Re: The Future of Chess and Getting It "Unstuck"

On Apr 5, 7:53 am, Ed Murphy <emurph...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Speaking as an amateur follower of both games, football is easier to
> partially understand, because more aspects of it follow simple linear
> scales that routinely vary widely:
>
>   1) Which team is behind on points?  By how many?  How much time do
>      they have left to try to catch up?
>
>   2) Which team has possession, i.e. is in a short-term position to
>      score more points?  How close are they to a scoring position,
>      i.e. where is the line of scrimmage, what down is it, and how
>      far must they advance the ball to reset to first down?
>
>   3) What are each team's specific strengths and weaknesses?  What
>      strategies do these dictate?  (This is where it gets complex.)
>
> The closest obvious analogy in chess is "which player is behind on
> captured pieces?".  Beyond that, what would a similar breakdown of
> positional analysis look like?

Ok, what it sounds like what you are raising here is, how can chess
have a scoring system that can enable people who don't follow it to
quickly tell who is ahead.  The issue then is finding the right s****t
to equate it to, in order to come up with the right way to do a
scoring system for the people who are not able to follow.  To this
end, I would suggest looking at boxing.  The number of conditions
boxers are in exceeds what happens with chess.  There is a lot more
angles moves can take, and so on. If you go mixed martial arts, even
more.  Both chess and boxing have the equivalent of a knockout also
(in chess, that is checkmate).  But the subtleties might get missed.
In the event there isn't a knockout (aka checkmate in chess), the
judges decide who should come out on top.  While I am not suggesting
that subjective judges need to be done for chess, what I am saying is
that there may be a potential way to quickly show people who don't
play chess, who is ahead.  People who don't follow chess then could
perhaps latch onto a player and root for them, and then learn the
game.

Just my take on it, figure out some way to communicate quickly who is
leading in a chess match to people who don't play chess.  Chess has
gravitated this way with the use of the clock, and less time (speed
game), so it is happening anyhow now.  Would need to perhaps improve
the graphics, analysis and pacing of the moves to show people.

- Rich