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

On Apr 2, 11:20 pm, richardhut...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
> You can have one version that is forever pulling the
> rug out as a challenge.
>

Playing Nomic on the rules of chess is a very different game from
chess. And if I wanted to play Mind Ninja I would. I do, and I do, in
fact :-)

When we come down to it, you want diversity in abstract games. So do
I, but we just have to accept that Chess players have very different
priorities. They want stability. They want to get really good in one
game. The rules aren't as im****tant that it is seen as a game of
skill, can actually be played as a game of skill (studied intensively,
etc.) and that players can be found. We just can't turn their kind
into our kind by newsgroup proposals.

I think that to get the man in the street to appreciate diversity in
abstract games, we should not try to give them a taste of thousands of
games, but an appreciation for a few more. Othello, for instance.
Everyone knows it, and they see that "lifetime to master" tagline, but
they have no idea of what real Othello strategy looks like. If we
could just get them to go a little deeper, they might "get" abstracts.
They would get that "wow, this isn't at all what I had thought!"
feeling, and it wouldn't stop there.

I've seen just that happen, recently. I invited a eurogamer to play
Z=E8rtz on Rognlie's PBEM server. Now Z=E8rtz is really a very simple
game. It's not really designed to be studied for a thousand years (at
least not of the standard size). The clever thing about it is that the
naive game is a completely different beast from the game played once
you know the basic strategies. Othello is also like that, but not
nearly as extreme. With Z=E8rtz, you think you're playing Nim and then
WHAM! Suicide chess!

Judging from this person's comments in mail, play frequency at
Rognlie's and blogposts, I think I gained a point for abstract games
there.