Re: The Future of Chess and Getting It "Unstuck" (potential heresy

On Apr 2, 9:03 pm, Quadibloc <jsav...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> For one thing, most chess players are not worried about Chess getting
> stuck. Yes, there is more and more opening theory to study, but that
> means we are learning more and more about the implications of this one
> set of rules, and obtaining better and better play.

As time is going on, the discontent with chess is growing.  The
discontent is in a lot of different areas.

> To speak on the philosophical plane, to make a Chess that always moves
> out of being unstuck in the way you seek means that it has to grow,
> and grow, and get more complicated without limit. So after a Chess on
> a 12 by 8 board with thousands of variations - one idea I proposed -
> eventually gets solved, we have to switch to a 16 by 8 board or
> something bigger, and then something bigger still. Until the
> chessboard, even though the chessmen are so small we need tweezers to
> pick them up, is to wide for the chessplayers' arms to reach, so they
> have to walk to Kingside or Queenside to make their moves.

Who says the board has to get bigger?  Why not, besides doing the 960
Shuffle, consider adding reserve pieces that are gated or dropped into
play, whose mix can change in the reserve?  How about also adding
mutators to the game?  If need be, play with larger board.  How about
also figuring out a way to integrate variants into the full chess
experience, rather than considering them freaks who have flawed
designs and want to break things?  In the initial email, is there
anything in there that forcefully demands a larger board?  The whole
"we need a larger board" is a byproduct of thinking of chess in the
same framework, and deciding you want to change it somehow.  There are
other ways that keep the core the same at start, but add another
dimension.  Ideas like the reserve for example, and ideas like
mutators.

What you touch on here is EXACTLY the same thinking with the same
framework as has always been done in the past.  Why not go
differently?

> To get more practical, then, the problem isn't really Chess getting
> 'stuck' in the abstract mathematical Godel sense. That could not be
> solved.

The Godel sense has to refer to the nature of the rules.  Adding more
of the same rules, or mixing things up, isn't going to resolve the
issue of a game getting solved from a game theory level.  Also it
doesn't resolve the issues chess is going through now.

> Part of the real perceived problem is that what is wanted is a contest
> of tactical and strategic skill, not of memorizing opening variations.
> This relates to your concept of Chess getting 'stuck', but it is more
> practical and less theoretical.

Stuck has to do with the framework hitting a deadend.  All variants
keep ba****ng into this just about.  They work from the same framework
and fail to catch on.  This also does touch on to chess being more
universal in what people learn from it, rather than limited to its own
subset, where skill is more of an art than a science.

> The other part is that we want more games like that of Labourdonnais
> versus Macdonnell and Anderssen versus Kieseritzky. Exciting
> sacrifices, blazing tactical fireworks, not draws and defensive play.
> But subtle positional play is not without beauty, but it is a bland
> steady diet.

For the audience to get caught on, it is the surprise element.  I
would agree there.  The finding of new ways to adjust and discover.
To have chess seem new and fresh, and to be in a place where it can
continue to evolve.  Not reducing the last "great" finding that pawn
structure is critical, or that a certain line of play is dead and so
on.

> The solution to that? I have no idea. I am neither the first or last
> to suggest giving partial credit for forcing stalemate to have fewer
> draws, but I'm not sure if it will promote more tactical play or more
> defensive play. Chess isn't like hockey or football, where a simple
> subtle rule change - the equivalent of replacing the 50-move draw rule
> with a 35-move draw rule - can change the balance between offence and
> defence.

And the more you end up doing refining rather than expanding, the end
result is you will finalize your rules until you end up putting them
into a state where a game can be "perfected".  In that state, it is no
longer growing.  It is more of a treasure hunt to find the last pieces
of its corpse.  And if you have an attitude that the game is meant to
be like this, it will die off, with an entire community left with not
knowing how to go out.  You then break off an occasional maverick who
proposes this or that, but then the community screams no, because it
doesn't feel that the rebel belongs.  And you have a glorious
crystalized corpse that everyone is in awe at, but people except the
uninitiated, don't have much fun playing.  Well, you can always pitch
it as an educational tool, and try to get people not to see other
games.  Or, you can end up this attitude displayed:
Why is it that afficianados of a game can't just let it go? If the
game can be "solved" or can always be won against a human by a
computer, just admit the game is flawed. It's time is no more infinite
than music. Move on.

If you are moving around pieces and the like, is it really the same
game? And why would it worth it to "re-invent" chess. Connect Four is
solvable. Once you and your children figure this out, you move on. You
don't play it any more. You find a better game that isn't solved.
-----------------

In other words, once the game becomes a crystalized corpse, you drop
the game and let it slide into oblivion.  Or you keep telling yourself
that people playing the same lines a million times over and over is
fine, because they are mortal and won't see it all anyway in their
lifetime.  This last attitude then makes one to argue books on chess
should be banned.


Just my dogmatic 2 cents...
- Rich