Chess

[Bitmap]

Apparently, I play this infernal game and recently, it feels like a pain in the ass.

I realize that there are 4 year olds who can beat me because their parents gets them a tutor who is apparently a GM.

And whenever they lose, most of them start having 'fits'.

Anyways, does anyone else play? Feel free to post USCF ratings.

[hyorinryu]

I used to play. I rating was like 800 or something like that. I sucked.

[Ghaleon]

I used to be interested in chess back in grade 2-4 or something. Played maybe like 5 games total. I lost interest when I soon discovered that chess wasn't just a board game people played for fun, and was more like some kind of warped status symbol/pre-Internet e-peen test/whatever.

I'm a big board game fan, and well, I pictured chess like any other board game, perhaps a different game is in order afterwards, but no, chess fans only cared about chess, and never even gave other games the time of day, because chess was the only game for SMART people (ironic how stupid I think this notion is).

Now I understand how people play it even better. Pretty much nobody plays it like a real strategy game anymore, but rather studies it down to the flipping permutations. This IMO is kinda sad, not because some people like the game that much, but because I know even more people WANT to like the game that much because liking chess means you're smart/sophisticated/whatever.

Anyway, not to rain on any fan's parade. I respect the possibility that someone might legitimately enjoy the game for what it is, I know I thought I would. I just didn't want to invest in so much time just to be able to play it with low lifes who think people who don't play professionally are sub-humans or whatever.

Sorry if you dislike such a post, I just have strong opinions about chess and iq tests, and this is about as good an opportunity as I can get about ranting about chess =p.
Though I rekon learning chess would be alot more fun if you have a friend at the same level or whatever to learn it with.

I'm also curious, but what exactly causes a player to "take point". I THINK that's the expression. Basically people Start a new game, and eventually a irreversible phase change of sorts happens. I might have it horribly wrong though I don't play.

[hyorinryu]

I know what you mean, but aren't there people like that for every game. When  I played people who knew what they were doing(likely better than me,) and I had no idea what would happen. . If I make this move, then he might make that move, so I'll do another move to ensure safety, only to find his knight forking my King and Queen, much to my dismay. The room would be completely silent except for pieces landing on the board and clock-hitting, so the only thing on your mind was what move your going to make and what the other guy would do next. However, when I won, it felt like a huge accomplishment, because you spent a good 45 minutes or more working on it and since there was no luck involved, it was all you.
Oh, and I can't forget bughouse and blitz chess. Or the fusion blitz bughouse. That was awesome. There's more randomness in that , giving it a more casual nature, so I would heavily recommend it if that's the reason you couldn't get in to chess.


I wish I played more, but my high school chess club sucks, all they do is play yugioh and ers.

Lastly, I never heard of that term or can't remember it.

[Esifex]

I thoroughly enjoy Chess for the sake of Chess - I don't bother with trying to predict where my opponent will move when he reacts to this piece going there and how he'll react to my reaction to his move after mine and AAAAAGH ITS A FUCKING GAME JUST PLAY THE DAMN GAME AND ENJOY IT

phegoashoagh Although it IS fun fucking people over with the En Passant move if they're not familiar with it.

[hyorinryu]

I thoroughly enjoy Chess for the sake of Chess - I don't bother with trying to predict where my opponent will move when he reacts to this piece going there and how he'll react to my reaction to his move after mine and AAAAAGH ITS A FUCKING GAME JUST PLAY THE DAMN GAME AND ENJOY IT

phegoashoagh Although it IS fun fucking people over with the En Passant move if they're not familiar with it.

I don't know how you can do that. Maybe it's because my instructors have thoroughly ingrained thinking ahead into skull, but I would go crazy if I had  to make a Chess move and not think about the consequences.

[FinnKaenbyou]

This thread makes me slightly sad, as a semi-serious chess player. :<

I'll admit the ego point, though. Catching opponents asleep and pulling out nice mates makes me feel clever because I CAN MOVE THE TINY PIECE BETTER THAN YOU CAN. Conversely, losing has a habit of dampening my spirits, though I'm fortunately well beyond the level where I cried and walked out of the hall in a state. It's dumb, I'm well aware of that. >_>

Thing is, couldn't you argue that about every game? People play other sports for ego, so why does chess get such a bad rep? Because it's demonstrating mental prowess rather than physical?

[Mr_Bob]

Chess and checkers are pretty fun just to break out every once in a while. Been considering playing sonething via electronic mail against anyone who wants a match.

[Prody]

The meta of chess at beginner level is awareness while the meta of chess at advanced level is the ability to see the future

[trancehime]

The meta of chess at beginner level is awareness while the meta of chess at advanced level is the ability to see the future

This is true. So, so, so very true.

Bad, bad memories. :fail:

[Ghaleon]

Thing is, couldn't you argue that about every game? People play other sports for ego, so why does chess get such a bad rep? Because it's demonstrating mental prowess rather than physical?

What?!

I have honestly never EVER seen anybody claim they are more physically fit than another person because they can beat them in one physical sport. I mean a soccer player who is better than a poor one in every way might think they are a better runner, kicker, passer, etc. But they are never like "hurr, I'm healthier/stronger/faster than you, and can kick your ass!". It just doesn't happen.

Some chess people (and by some, I mean enough that I hear it fairly regularly) on the other hand think that they MUST be smarter than person B because they can beat them in chess, THAT is what I think is stupid. More often than not when I hear people bragging about chess skills, they talk about IQ as well (a stupid fictitious concept IMO to begin with). Or how a great chess player is automatically a genius, and they don't mean simply at chess.

I never see these kind of broad claims with any other game/sport.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Thing is, couldn't you argue that about every game? People play other sports for ego, so why does chess get such a bad rep? Because it's demonstrating mental prowess rather than physical?

Except serious sportsmen and sportswomen will tell you, correctly, that sport is wayyyyy more than physical prowess. A good player plays half the game in their mind, at least. From personal experience and from my friends, I have learned that this goes for cross-country, swimming, diving, badminton, basketball, tennis, and soccer, and it would doubtless go for any other serious sport.

For my part, I can't stand chess. Not for the IQ reason, really. I just can't stand non-team activities, or activities that take place indoors. My mother is a genius, and she's tried to get me to play chess with her ever since I was a little girl. I am not nerdy enough to even put a serious dent in her numbers before she forces me into checkmate. :fail:

[Affinity]

Pretty much nobody plays it like a real strategy game anymore, but rather studies it down to the flipping permutations.

I can accept the above quote for the first ten to fifteen moves of the game (at grandmaster level), since the opening systems are all well-known.  However, this isn't real chess, anyone can move pieces in a certain manner even if they don't know how to play the game.  It is when things start coming that you have not seen before that the game of chess starts, since there are so many possibilities;  the trick is in choosing which permutations to considers.  I don't think your so-called smart friends have played every single game in existence; they have to apply the principles they have gained through experience (uh-oh, kingside attack coming, etc.) to know which permutations to consider.

And besides,  there are many 'correct' moves which you can make in chess, and often, there is no one best move.  Take Mikihal Tal's games from long ago; often he made the theoretically incorrect moves during games, sacrificing a knight for a pawn just to gain a small, speculative opening.  Subsequent analysis of said games would prove that the opponent could have won, that if he was calm-minded and well-composed, he could have braved out the attack;.  But under tournament conditions, it is very hard to regain your composure after seeing a move that you had never considered, and to know which set of permutations to consider, since often the resulting positions were chaotic.  And these opponents of Tal weren't just your average scrubs in chess clubs, they were the very best players of their time and had the supposed intellectual prowess to calculate individual strings of possibilities to their end.  There is a heart and soul to chess, not just cold calculation a la how it is portrayed in various media and stuff like that.

Often I have experienced milder versions of the above... I fought for very difficult draws after making mistakes and have often lost winning positions due to being too complacent and stuff like that.  My nose even bled once.  It is as much an emotional sport as a mental sport, often you have to take every unexpected development with a kind of serenity and try and get back at your opponent.  Don't let your knowledge of certain chess players affect your perception on the game itself; to me things like DoTa and fighting games show as much intelligence as chess does.  It would be like hating sports due to sportspeople poking your tummy, etc.

[Esifex]

I still stand by my philosophy of 'it's just a game, you gotta treat it like one sometimes, y'know?'

That doesn't stop people from making competitive forms of it, of course. I mean, hell, Halo has even picked up cash-prize tournaments, as has Starcraft and a few others. Obviously gaming - and of course, chess - are slowly becoming sports, but in an intellectual sense instead of a physical sense. My main problem with this though is that it's all being taken too seriously, considering what they are - just games.

[Drake]

*insert deep and moving debate on what constitutes a game and what constitutes a sport and at what point does a game become a sport and vice-versa here*

[Edible]

CHECK

NEVER

CHECK

NEVER

CHECK

NEVER

CHECK

NEVER!!!

[Unassuming Squid]

I thoroughly enjoy Chess for the sake of Chess - I don't bother with trying to predict where my opponent will move when he reacts to this piece going there and how he'll react to my reaction to his move after mine and AAAAAGH ITS A FUCKING GAME JUST PLAY THE DAMN GAME AND ENJOY IT

phegoashoagh Although it IS fun fucking people over with the En Passant move if they're not familiar with it.

Pretty much this.

I always follow a flowchart in my mind when it's my turn in chess:

Is there any piece of mine that is under immediate threat?
-If yes = Is it more important than a pawn?
--If yes = Will moving it put it or another, more important piece at risk? (knight, king, queen)
---If yes = Find another free piece to block the attack/capture the attacker, or let the piece be captured and make another move.
---If no = Move it out of the way/capture the attacker.
--If no = Let it be captured if there is a more useful move to make.
-If no = Is there anything I can do to capture a piece without putting one of my pieces at risk?
--If yes = Do it.
--If no = Can I move a piece into a position where it can attack at some point in the future?
---If yes = Do it.
---If no = Can I use En Passant?
----If yes = Do it.
----If no = Just move something and get it over with.

It's worked for me for the past several years, more wins than losses. Haven't had to memorize anything, pretty much. Of course, I only play chess casually, so maybe it wouldn't work at a competitive level.

[Azzy]

I occasionally play a game of chess, but never in a competitive way.
I play against a computer for funsies and I don't even bother with trying to read ahead because that infernal machine always does something to mess it's own game up...
If i play against an actual person however I do think ahead, not because I want to have a foolproof strategy but rather because I don't want to go down in and embarrassing fashion...

[Doll.S CUBE]

I used to play chess but I don't really anymore due to the lack of interest with people around me. Also I don't really do well in timed matches.

[Curious Sign]

I occasionally play a game of chess, but never in a competitive way.
I play against a computer for funsies and I don't even bother with trying to read ahead because that infernal machine always does something to mess it's own game up...
If i play against an actual person however I do think ahead, not because I want to have a foolproof strategy but rather because I don't want to go down in and embarrassing fashion...

This. I perform better when playing against another person than when against a computer. I have a few theories, but the main one is that while playing against a human, I can use applied mental heuristics to imagine as many possible moves that I can take, the moves my opponent can take, and how my move will influence my opponent's move. Because humans reason through thought, their moves usually have a consistent pattern that I can exploit because it makes sense. When playing against certain computers, however, they seem as if they haven't a clue what to do. And by that, I mean I suspect that some programmers got lazy (well, relatively lazy for a chess programmer because it's definitely not easy to program a chess AI), and instead of programming artificial intelligence at a decent level, they stick in some code to make it do valid moves and then decide to do something completely stupid and random that makes no sense with a frequency that reflects the difficulty you set it on. Because computers reason through algorithms and possibly random number generators, they tend to be more difficult for people who are pattern-consistency reliant such as myself. Another theory o' mine revolves around psychology. Humans have personalities. Computers don't. Because humans have personalities, the choices they make in chess, amongst other things, can reflect said personality. Some players are belligerent. Others play defensively. Once you read their behavioral patterns, you can adapt accordingly.
Welp, that concludes my wall of text.

[TakuTaku]

Is there any piece of mine that is under immediate threat?
-If yes = Is it more important than a pawn?
--If yes = Will moving it put it or another, more important piece at risk? (knight, king, queen)
---If yes = Find another free piece to block the attack/capture the attacker, or let the piece be captured and make another move.
---If no = Move it out of the way/capture the attacker.
--If no = Let it be captured if there is a more useful move to make.
-If no = Is there anything I can do to capture a piece without putting one of my pieces at risk?
--If yes = Do it.
--If no = Can I move a piece into a position where it can attack at some point in the future?
---If yes = Do it.
---If no = Can I use En Passant?
----If yes = Do it.
----If no = Just move something and get it over with.

this and forever this in my brain.

I used to play chess in highschool, not because I really liked it but because they had to find someone to compete for our class during the school sportsfest. I was the 'smartest' so I had to represent the class. They didn't even consider my actual skill in the game which was pretty non-existent, they just assumed that since I had the good grades I can kick ass. So yeah, obviously, I lost.

I still occasionally play when there's a board around but that's about it.