A New Way to Look at a Game

Hey, why don't we tone down the rhetoric here... no need to make personal attacks, this is just an interesting light discussion.

relax max, everything is fine.

!"gnitaehc er'uoY" - "ssehc ton s'thahT"

thats precisely what im trying to explain to him, but i guess he dicided that now chess involves two white players :)

That would be an interesting permutation of the board that wouldn't objectively change anything about the game itself.

It's strange what psychological effects a non-game-changing mutation, like rotating the board by 90 degrees, can have.

Well, maybe if they wrote it on a note and held it up to the mirror!

P.S. I wish people wouldn't attack Americans just because they are American.

that would not change anything about the way the pieces move, but that would definitely change something about the game of chess, sorry ;)

you guys are definitely unable to think by yourself. this is the last time i post or read on that topic lol

obama huh :)

ciao :)

Onosson, this is a very intriguing idea I had not even thought of...  This is merely the equivalence of allowing black to go first.  I'm surprised that this concept of the mirror image had never crossed my mind before and I enjoyed toying with it in my mind.  Thank you.

Actually, that was another one that occured to me, but I didn't think through very far... sitting sideways to the board (or computer screen) gives you quite a different perspective.

Not sure what you mean by this... I've enjoyed the discussion, even if you haven't.

I guess it would change "something" about the game of chess, in the same way that blindfold chess, or Tony Miles laying on his back during a game of chess changes "something".

I was playing a game called "conquest" a few hours ago with my brother.He said that based on the idea we could alter the board and create many different "countries" to conquer.He said that we could add or remove holes on the board and assign different points to each country.I think that chess is something like a tradition in my mind.You can create many games based on the initial idea,but they would not be chess.Fischer random is an example,I think.

If the option of flipping the board is available to everyone and it does not affect the other player then I say do it, but I must warn you that this is a slippery slope. Where does it stop, should we roll a die in order to determine who goes first and will we remove the colors on each side, will both sides wear their home colors? They have already added more pieces to the board in some sets. The appeal of chess to me is not just that the game is fun and exciting but that we are playing a game that kings played centuries ago thus giving it a role playing appeal. In closing, I say leave the game alone and enjoy it for the nostalgia and for competition and don’t get caught up in trends.

Conquest is just a computer clone of the trademarked strategy game more commonly called Risk.

On the subject of chess game permutations, I'm still not convinced that this counts as a separate game.  Some chess computer programs allow you to pick color themes for a chessboard, and select any color for the light and dark squares.  I don't belive that you could pick the wrong color to make the game a non-chess game.

Horizontal reflection like this would be a topologically equivalent game.  I could write a quick Perl script to convert any existing game into a horizontally reflected game, and vice-versa.  Some mutations that have been alluded to in this thread (such as the black pieces moving first) do not allow this reflection.  What's more, the flow of the game is unchanged, except perhaps for some psychological factor.

I don't think it's that big of a deal, and if the option were available, I probably wouldn't actually partake in it, since I'm used to seeing chess games from the normal perspectives.  But claiming that a horizontally reflected game isn't the same as the orignal game of chess is as incorrect as claiming that rotating the board by 180 degrees (which is the default for the player of the black pieces on chess.com) makes the game a non-chess game.

And laporte, I'm not trying to 'talk behind your back' - after all, you've already claimed in posts #20 and #27 that you were leaving the topic.  I was merely presenting my explanation for why reflections, rotations, or translations of a chessboard do not fundamentally alter the game, as a number of posters seem to have indicated.

Mr. Onosson, I have the same feeling like yours when playing BLACK months ago. But i found a clue to it and manage playing to win. If WHITE i move 1.c3.. then if BLACK i moved 1...c6 then if WHITE 2.Qc2...BLACK 2...Qc7  this few early moves i made is regardless of WHITE first moves if i'm playin BLACK.

Advantage to WHITE is they made the first move (only)..but if you play smartly you can even up in the middle game. 

It would screw up your OTB game

Wow... I'm not sure what I've said to engender such hostility!  I really wasn't looking for an argument, nor any harsh words.

Onosson I had a similar problem when I started playing chess albeit slightly different.  I used to play the black pieces 99% of the time for the first year.  It got to the point where any time I would play with white I could never get into a comfort zone because everything was reversed and I had a hard time visualizing things in a reversed manner.  I ended up creating a severe handicap for myself as I would often get murdered when forced to play with the white pieces.

Now I know you are not a beginner and as you stated you try to play both sides equally, but if you were to start relying on this mirror image chess you'd be creating a huge handicap for yourself - very similar to the one I created by playing chess in my own introverted way.  Even if chess.com would offer this feature you could bet that 99% of internet servers wouldn't which means when you ventured from here you'd be at a loss.  I would look at this future use of mirror-imaging as being a visual crutch that over time you would have a tough time correcting.  I recommend that you try to persevere with the way things are now as that will be most beneficial to your chess in the long run.  Of course if you really couldn't care less and just play chess for fun over everything else competitive then I guess it wouldn't really matter how it affected your play and my points would be irrelevant.

Still though I completely agree with you that if you look at a chess board with or without a mirror it is still chess.  Sure it's a bit weird but that's about it...  I wouldn't hold my breath in wait of chess.com implementing this feature but I know you are really mostly interested in the discussion anyway and not looking too much for this to actually happen.

Don't worry about Laporte he does this in every thread he enters.  He doesn't understand the concept of respectfully disagreeing with someone and rather uses the "I'm gonna take my ball and leave" approach.  It's about the fifth time in as many days I've seen him do it.  It's a character flaw that he will most likely never acknowledge in himself.  It's not as if he is 16 where you'd expect this type of behavior.  He's 36 and most likely a lost cause.  So sure he'll smiley face you to death in his posts as if to ascertain that he is in control of his sensibilities - but when one gets so upset about something so trivial as a chess board reversal that he feels compelled to spew unrelated anti-American statements in hopeless retaliation you can bet his emotional state is not exactly stable.  Anger management anyone?

"Would you object to a player making his moves while looking at a mirror on the ceiling? I don't see how this defies chess rules as long as the master board is maintained, or in some situations, like online chess, a recording of the game is done in standard notation." -wetpaste

I remember reading about some chess school that was suggesting looking at the ceiling(but no mirror), in an attempt to help visualize the board. I wish I could find a link for it.

Chess certainly isn’t all black and white. The values have changed gradually over a long period of time. The chess we play today is different than its first forms and will likely evolve in small increments in the future. Changes could/have ranged from physical characteristics of the board, to how the game is thought about.

I also love that there are variations, like gothic chess or 3 person chess. I’ve also come up with some ideas of my own. Even if the variations wouldn’t be my first choice of what chess “is”, they sure look fun.

I think in many areas of thinking (not only chess), the more one experiments (intrinsically) and plays, the more they will learn. I think chess has taught me a new way to consider other things I like to think about.

If it works for you, use it.

If it doesn’t maybe I can win against you for a change!

Fun thread,

props to Onosson, Artfizz and Laporte

So if you played chess while looking in a mirror that hung on the wall, it is no longer chess? Thats like saying that watching a movie in a mirror is no longer the same movie, or, that listening to music with the right and left channels reversed changes the song.

It is you who is wrong. It changes your perception of the chess/movie/song, but it does not change the game, film or music.