Is "Rapid" the New "Classical?

There is a price to pay but also a huge reward.  I will never, ever play a game of bullet chess, but the fact that tens of thousands of bullet games are played on the internet every day is a good thing -- because it is more people playing more chess.

When I was first playing chess, even before I knew there was a US Chess Federation, I remember going to a bookstore at the end of 1963, and thumbing through a copy of the "Information Please Almanac" to see who had won the 1963 World Championshp match which had been completed 8 months earlier!  (Spoiler Alert!  Petrosian defeated Botvinnik!)  In today's world, at least a hundred million chess enthusiasts knew the result of Carlsen-Karjakian within seconds of the final game.  I don't want to go back to the "good old days."  More chess being played by more people is a good thing.  A very good thing.

Now I get it, Bent!  The more games the more people, the more people the more popularity, the more popularity ... well, that's the entire raison d'être.

No doubt it's best to have your bookshelves filled with best sellers rather than Shakespeare, Hemingway, Kafka and Camus?  And who needs Rembrandt, Renoir, Picasso and Hopper when you can hang a velvet Elvis in your den?  Oh, and who needs Welles' Citizen Kane, Hitchcock's Vertigo and Reed's The Third Man when you have the latest Transformers movies all in 3D mind you, all in 3D?

Vladimir Nabokov was right when he wrote "Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity," and that's what you get when art -- the art of chess -- is made popular.  Just look at a majority of the posts at the "Daily Puzzle."

Since you sailed right over my observation in a previous post, and at the risk of repeating myself, A fast-paced, superficial culture begets fast-paced, superficial chess.  A very bad (but inevitable) thing.

I also agree. It reminds me of an article from Stephen Jay Gould about a strange trend between Natural History museums, trying to look more like theme parks in order to become more popular. He said something like: "if many people who have a superficial interest in Natural History don't want to make a true effort, they always have the chance to focus on screens, animatronics and flashing lights, but we should stick on selling authenticity".

As the old saying goes, chess is a sea from which a gnat can drink and in which an elephant can bathe.

It's been observed that as people get older, they tend to become conservative.  They wish to conserve or preserve that which they hold to be true, beautiful, timeless, and thus these true, beautiful, timeless things should be enduring.  

A liberal, on the other hand, considers themselves to be progressive.  "Liberalize the old ways, the old traditions!  This is progress!"  (A chess analogue to this might be Nimzovich's hypermodernism striking back at the Classical School.)

Anyways, it would seem that cultural liberalism is begetting a fast-paced, superficial culture which in turn is begetting fast-paced, superficial chess.

@SeniorPatzer Chess is a game.  It is the greatest game ever devised, but it is still just a game, not to be equated with art or literature or music by pompous asses who want to justify the many hours they have devoted to playing a game.

But chess endures, after all these centures because it has evolved.  No doubt, when chess began to be played in coffee houses and pubs 400 years ago, the royals and elite decried that the game was being spoiled by such lowlifes.  And when chess clocks first were imposed in the late 1800s, some purists were dismayed by the decay in the game.  For decades, chess was a profession that led to poverty for those outside of the Soviet Union.  Sponsors and philanthropists would throw a few measly dollars and expect the chess professionals to behave and to be appreciative.  And they did behave until Bobby Fischer came along and demanded much more.  Fischer was declared an ingrate in 1961, when he walked away from his match with Reshevsky, because the sponsors (Jacqueline and Gregor Piatagorsky) aribtrarily changed a round time to suit their schedule. Yet Fischer prevailed and he single-handedly made chess a PROFESSION.  The purists were not happy with many of the changes that came from Fischer's democratizaion of the game of chess.  The old farts that had run their chess clubs like secret enclaves were appalled when long-haired youths invaded their clubs and kicked their butts.  I was kicked out of a chess club on the same night I won a match to become #1 on the club ladder, because "my dress was not proper!"

So, to end this story, conservatives in chess can go stick it.  I may be in my 60s now, but I don't fear change, I embrace it.

Hi Uncle Bent,

I think it's possible to have a Both/And Situation.  Not an Either/Or Situation.  Although it does look like it's trending more towards Faster Time Controls and all that that begets.

Change is inevitable and it cannot be stopped.  For every OTB player engaing in "classical chess," there are perhaps 1000 players playing bullet, blitz and G15 on the internet.  If just 2% of these players migrate to OTB chess, they will demand faster time controls.  And the tournament organizers that thrive will comply.

Fifty years ago, I would have as many as 24 postal games at a time -- remember the 3 cent postcard?  It was the only way to play chess every week.  Do I have fond memories of getting home from school and seeing how many replies I got in that days mail?  Sure.  Do I want to go back to that era?  Hell no.

Its not a matter of new versus old.  Its a matter of what chess fans care about.

The thing is we have a speed chess world championships already - and very few care about it compared to the classical world championship.    

Those pushing the faster time controls just seem unable to accept the fact that this is not really what fans want.   So they spin a narrative that there are just a few old cranks who are ruining chess for everyone else.    

@jengais  Of course, those that have spent countless of hours to successfully master chess in one form are not going to be eager to change.  But what is good for them is not necessarily good for the future of chess.

I read your blogs and find them very instructive and well prestended.  But I am sure that some Super GM might read them and think them superficial, that you are the Britney Spears of chess bloggers.  But who cares, as long as hundreds of chess players read, enjoy and benefit from them.

"But forcing people to accept your opinion because you will call them conservatives if they don't , is something a true liberalist would never do and it is very far away from the true spirit of  liberalism."

Curious.  What is a true liberal?  And compare and contrast it with a false liberal.  So that I will know the difference between a true (and good) liberal and a false (and bad) liberal. 

I am not forcing anyone to embrace faster time controls.  I have no power to make it happen or to prevent it.  Conservatives will try, but they will fail.  I have seen the pace of chess play steadily get faster over the last 50 years.  The old men in the chess club, circa 1967, used to refuse to let me use my chess clock in club play.  I remember the  howls when the USCF allowed 40/1 rated games in 1973; the protests over the introduction of sudden death time limits for the second time control (1987); the introduction of a rapid rating in 1991, and finally the use of sudden death in the first time control.

At every stage, purists protested and proclaimed it as the end of chess.  But every time the changes allowed more people to play chess, so the changes became permanent.

"But curious , you didn't say your opinion.Or you don't have one?"

My opinion was expressed in #64:

Hi Uncle Bent,

I think it's possible to have a Both/And Situation.  Not an Either/Or Situation.  Although it does look like it's trending more towards Faster Time Controls and all that that begets.

Over the years I have noticed a trend where people are eating more and more trash.  Only the purists insist on eating food.    

@jengais  I fell into the use of conservative/liberal because @seniorpatzer had introduced those terms into this thread.  More prercise is that I am an anti-elitist, and have a strong aversion to those that deem themselves the moral judges of what is good chess and what is bad chess.  I find it hilarious that any amateur chess player would term another's chess as "fast food" or "Britney Spears" music.  Whatever type of chess is played by the most people is "good chess," it does not need my approval or your approval or anyone's approval.

Chess has always suffered from a brutal dysfunctional cycle, where the 2700 rated players demean the 2500 players, and the 2500s deman the 2300 and so on, so that even a 1000-rated player can call a 700 player a "fish."  Fact: outside of a very few that have ever played this game, we are all plankton.

"I fell into the use of conservative/liberal because @seniorpatzer had introduced those terms into this thread."

The usage of these terms were in reference primarily to Fighting Bob's lament.  He wrote:  "With apologies to James Thurber, that's your world and you're welcome to it, Uncle_Bent, but I'd turn back the clock if I could.  So it goes."

Turning back the clock essentially means to conserve what is dear, what is beautiful, and what is good.  As seen by Fighting Bob, and others.  

This patzer is just a little fish trying to notice where the streams are going.   

"Skvortsov's time control is to classical chess what McDonald's is to classical cooking."

You gotta love it.

Well said, Daniel, and thank you.  Yes, to "conserve what is dear, what is beautiful, and what is good;" I couldn't have said it better.

You are a natural peacemaker where I, according to Uncle Bent, am a "pompous ass" and can "stick it."  This is today's language of the American "liberal;" they can't present their case without insults and ad hominem attacks.

To remain civil, though I'm tempted not to, Uncle Bent is right about the inevitability of change, but his view that change and progress are synonymous was shown to be a cultural bias in Alfred L. Kroeber's Anthropology: Cultural Patterns and Processes (1948) under the section, "The idea of progress."  Bent forgets there is such a thing as florescence and decay in all things, and not an onward and upward forever sensibility, which is merely a faith.

Chess has been called an art, a science and still to others like Uncle Bent "just a game."  As I wrote in a separate post to you, "What I like about chess is that it's a geometric and aesthetic abstraction in the form of a game, and with individual personality due to different playing styles. It's no coincidence that Marcel Duchamp gave up art for chess."  This is something Bent will dismiss out of hand; he'll just slap on the term "elitist" and proceed with more insults.

I do believe in elitism, an elitism tempered by the democratic spirit that was at the center of the animated film, Ratatouille, about a rat who has an exquisite sense of taste and becomes a premiere French Chef.  The theme can be summed up by the line, "Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere."

I won't deny there is an art to Rapid chess, but too often it's reduced to the art of the quick hand when seconds are ticking away. So it goes.

Best,
Bob

Hi Fighting Bob,

I'm actually  chess.com "friends" with both you and Uncle Bent.  You guys are both terrific, and I did not mean to inject political connotations into this thread.  I only meant to accurately describe the wish to preserve "classical" chess.  And using the term "liberal" I only meant to accurately describe the desire to relax the time control rules of "classical" chess.

As far as being a natural peacemaker, no, I'm not, far from it.  I'm working on it, but I get my dander up on occasion.  For example, take a look at this thread:  https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/why-are-there-no-white-kids-playing-chess

I get a bit feisty when the so-called Politically Correct Speech Police want to shut down the expression of responsible free speech on that thread because it didn't obey their totalitarianism.  These PC people have arrogantly appointed themselves the goose-stepping Brown Shirt enforcers.   Can't people just express an observation or lament?  Fer cryin' out loud.

With regards to the wonderful film Ratatouille, I think that was a wonderful Olive branch that you extended to Uncle Bent.  To me, that shows a peace offering, and that you both are more of a kindred spirit than what showed in the thread.

Warm Regards,

Gru