Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

[Jordan S. Berson]

Re: Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Maybe you would play more if after the turn, you could resurrect a card from the muck?

Bahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Thanks for the laugh :D

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Maybe you would play more if after the turn, you could resurrect a card from the muck?

That would lead to more draws.

[Jean Hébert]

Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Let's face it, it's a difficult game and it consumes a lot of time. Perhaps we shouldn't try too hard to market the game as a popular pursuit. Those who love chess tend to love it deeply precisely because of its depth. Much of the game's charm is lost if we simplify or dilute it, and this may not be a price worth paying for making chess more popular.
– Jonathan Rowson

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Let's face it, it's a difficult game and it consumes a lot of time. Perhaps we shouldn't try too hard to market the game as a popular pursuit. Those who love chess tend to love it deeply precisely because of its depth. Much of the game's charm is lost if we simplify or dilute it, and this may not be a price worth paying for making chess more popular.
– Jonathan Rowson

Excellent quote!

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Originally Posted by Jean Hébert
Let's face it, it's a difficult game and it consumes a lot of time. Perhaps we shouldn't try too hard to market the game as a popular pursuit. Those who love chess tend to love it deeply precisely because of its depth. Much of the game's charm is lost if we simplify or dilute it, and this may not be a price worth paying for making chess more popular.
– Jonathan Rowson

Excellent quote!

It is a ok quote, because it does encapsulate the "charm" of standard chess and admits to the difficulty and time consumption. However, for one thing, it misses mentioning the memorization aspect of chess, and how much that has become part of developing into a strong chess player.

Also, the author TWICE expresses an opinion that he obviously holds (that we "perhaps" shouldn't market the game as a popular pursuit) and in each case he misses a vital point.

That vital point is that introducing other forms of chess, whether simpler or more complex, doesn't in any way mean that standard chess has to disappear. The lovers of standard chess can remain lovers of standard chess. Organizers of standard chess can continue to provide standard chess events.

The flip side of this vital point is that standard chess cannot even approach the financial levels and media presence of another similar pursuit, namely poker. It isn't just about the element of luck. After all, the game of bridge also has an element of luck, and not very many people are watching bridge on TV. There is much more to the financial / media disparity between poker and chess than just luck -- many factors that I have researched and documented.

Yet, standard chess does take years of skill-building to turn one into a top professional, much more so than poker. People can win, and in many cases have won, several lifetimes of earnings at their regular vocation by playing poker within one year of taking up the game. Standard chess has no answer to this. First of all, no one but an as-yet-undiscovered genius could even win a top super-GM event within one year of taking up chess. Secondly, that genius, should s/he ever appear, would be much more financially rewarded in winning a Nobel prize in physics or chemistry or you-name-it.

These are important points, because they indicate that standard chess may have the world's poorest effort / reward and skill / reward ratios of any undertaking that demands effort and / or skill. And yet people still love the game to the point of addiction.

People love to bring up the gambling aspect of poker as if poker, much more than chess, can ruin one's life. I look a little deeper. I believe there are countless people who would have richer, more rewarding lives if they could escape the addiction of standard chess. They just don't know it. They don't know it because they are so immersed in the standard chess world that they've become mesmerized by it. Back when someone posted a thread about whether chess is a game or a sport, I responded that it is a cult, for this very reason.

I recognize there are legitimate things to love about standard chess. I was a part of it, and for a brief time, I did love it. What I finally had to realize was what it was costing me. It was costing me a professional career. It was costing me social skills and advancement. It was costing me all kinds of things that I could be learning and spending time in.

I left the cult of chess, and I now have what I consider a much better life. I have a career in which my self-taught skills are in constant demand, for the only reason that I stopped trying to memorize chess openings and instead focused on technical skills in the computer field.

But I haven't left the love of chess. And as a result, I have strived to come up with some way of reinventing chess that first of all removes the memorization aspect, second of all introduces an element of luck, and thirdly, introduces the most crazy and wild positions you can imagine into the normal experience. Standard chess has become for the most part a dull, regimental march to a 4/4 drumbeat. I have sought, in my reinvention, to introduce all kinds of new rythyms and tempos and dissonances (much as I have done in my musical recordings, by they way).

I'm going beyond BADASS chess in this post. BADASS chess is simply a proposal to solve the problem of too many draws at the top levels of standard chess. What I'm talking about here, in response to this talk of whether or not we should strive to popularize chess, is rather an expansion of chess, to break free from the sandbox of standard chess, including the financial constraints of standard chess.

I am at this point torn about whether I should really push this new invention. I know for sure it can and will sweep the chess world off its feet if it is introduced. What I don't know for sure is whether that is the right thing to do. It will make me a ton of money, but is it the right thing to do? And the reason I'm asking that is because it will attract many, many more minds into chess AS A WAY TO MAKE A LIVING. That's the part I'm not sure is best. Is it a good thing to change a kid from being a scientist or a philosopher or a writer or an engineer to being a (non-standard) chess professional?

It's a tough call. I saw Bob Gillanders this past week, posting about the success of the Mississauga Chess Club, and how it is all based on letting the kids have fun. And I duly noted all the jealousy-motivated responses that tried to get Bob to change the formula. Bring all the kids to Toronto, have them play against Scarborough, see whose the best! I think Bob was prudent and proper to resist these temptations. Bob, if you're reading this, don't change your formula for success! Let those kids just enjoy chess! Keep the competition out of it! All those dreams of TV coverage and CFC and OCA people manning booths and handing out brochures and increasing memberships... it's all just people chasing after an impossible dream. You cannot popularize standard chess. It will never be on TV other than the odd Saturday morning community channel. It will never suddenly double in membership size, let alone triple or quadruple. Standard chess, for all it's documented and valid good points for those who love it, is nevertheless a dead horse. You can beat it and beat it, but it won't get up and gallop.

It is pretty much inevitable now that I will move ahead and introduce my reinvention. Standard chess can remain, organizers can still organize events. But Jonathan Rowson missed the point: many forms of chess can coexist. My form will offer even the chessplayer with mediocre skills and knowledge a chance to make a living from chess, or at least a partial living and hobby that doesn't demand total devotation to memorization and traditional standard chess skills. There will be no openings to memorize. Rook and Pawn endings will be the exception, never the rule. The rule will be variety, on a scale that standard chess simply cannot comprehend.

The great thing is that no one will need to study and memorize so much that they give up becoming that scientist or engineer, unless they want to become a uber standard chess player, in which case they just proceed as they would now.

But for my reinvention, all one needs to know are the rules and a few basic skills. It's very much like the Bob Gillanders philosophy at the Mississauga Chess Club. Let the kids have fun!

BTW, in case Jordan or Bindi or anyone else tries to accuse me of resurrecting this thread because of my own motivations, please recognize that they are merely amateur trolls and I am only posting this IN RESPONSE to the resurrection of this thread by JEAN HEBERT.

[Aman Hambleton]

Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Originally Posted by Jean Hébert
Let's face it, it's a difficult game and it consumes a lot of time. Perhaps we shouldn't try too hard to market the game as a popular pursuit. Those who love chess tend to love it deeply precisely because of its depth. Much of the game's charm is lost if we simplify or dilute it, and this may not be a price worth paying for making chess more popular.
– Jonathan Rowson



It is a ok quote, because it does encapsulate the "charm" of standard chess and admits to the difficulty and time consumption. However, for one thing, it misses mentioning the memorization aspect of chess, and how much that has become part of developing into a strong chess player.

Also, the author TWICE expresses an opinion that he obviously holds (that we "perhaps" shouldn't market the game as a popular pursuit) and in each case he misses a vital point.

That vital point is that introducing other forms of chess, whether simpler or more complex, doesn't in any way mean that standard chess has to disappear. The lovers of standard chess can remain lovers of standard chess. Organizers of standard chess can continue to provide standard chess events.

The flip side of this vital point is that standard chess cannot even approach the financial levels and media presence of another similar pursuit, namely poker. It isn't just about the element of luck. After all, the game of bridge also has an element of luck, and not very many people are watching bridge on TV. There is much more to the financial / media disparity between poker and chess than just luck -- many factors that I have researched and documented.

Yet, standard chess does take years of skill-building to turn one into a top professional, much more so than poker. People can win, and in many cases have won, several lifetimes of earnings at their regular vocation by playing poker within one year of taking up the game. Standard chess has no answer to this. First of all, no one but an as-yet-undiscovered genius could even win a top super-GM event within one year of taking up chess. Secondly, that genius, should s/he ever appear, would be much more financially rewarded in winning a Nobel prize in physics or chemistry or you-name-it.

These are important points, because they indicate that standard chess may have the world's poorest effort / reward and skill / reward ratios of any undertaking that demands effort and / or skill. And yet people still love the game to the point of addiction.

People love to bring up the gambling aspect of poker as if poker, much more than chess, can ruin one's life. I look a little deeper. I believe there are countless people who would have richer, more rewarding lives if they could escape the addiction of standard chess. They just don't know it. They don't know it because they are so immersed in the standard chess world that they've become mesmerized by it. Back when someone posted a thread about whether chess is a game or a sport, I responded that it is a cult, for this very reason.

I recognize there are legitimate things to love about standard chess. I was a part of it, and for a brief time, I did love it. What I finally had to realize was what it was costing me. It was costing me a professional career. It was costing me social skills and advancement. It was costing me all kinds of things that I could be learning and spending time in.

I left the cult of chess, and I now have what I consider a much better life. I have a career in which my self-taught skills are in constant demand, for the only reason that I stopped trying to memorize chess openings and instead focused on technical skills in the computer field.

But I haven't left the love of chess. And as a result, I have strived to come up with some way of reinventing chess that first of all removes the memorization aspect, second of all introduces an element of luck, and thirdly, introduces the most crazy and wild positions you can imagine into the normal experience. Standard chess has become for the most part a dull, regimental march to a 4/4 drumbeat. I have sought, in my reinvention, to introduce all kinds of new rythyms and tempos and dissonances (much as I have done in my musical recordings, by they way).

I'm going beyond BADASS chess in this post. BADASS chess is simply a proposal to solve the problem of too many draws at the top levels of standard chess. What I'm talking about here, in response to this talk of whether or not we should strive to popularize chess, is rather an expansion of chess, to break free from the sandbox of standard chess, including the financial constraints of standard chess.

I am at this point torn about whether I should really push this new invention. I know for sure it can and will sweep the chess world off its feet if it is introduced. What I don't know for sure is whether that is the right thing to do. It will make me a ton of money, but is it the right thing to do? And the reason I'm asking that is because it will attract many, many more minds into chess AS A WAY TO MAKE A LIVING. That's the part I'm not sure is best. Is it a good thing to change a kid from being a scientist or a philosopher or a writer or an engineer to being a (non-standard) chess professional?

It's a tough call. I saw Bob Gillanders this past week, posting about the success of the Mississauga Chess Club, and how it is all based on letting the kids have fun. And I duly noted all the jealousy-motivated responses that tried to get Bob to change the formula. Bring all the kids to Toronto, have them play against Scarborough, see whose the best! I think Bob was prudent and proper to resist these temptations. Bob, if you're reading this, don't change your formula for success! Let those kids just enjoy chess! Keep the competition out of it! All those dreams of TV coverage and CFC and OCA people manning booths and handing out brochures and increasing memberships... it's all just people chasing after an impossible dream. You cannot popularize standard chess. It will never be on TV other than the odd Saturday morning community channel. It will never suddenly double in membership size, let alone triple or quadruple. Standard chess, for all it's documented and valid good points for those who love it, is nevertheless a dead horse. You can beat it and beat it, but it won't get up and gallop.

It is pretty much inevitable now that I will move ahead and introduce my reinvention. Standard chess can remain, organizers can still organize events. But Jonathan Rowson missed the point: many forms of chess can coexist. My form will offer even the chessplayer with mediocre skills and knowledge a chance to make a living from chess, or at least a partial living and hobby that doesn't demand total devotation to memorization and traditional standard chess skills. There will be no openings to memorize. Rook and Pawn endings will be the exception, never the rule. The rule will be variety, on a scale that standard chess simply cannot comprehend.

The great thing is that no one will need to study and memorize so much that they give up becoming that scientist or engineer, unless they want to become a uber standard chess player, in which case they just proceed as they would now.

But for my reinvention, all one needs to know are the rules and a few basic skills. It's very much like the Bob Gillanders philosophy at the Mississauga Chess Club. Let the kids have fun!

BTW, in case Jordan or Bindi or anyone else tries to accuse me of resurrecting this thread because of my own motivations, please recognize that they are merely amateur trolls and I am only posting this IN RESPONSE to the resurrection of this thread by JEAN HEBERT.

tl;dr.....

[Jordan S. Berson]

Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Maybe some day, Paul, the professional troll, will get bored of this nonsense and take up something more productive, like knitting, or training rats how to vomit. There isn't a single person on this board who agrees with him, and yet he continues to spew paragraph after paragraph of keyboard diarrhoea in the hopes that some day, someone might care about his warped opinions... So sad really.

[Louis Morin]

Re : Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

I have a career in which my self-taught skills are in constant demand, for the only reason that I stopped trying to memorize chess openings and instead focused on technical skills in the computer field.

(...)

My form will offer even the chessplayer with mediocre skills and knowledge a chance to make a living from chess, or at least a partial living and hobby that doesn't demand total devotation to memorization...

It has to be admitted that some players (especially beginners) tend to memorize opening variations... but this is not necessary at all to attain a reasonable level of play... I began playing chess in 1976 and played over 1500 "serious" games, and even though I read a lot on the game, including on openings, I never tried to memorize countless variations... just remembering a few basic traps (in order not to fall into them) and understanding general principles is good enough for expert level...

On YouTube, one can hear an Alekhine's interview... at one point, he says that to have a good memory is not important in chess...

In another thread, someone tried to prove that Fischerandom is better than standard chess, because there is no opening memorization... but who cares? It doesn't really matter if my opponent learned by heart thousands variations, because I never did, and as a consequence we are usually out of book by move 10 or sooner... and we have an interesting and original game to play... no need of Fischerandom for that...

When you ask for a "hobby that doesn't demand total devotation to memorization", for me, the answer is so obvious... standard chess!!!

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

It's a tough call. I saw Bob Gillanders this past week, posting about the success of the Mississauga Chess Club, and how it is all based on letting the kids have fun. And I duly noted all the jealousy-motivated responses that tried to get Bob to change the formula. Bring all the kids to Toronto, have them play against Scarborough, see whose the best! I think Bob was prudent and proper to resist these temptations. Bob, if you're reading this, don't change your formula for success! Let those kids just enjoy chess! Keep the competition out of it! All those dreams of TV coverage and CFC and OCA people manning booths and handing out brochures and increasing memberships... it's all just people chasing after an impossible dream. You cannot popularize standard chess. It will never be on TV other than the odd Saturday morning community channel. It will never suddenly double in membership size, let alone triple or quadruple. Standard chess, for all it's documented and valid good points for those who love it, is nevertheless a dead horse. You can beat it and beat it, but it won't get up and gallop.
.

Do you even listen to yourself talk? Chess is all about competition. Whether you are playing kids in the same club as you or kids from elsewhere. You can't avoid competition since someone else has to move the pieces on the other side.

For the 3 years we ran the YMCA junior program the students went to the junior tournaments Hal Bond put on in Burlington. They enjoyed it a whole bunch. Competing made it more fun not less fun. Note we didn't take them or drive them there. We let them and their parents know and they took themselves there. For insurance reasons you can't drive a whole bunch of kids around but you can give their parents the address and meet them there.

And chess being a dead horse? Far from it in Europe. Chess is alive and thriving in Europe. Compare Canada to Europe in a number of areas and you will find the same thing. Be it soccer, classical music, opera, ballet, theatre, Formula 1, cycling races, equestrian competition etc.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Speaking of (avoiding) competition, I've heard reports that here in Ottawa, at least, when it comes to kids' soccer leagues, political correctness (or left-wing thinking, whatever...) has gotten so out of hand (like for not failing kids in school) that keeping score in games is not allowed, in case the losers' self-esteem is hurt . The kids themselves have apparently taken to unofficially keeping score, anyway.

[edit: here's a link to the soccer story I refer to:

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews...25-145252.html

]

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

In a recent chess camp, we had one kid who repeatedly said "If no one keeps score, everyone wins". So next time he won a tournament game, I told him I wouldn't write the result down. He suddenly seemed to change his tune.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

Do you even listen to yourself talk? Chess is all about competition. Whether you are playing kids in the same club as you or kids from elsewhere. You can't avoid competition since someone else has to move the pieces on the other side.

You will have to ask Bob Gillanders exactly what he meant, that at the MCC the difference is "letting the kids have fun". I'm sure they are competing to some degree, but if that's the ONLY thing they are doing, then it's no different from any other club and so Bob's comment wouldn't seem to have any weight. From the sounds of this thread, a match between SCC and MCC would be a slaughter in favor of the SCC. Why go to all the trouble to take dozens of MCC kids into Toronto only to have them get slaughtered and maybe start losing the fun aspect of chess? Yes, chess is about competition, but it's also about the beauty and the science and the creativity of the game. Let the kids learn to really appreciate that before immersing them totally into competition. Then it's more likely that the less gifted will still stay with the game, for the love of the game more than for the love of competition.

So you see, I'm not against competition -- I'm living in America, Zeljko, I've learned a thing or two about competition. What I'm saying is when kids are involved, let them have a few years of appreciating the fun of chess, and it sounds like this is what Bob Gillanders is doing.

And chess being a dead horse? Far from it in Europe. Chess is alive and thriving in Europe. Compare Canada to Europe in a number of areas and you will find the same thing. Be it soccer, classical music, opera, ballet, theatre, Formula 1, cycling races, equestrian competition etc.

It would be wonderful if we could all work 30 hour workweeks, take a siesta in the middle of the day, and have many weeks of paid vacations per year. That is the European lifestyle, and with all that extra time, they get to think about chess and the other hobbies you mention. But in Asia and in North America, things are more competition-driven.

Ironic, isn't it? You regal competition, yet you also regal the world's least competitive people. And where is their lifestyle getting them? It is leading them by the nose into a dark future of what will be sudden and extreme economic hardship. First Portugal and Ireland and Greece, now Spain and Italy, and now even talk of France and Germany going into severe contraction.

This was another factor in my self-debate as to whether I should even introduce a more fun and lucrative way to play chess. Do I really want to be a factor in giving a class of people a way to devote their lives to fun and games, when I know what kind of a dark future is already facing them when the free money runs out? But that future is coming no matter what I do. Those who would play my game would still do something equally less productive if my game didn't exist. Nobody is going to be rerouted from becoming an engineer or a scientist just because a new way to play chess and make a living at it appears on the scene. Well, at least that's what I like to think. And all those people in Europe who are playing chess and losing money (which would be what, 90% of the regular chess players?) will now be given a way to actually make some money once in a while. So... I feel good.

It's rather like the current American political fight. Republicans want to keep the wealth at the top, and reinstate trickle-down economics. Democrats want to redistribute wealth to the middle class, the real workers. My changes to chess are designed to have the same effect on the chess world as the Democratic plan, to redistribute chess winnings more to the middle class players and give them an economic reason to play which they don't currently have. As a consequence, the overall participation will increase dramatically and the wealth to be distributed becomes much greater, so that even the top players gain. The extra money comes at the expense of other leisure activities, because suddenly chess becomes as interesting both to watch and to play as those other activities.

I hope most of all the money comes from professional bowling. :D The least strategic, least appealing sport of all time, and yet it is STILL on TV.

[Dan Hunter]

Re: Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

I am new to this site, but read much of this thread anyway. I am puzzled as to why it continues....the point has been made, discussed, and I am quite uncomfortable with some of the comments made.

On most sites I am familiar with, in the absence of strong moderation (?) this thread would be allowed to die from malnutrition, but what do I know?

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Re : Re: Re : Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

It has to be admitted that some players (especially beginners) tend to memorize opening variations... but this is not necessary at all to attain a reasonable level of play... I began playing chess in 1976 and played over 1500 "serious" games, and even though I read a lot on the game, including on openings, I never tried to memorize countless variations... just remembering a few basic traps (in order not to fall into them) and understanding general principles is good enough for expert level...

Fine, good enough for expert level. But Louis, you have to realize who you are. You are one of a tiny, tiny, TINY minority of people who enjoy chess enought to be satisified to remain at expert level, and to devote whole weekends to playing while never getting any better.

On YouTube, one can hear an Alekhine's interview... at one point, he says that to have a good memory is not important in chess...

Quite a dated viewpoint. More relevant was the link I posted to the views of Kramnik and Grischuk.

In another thread, someone tried to prove that Fischerandom is better than standard chess, because there is no opening memorization... but who cares? It doesn't really matter if my opponent learned by heart thousands variations, because I never did, and as a consequence we are usually out of book by move 10 or sooner... and we have an interesting and original game to play... no need of Fischerandom for that...

Indeed... not if you can accept losing again and again IN THE OPENING. Those thousand of variations your opponent (who might be 1/3 your age or less) has learned are all in just a few major openings, and the opponent is going to guide you into those lines, and when YOU go out of book... you lose. Unless you are some kind of middlegame wizard who can turn every game around despite being down materially and / or positionally.

Have you tried Fischerandom? If so, did you objectively notice any difference?

[Aman Hambleton]

Re: Making Draws in Chess Very Rare

I am new to this site, but read much of this thread anyway. I am puzzled as to why it continues....the point has been made, discussed, and I am quite uncomfortable with some of the comments made.

On most sites I am familiar with, in the absence of strong moderation (?) this thread would be allowed to die from malnutrition, but what do I know?

Yeah what do you know, you're just a goddan hunter!