The problem with Chess clarified

[hypernormie]

I think fragility is a good term, in that sense you're quite correct about blitz games encouraging safe play at lower levels. You can just keep shuffling your pieces, saving time, until your more enterprising opponent almost inevitably misses something and makes a big blunder. But I think it's also one of the aspects that makes chess captivating, you can suddenly have (sometimes really unexpected) combinations appear that lead to really cool tactical wins.

Yes this is definitely engaging from a viewer perspective. Seeing the plan come together and the sudden change of fate can be very thrilling.

Some of these other games definitely lack that high stakes aspect which works both for and against them in different ways.

The purest test of problem solving ability in a specific domain isn't always the most entertaining thing for a viewer. It's a good point.

 

[hypernormie]

I think fragility is a good term, in that sense you're quite correct about blitz games encouraging safe play at lower levels. You can just keep shuffling your pieces, saving time, until your more enterprising opponent almost inevitably misses something and makes a big blunder. But I think it's also one of the aspects that makes chess captivating, you can suddenly have (sometimes really unexpected) combinations appear that lead to really cool tactical wins.

Interestingly I find because Quoridor shares this quality of high fragility it is also quite entertaining to watch. Just goes to your point.

 

[o_Owtf]

Interestingly I find because Quoridor shares this quality of high fragility it is also quite entertaining to watch. Just goes to your point.

I think you mentioned Quoridor also not leading to drawn out positions, or was it just that you can't shuffle? Either way fragility is probably great but chess has that flaw that it can sometimes incite you to play very passively leading to boring draws. I think a good spectator sport like this should also have some sort of "collapsing" condition, like the fragility increases to a breaking point where even a very slight advantage leads to a win.

A visual analogy of what I mean is like if you spin a coin, small mistakes will be compensated for as the coin will just gyrate and keep both sides from falling face down. But eventually, as the coin slows down, it will almost always have to collapse to one side as the spinning slows down and the threshold for failure lowers.

 

[hypernormie]

I think you mentioned Quoridor also not leading to drawn out positions, or was it just that you can't shuffle? Either way fragility is probably great but chess has that flaw that it can sometimes incite you to play very passively leading to boring draws. I think a good spectator sport like this should also have some sort of "collapsing" condition, like the fragility increases to a breaking point where even a very slight advantage leads to a win.

A visual analogy of what I mean is like if you spin a coin, small mistakes will be compensated for as the coin will just gyrate and keep both sides from falling face down. But eventually, as the coin slows down, it will almost always have to collapse to one side as the spinning slows down and the threshold for failure lowers.

Yes what you're describing is high tension, which is what chess is because it is fragile. Quoridor is also fragile and so also high tension. Other games I mentioned are lower tension and low fragility, which helps focus the integrity of the game on actual problem solving intelligence rather than other traits like vigilance but can make them less immediately entertaining. It's much more enjoyable to focus on a high tension activity when you aren't the person actually burning the calories to do it. This way you maximize cathartic release in the viewer by creating a larger dump of emotion upon conclusion. Larger dump of emotion = more engaged. Similar to how modern video games are designed around increasing tension to increase engagement despite the fact that this higher engagement comes at the cost of competitive integrity. A similar thing is occuring in chess (although far less nefarious) where the tension compromises some of the intellectual integrity of the competition but provides much greater highs and lows upon conclusion.

 

[hypernormie]

I think you mentioned Quoridor also not leading to drawn out positions, or was it just that you can't shuffle? Either way fragility is probably great but chess has that flaw that it can sometimes incite you to play very passively leading to boring draws. I think a good spectator sport like this should also have some sort of "collapsing" condition, like the fragility increases to a breaking point where even a very slight advantage leads to a win.

A visual analogy of what I mean is like if you spin a coin, small mistakes will be compensated for as the coin will just gyrate and keep both sides from falling face down. But eventually, as the coin slows down, it will almost always have to collapse to one side as the spinning slows down and the threshold for failure lowers.

The issue with the coin analogy is that while the outcome remains uncertain until it's suddenly decided (high tension + collapse), Chess fails in the fact that it never necessarily collapses

Theoretically chess is like a coin two players can keep spinning forever

Rather than a coin two players are fighting to collapse on a specific side

I think the second would be more entertaining to watch and I think this is what you referred to in your intitial comment about the grandmasters constantly drawing games

 

[o_Owtf]

Yes what you're describing is high tension, which is what chess is because it is fragile. Quoridor is also fragile and so also high tension. Other games I mentioned are lower tension and low fragility, which helps focus the integrity of the game on actual problem solving intelligence rather than other traits like vigilance but can make them less immediately entertaining. It's much more enjoyable to focus on a high tension activity when you aren't the person actually burning the calories to do it. This way you maximize cathartic release in the viewer by creating a larger dump of emotion upon conclusion. Larger dump of emotion = more engaged. Similar to how modern video games are designed around increasing tension to increase engagement despite the fact that this higher engagement comes at the cost of competitive integrity. A similar thing is occuring in chess (although far less nefarious) where the tension compromises some of the intellectual integrity of the competition but provides much greater highs and lows upon conclusion.

That's a pretty interesting perspective, never really thought of it that way. Thanks for sharing bro

 

[o_Owtf]

The issue with the coin analogy is that while the outcome remains uncertain until it's suddenly decided (high tension + collapse), Chess fails in the fact the factt never necessarily collapses

Theoretically chess is like a coin two players can keep spinning forever

Rather than a coin two players are fighting to collapse on a specific side

Exactly chess isn't like the spinning coin, but to remedy the drawn out aspect of chess a mechanism like that could solve it. Not exactly clear how you would implement something like that though lol

 

[hypernormie]

Exactly chess isn't like the spinning coin, but to remedy the drawn out aspect of chess a mechanism like that could solve it

Exactly, chess is a coin that can collapse at any point which creates uncertainty (which is tension so good for engagement) but is really unsatisfying if it never collapses, which many grandmasters are capable of doing

A more entertaining game would solve for this

 

[BigJimsWornOutTires]

people can win by simply refusing to do anything faster and running out the clock

That's exactly what China is doing

 

[iblamechico]

Low IQ just play bullet nigga

 

[hypernormie]

Low IQ just play bullet nigga

Lol bullet is the place where the flaws I mention here are most manifest

 

[hypernormie]

Not exactly clear how you would implement something like that though lol

I don't think it can be done with base Chess itself necessarily. There are many variations of Chess out there so some might solve for this but imo OG game is what it is.

 

[iblamechico]

Lol bullet is the place where the flaws I mention here are most manifest

Nah u said u can sit for 10 minutes and nothing happens. Bullet is 1 minute. Boom checkmate.

Fr thou this problem is irrelevant to most people anyway since you gotta be some super duper grandmaster to be able to recognize the correct move everytime. Literally every game or sport is just waiting for your enemy to make a mistake.

 

[hypernormie]

That's exactly what China is doing

Very Daoist of them

 

[hypernormie]

Nah u said u can sit for 10 minutes and nothing happens. Bullet is 1 minute. Boom checkmate.

Fr thou this problem is irrelevant to most people anyway since you gotta be some super duper grandmaster to be able to recognize the correct move everytime. Literally every game or sport is just waiting for your enemy to make a mistake.

Not really in bullet it's very easy to play passively and the time crunch is so significant that you can actually just be a hyper defensive player and win if you're good enough at it

Every game is not waiting for your opponent to make mistake. I can see why you may think this if you play a lot of chess but there are games which mitigate the value of a mistake far better than chess. Some even completely erase it.

YINSH and Abalone are good examples. The win condition for these is cumulative so single mistakes are unlikely to massively swing outcomes

YINSH is even better because it has a contradictory design where the closer you are to winning the harder the game gets such that any advantage gained by capitalizing on an opponents mistake must be followed by solving an even harder problem

This makes it basically impossible for a single mistake to cost a game, unlike chess where this happens frequently

 

[stonecold trucel]

unless shit ill never use

 

[SilvioMoltisantiDan]

bullet chess mogs imo classical is so fucking boring

 

[hypernormie]

bullet chess mogs imo classical is so fucking boring

I find the opposite tbh but I don't find either particularly satisfying

 

[SilvioMoltisantiDan]

I find the opposite tbh but I don't find either particularly satisfying

fair enough, bullet is more intuition and caotic gameplay, classical is more about all your chess skills

 

[hypernormie]

fair enough, bullet is more intuition and caotic gameplay, classical is more about all your chess skills

I just don't like the time running out tbh but I guess if you're good it's less of a worry. I can tell having a lot of prior experience would be advantageous for bullet

 

[SpeedySnail]

Low IQ post. What's you're elo bro? The only problem in chess is that the opening's are basically solved repetition.

 

[hypernormie]

Low IQ post. What's you're elo bro? The only problem in chess is that the opening's are basically solved repetition.

Elo doesn't solve for chess being both fragile and low momentum by design. These problems persist even at the highest level so elo is irrelevant

But this is all discussed further within the thread so if you're actually curious you can just read through the whole thing

 

[kisslessvirgin]

I think if I was healthier I would find it more bearable but tbh regardless of how much cogntitive energy I can expend towards a board game it seems to be that it will always be kind of lame to have a game be able to be decided so abruptly by factors which aren't directly related to problem solving

So in a way my dislike of chess is coping but I think most people aren't not coping so much as they are in a position to more easily ignore the flaw

same it feels stressful to even start a game, especially knowing i was half decent (no where near good) at one time so losing will lost annoy me even more. coping in a different way.

 

[SpeedySnail]

Elo doesn't solve for chess being both fragile and low momentum by design. These problems persist even at the highest level so elo is irrelevant

But this is all discussed further within the thread so if you're actually curious you can just read through the whole thing

No I'm not curious.

 

[hypernormie]

No I'm not curious.

Yes I can tell. You are probably not curious about much of anything