Chess on ice

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Chess on ice

In chess, we can look to see if our move works before playing it. In curling, we can't know for sure if it's going to work until we play it. We can guess, but the level of certainty that is possible in chess is just not possible in curling. One doesn't have to be a curler to know this -- it's the nature of the game space.

Dan, I'm getting from this that you are likely very good and experienced at chess and likely not either at curling. Which puts you ahead of me in both games :). But still, I'd like to give some input here if I may.

In chess, yes we look to see if our move works before playing it, and the skill of chess is first to know which moves to even consider (since time limits constrain us) and then how well we do visualize the ones we consider; that is, how many plies we can consider and still accurately visualize the entire board and tabulate the merits of the position(s).

We decide which moves to consider based on (primarily) pattern knowledge (or in the openings, book knowledge), this is where the learning of chess is involved.

I think Duncan has been saying that this is what goes on in curling, and I'll take his word for it since he's a curler. Pattern knowledge and experience guide a curler in what shots to consider, and then the curler uses extensive visualization to try and consider different static positions based on both perfect and less than perfect shots, as many plies ahead as s/he can.

I would say chess players are guessing just as much as curlers are, give or take some nominal amount. If you as a chess player know for sure once you decide on a move that that move works, then you are a very very good chess player. Maybe experienced curlers do have just as much certainty, but the physical execution tends to vary from the perfect shot they visualize.

I'm convinced from Duncan's description that visualization is just as extensive for a curler as it is for a chess player. But that's just me, maybe you are a curler and you don't use visualization so much as in chess.

[Dan Scoones]

Re: Chess on ice

Paul, it has nothing to do with skill level. The game spaces are fundamentally different. If I see that I can take your queen with my rook, I take your queen with my rook. I don't have to aim my rook at your queen, launch it in some way, and see if I am successful. The chess move is discrete and completely foreseeable. The curling shot is not. Sure, a player can be highly skilled, but as we saw in the women's gold medal game, even a strong player can miss a relatively simple shot. You don't find out if you're going to make the shot until after you take the shot.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Chess on ice

Paul, it has nothing to do with skill level. The game spaces are fundamentally different. If I see that I can take your queen with my rook, I take your queen with my rook. I don't have to aim my rook at your queen, launch it in some way, and see if I am successful. The chess move is discrete and completely foreseeable. The curling shot is not. Sure, a player can be highly skilled, but as we saw in the women's gold medal game, even a strong player can miss a relatively simple shot. You don't find out if you're going to make the shot until after you take the shot.

Ok, Dan, I won't belabour the point. It looks like we are actually saying the same thing, just in a different way. You are describing above the physical aspect of curling. The skill level I and Duncan are talking about is the mental skill, of visualizing different static positions, the only difference is it's positions of rocks and not of chess pieces. This is what a curling player has to do before making the shot, just as a chess player has to do it before moving a chess piece. What happens afterwards is the essence of the differences between chess and curling. I am not one who would say curling is chess on ice, I do acknowledge the differences, but the mental skills required do seem the same to me.

In your rook-takes-queen example, you do still have to check the resulting position and possibly a chain of positions to make sure you aren't going to get mated (or otherwise lose the game). If a curler has a simple shot into a house full of rocks, and making the shot is the equivalent of rook-takes-queen in chess, the curler still has to visualize positions resulting from slight miscues in his or her shot. It's all mental visualization skills, used equally by chess players and by curlers (although hard to quantify, and I'd be willing to give chess players a slight edge).