

Black spends 3/4th of a normal game on the back foot; this will become exceptionally more of a problem if he can't just "Defend a slightly worse position", but also has to keep White from walking forward with his King.

In a similar way, if Stalemate was changed to become a loss for the player getting stalemated (rather than ending the game in a draw), the percentage of draws would go down tremendously - with the utmost of those %s going towards White wins.

perhaps you should observe other games such as Shogi because you seem maybe a bit ignorant as to what it means to have a 60% draw rate versus say ~2%;

Yeah, I'm completely ignorant to that.

I don't understand why a Football match would be "better" if some team won 2:1 than if it ended 2:2;
Similarly, I have no idea why a hard fought battle between two players is more entertaining if the end result is 1-0 than 0.5-0.5?

What IS a problem is GMs agreeing to quick draws ahead of time to save their strength for later in the tournament (most notable in the famous Candidates cycle prior to Petrosian's claim of the WC title), and people "just not feeling it" and agreeing to 14-move-draws in positions which *clearly* got a ton of play left in them.
There are several differing suggestions to address this (though the collusion aspect can't ever really get avoided) some of them being tournament tested (Sofia rules), others still being in their debate stage (eg that a draw offer isn't valid just for one move, but for say 5).

60% draw rate is the widely-known number for very high level play

Is it? I remember the number being 50-55%, that's why I'm asking.

Bilbao Chess Masters Final 2014: 12 Games, 5 Draws
Sinquefield Cup 2014: 30 Games, 16 Draws
Dortmund Sparkassen Chess-Meeting 2014: 28 Games, 17 Draws
Biel Chess Festival 2014: 30 Games, 17 Draws
Norway Chess 2014: 45 Games, 28 Draws
76th Tata Steel Tournament: 66 Games, 30 Draws

This is a more-or-less exhaustive selection of recent supertournaments (I probably forgot a bunch, but I didn't precisely select those with low draw count to manipulate the results, so it shouldn't matter too much) has a total count of 211 Games, with 113 (53.6%) of them ending with a share of the spoils.

If you go lower in common databases and eg include matches from the 2200-2400 Rating range as well, the Percentages end up at roughly 35% White Win, 35% Draw, 30% Black Win; so this isn't what you're looking at either.

Where do you have your 60% number from?

I guess maybe you don't pay much attention to top level chess though

I'm sure you follow it more dilligently than I do!

and, no I'm not certain the midline rule would fix draws, i suspect it would drastically reduce them though, which would be cool!

See above, would 70% White win be better?

And why exactly would it be cool?
What makes 6 hours of hard-fought, straining battle leading to a won K+R+P vs K+R ending more entertaining than "the exact same game" leading to a drawn K+R+P vs K+R ending?

Vadsamoht said:

Sad to see that the chess thread went straight into 'chess2' discussion. It's a topic I've already done to death with CM, vuples a long time ago in the IRC and a few others, so I won't add too much to that (tl;dr - I think it's dumb).

1) I think the current discussion, or at least what I'm talking about, it less Sirlin Chess and more "Is there a drawing problem in chess?"
2) You are *more than* free to start a different topic of discussion! I don't really know what to talk about (or: I have plenty possible topics, but I doubt the rating in here to be high enough for it to make any kind of sense), so I just tossed this thread here and thought I'd chime into discussions.

BlackRoseAngel said:

I never said I was good at this game.

I never said you have to be, I'm explaining to you why your "2 and 3 not so much" is what it is.

Kristoph said:

vulpes, do you think chess is a perfect/perfectly-designed game as it is?

This is kind of a weird question. What does "perfect" mean? What is a "perfect game"?

In the first place, it's somewhere between unlikely and impossible that Human hands craft something "perfect", so: No.

Using a broader definition, a necessary part of a 'perfect game' to me would be that someone who has never played it -or even any other game!- before is capable of understanding it quickly; that most definitely ISN'T part of chess.
In a sense, Tetris (or even games such as VVVVVV, Super Metroid, MM X, take your pick) is a lot "more perfect" than chess, and since 'more perfect' isn't exactly a thing you can say - again, No.

Then there are tons of other considerations such as "Which equipment do you need to play the game", "How great of a spectator sport is it" (Both in how exciting it is to a casual viewer, and how much said casual viewer understands of what is going on), "How close is the game played by the top to the game played by 'normal' people", etc - tons of considerations, and admittedly chess isn't exactly scoring well in most(?) of those.

Following this up, do I think the rules of chess are perfect? No; it's likely that there is a way to make the game more fun / "deeper" / whatever; to end up with an overall better game after a rule change.
.. But do I think it is likely that someone can come up with a rule change like this? No.
Due to how complex the game is, it is rather impossible to tell what exact impact any given new rule would have; you'd need 5, maybe 10, maybe more years of constant master practice to uncover what exactly said rule does to the game, and then there'll be the question whether what it changed 'objectively' leaves us with a better game or not.
And if it didn't, then you'd need the same timespan again, for the next rule change, etc

On top of that, a game is not just its set of rules - a multiplayer game lives and dies with its playerbase; if God creates an objectively perfect 2 player game, but you don't find anyone to play it with, it's as good as a pile of rubbish.
If someone were to come up with a rule change that "objectively makes the game better" and FIDE implemented it, half+ of the playerbase would plain split from FIDE and create a rival association which uses the old rules.
This was even a terrible predicament during the time of the PCA, which didn't really affect anyone aside from Kasparov and the bunch of FIDE-WCs; it would be a game killing blow if it actually spanned through all rating ranges.

Bottom Line: I don't think there is a way to change the game without doing harm to it, and I guess that indeed makes it 'perfect' in some way.

.. There is a lot of fluff around the game (aforementioned rules to avoid "boring" draws, the time limit, how to qualify for a WC match, how ELO works (Is there inflation? Is it overestimating the chances of a better player? Should it implement the black/white disparity in some way? ..) which by no means is currently perfect, though;
So if you want to make chess better, I'd advise you to look in that direction :)

Vadsamoht said:

I'd like to see those topics. I don't keep up with the chess news much (last I read was about the Olympiad and Carlsen signing the deal to play in Sochi), but if it's game-related I'd like to see what people think or find out what things I don't understand.

I don't follow chess news much myself; the topics would be more along the lines of
- "At what rating range do people play the open games again? Obviously all beginners do, but then it sort of dies down in the midrange. I know like two people in the 1300-2000 range who answer 1.e4 with ..e5; 90% play some sort of sicilian; even offbeat shit like the scandinavian seems to be more frequent than 1. ..e5. At GM level however, ..e5 is the 2nd most common answer to e4, so I'm curious when it starts again."
- "Do you have any sort of analysis to share on 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5 3.d5 b5? This is -or should be- an important line for Black players who attempt to bring the game into Benoni/Benko waters when White does his best to avoid it; but it doesn't even carry a name and it's difficult to find any literature about it - for whatever reason"
And I'm afraid I won't get any real answers on either :P

Dime_x said:

I like chess and I'm decent at it.

Decent = ?

My favorite player of all time and the player whos style i can most be described as having is capablanca.

Of course nowhere near as good as him... Which should go without saying, but i think that i think a lot like he did...

I'm really curious how you believe Capablanca "thought", and in what way your gameplan is similar to his.

Imho chess needs a rule change or a board change to turn opening memorisation on its head, and force the players to think, not just remember, for more than half the game.

Have you looked at Chess960?
You may also enjoy following Carlsen's games.

You would btw be surprised, but a lot of those "memorized opening lines" are a lot of thinking ;-)

But thats jus me and i dont really care if no one agrees

Always a great way to engage in discussion!

fighting games are the evolution of chess in my mind.

"Chess" with a boatload more randomness, in spectator friendlier, with draw as a nigh impossibility, worse players and a focus on body-stuff like reflexes and muscle memory..

Less an "evolution" and more like the Charts Hit to a Mozart Symphony :^)

Kristoph said:

not only do i think that it's likely that someone can come up with a rule change that improves chess, but i think it's probably way way easy to do

1) First, you'd need to state what "Improvement" means.
- More fun to spectate?
- More fun to play at low levels?
- More fun for the SuperGMs?
"Better for everybody" is an unattainable goal by any means, and that leaves the question whether eg "More fun for casual players, and more spectator friendly; but less interesting for people in the 2500+ rating range" would be an 'Improvement' or a Deterioration.

2) Then, you need some way to find out what exactly is "wrong" with the game that eg makes it a lousy spectator sport - and keep the first question in mind.
Is there a problem in SuperGMs drawing 50% of their games? The SuperGMs don't have an issue with it, for people playing at lower levels it's irrelevant because *their* games aren't 50% draws -- so you're changing the game for the people who don't play it; potentially alienating the playerbase for the sake of armchairfarters?

3) Third, you need to come up with an idea of how to fix it. Up to here was already a mammoth amount of work ("way way easy", really??), now good luck with that idea!

4) Fourth, you need an exceptional amount of match practice (at all levels! and with specators! and stuff!) to check whether your change actually fixes said "problem", and whether it does so without creating a new, possibly bigger one.
To take the example from before: Eg maybe Kingwalk-rule is a lot more entertaining and reduces draws, but does so by moving all the draws to the White-win side; so the game changes from "30% W / 50% D / 20% B" to "50% W / 30% D / 20% B" - is this really better?
Or maybe you create a highly complicated rule which makes GM chess more interesting, but heightens the entry bar for playing the game by so much that the entire casual playerbase is either left confused, attempts to understand it and drops the game, or ignores it altogether which leads to two vastly different games being played between lower and higher ranks.

5) Lastly, you have to check what your change actually DOES to the game.

You know, there is already a super-simple solution which accomplishes the following:
- Much more fun to watch I: You can actually follow a game proper
- Much more fun to watch II: More exciting gameplay!
- Greatly lessens the amount of (usable) opening preparation
- Lowers the amount of draws (without greatly increasing White's winning chances)
- Vastly broadens the amount of arising position types / pawn structures / etc
- Probably more!
And all this, without touching the actual chess rules whatsoever! How??

.. Faster Time Controls.
Less time to think means:
- Sacrifices/Pawnstorms/etc become stronger (and thus are chosen more often), as attacking is easier than defending
- You can sit down at your PC and follow an entire game NP (rather than this being a 6h sitting)
- Blunders! (exciting!)
- Time Trouble! (exciting!)
- Opening Prep becomes comparably irrelevant, as you don't have the time to think about which reaction was the right one to deviation X
- Positional manoeuvring and boring prophylaxis take a notable backseat, as that's much harder to do when you can't get a proper view of all your opponent's possible plans
- "Incorrect" Openings become much harder to refute (and are thus chosen more frequently), leading to games becoming more different from each other
etc!

But how does all of this happen? Because people are plain playing worse. They have less time to think, so instead of their usual 2700+ level they "only" play like say a 2400 would (during long time controls).
So, you "fixed" "all of chess' problems" by making the games less perfect and more prone to mistakes. Is that really something you want? *

* For the record: I could see FIDE going this way, and I'm not sure what I would think of it.

Vadsamoht said:

The highest-rated player we had that still used somewhat unconventional (1.Nf3 to avoid theory or something more wacky if he knew you were expecting it) openings was ~1800 ACF (so ~1850 FIDE I guess? It doesn't convert well, but generally ACF underrates players slightly by comparison, and greatly so at the lower levels).

Do I read this correctly as "1851+ is where people commonly start answering 1.e4 with ..e5 again"?

most players in the 1600-1800 range would play open games at least some of the time.

I'll just list it from my club, since that's easiest, but the general impression I have stays true with other clubs (at least in this area):

We got 19 people in the 1400+ Range.
#01: Sicilian
#02: Sicilian
#03: Sicilian
#04: Sicilian
#05: Sicilian, Modern/Pirc
#06: 1. ..e5 (Petroff)
#07: Alekhine
#08: Modern/Pirc
#09: Sicilian
#10: Sicilian
#11: Sicilian
#12: Sicilian
#13: Scandinavian
#14: Caro-Kann
#15: Sicilian
#16: French
#17: 1. ..e5 (Philidor)
#18: Sicilian
#19: French, Caro-Kann

Out of those 19 people, I can get the Ruy Lopez on the board against exactly 0.

When I get a Ruy somewhere else, it's mostly Steinitz Defence.

*Nobody* plays the main line ;_;

IIRC you had a thread on ChessPub or somewhere about this - did you get anything interesting from that?

Not really a thread, was just a sidequestion of mine in an existing thread.
I got that the mainline goes 4.Bg5 Qb6 (apparently better than 4. ..Ne4), and then a possible continuation would be 5.Bf6: Qf6: 6.c3 Qb6

This sure isn't a critical line so it doesn't hurt much to not know any theory on it - and obviously I can analyze a position by myself;
The question is half the actual request for some help, and half just showing my confusion that this line has almost no analysis anywhere - when it's (at least in my eyes!) the most obvious choice for a Benoni/Benko player against 2.Nf3

Okay please list the things that are wrong with the game, why they are wrong (and for which group), and how to fix them

Kristoph said:

no this is incorrect. it's easily possible to make a game better for everybody (as in, not every individual human, but each 'demographic' that you listed

Especially curious about this part

P.S. Balance changes in a video game are slightly different to changing chess rules, but I'm sure you're just trying to be annoying