That sounds more like something the Wild Bunch Gang would have done.
*Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, not the original Wild Bunch.
Chess's decrease of popularity
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I think it is country specific. In India atleast, it is gaining popularity. More and more young people play chess nowadays compared to earlier. Thanks to Vishy Anand, every kid is dreaming big in India :)
Segway_Enthusiast wrote:
Chess is exploding in popularity here. Elementary school chess clubs have been overwhelmed. Local stores have to keep chess boards locked behind plexiglass like meth precursors and cough medication to thwart would be thieves. The streets are littered with discarded score sheets and dead batteries from chess clocks. The city counsel passed a resolution requiring permits for simultaneous exhibitions due to all night chess parties getting out of control. Kasparov refuses all invitations saying, "I'd rather rot in Putin's jail then face those chess fanatics in Boone, Iowa!" The other day someone was knifed over a score sheet discrepancy! I for one hope chess popularity decreases, won't someone please think of the children.
This must be a regional effect.
In my part of town, people routinely dump chess pieces and sets into garbage bins, putting a heavy strain on waste management. Dirty rumours about the personal lives of chessplayers are made up and spread, even being told to children at night to scare them away from playing. Anyone caught solving chess puzzles after dark is fined. Stores cannot sell chess books anymore so they are just dumped out onto street corners where the homeless gather them to build fires at night. You can see them, under bridges, dacing around the campfires singing to the tune of Pinocchio "I've got no strings" :
I've got no kings
To hold me down
To make me fret, or make me frown
I had kings
But now I'm free
There are no kings on me
Hi-ho the me-ri-o
I'm as happy as can be
I want the world to know
I hate chess you see
I've got no kings
So I have fun
I'm not tied up to anyone
They've got kings
But you can see
There are no kings on me
FamousJameis wrote:
I don't have any statistics, just personal experience, but I'm not entirely sure that PLAYING/LEARNING chess has ever been that popular in the United States. Maybe there was a spike during Robert Fischer's run but I am going to make an assumption that it was in large part due to his personality and general disposition.
I could enumerate several opinions on why chess isn't very popular in the US but I will stick with my main one: Americans are being institutionally "dumbed-down" from a very early age now. State education systems are failing miserably. Public primary school teaching techniques center around standardized test results that lead to a school's funding based on those results. Therefore, primary school has become nothing more than test preparation.
Before I go into an extended dissertation on the subject, the bottom line is that the game of chess requires a vast, cumulative knowledge and understanding gained by careful, focused training and demanding practice in order to even be considered "good" or "proficient". These habits/skills/behaviors (or how to obtain them!) are not necessarily learned in schools or in the home today.
Culturally here in the US, a greater emphasis is placed on body image, consumption of specific brands (status symbols), traditional sporting endeavors that require a certain degree of physical conditioning, etc. and not problem-solving techniques and brain and mind development.
And let’s face it; although it is simple and uncomplicated to learn the basics and even some of the fundamentals, chess is a difficult game to master!
You are entirely correct, except for the fact that nobody calls him Robert Fischer and his disposition was not particularly lovely.
johnmusacha wrote:
FamousJameis wrote:
I don't have any statistics, just personal experience, but I'm not entirely sure that PLAYING/LEARNING chess has ever been that popular in the United States. Maybe there was a spike during Robert Fischer's run but I am going to make an assumption that it was in large part due to his personality and general disposition.
I could enumerate several opinions on why chess isn't very popular in the US but I will stick with my main one: Americans are being institutionally "dumbed-down" from a very early age now. State education systems are failing miserably. Public primary school teaching techniques center around standardized test results that lead to a school's funding based on those results. Therefore, primary school has become nothing more than test preparation.
Before I go into an extended dissertation on the subject, the ce in order to even be considered "good" or "proficient". bottom line is that the game of chess requires a vast, cumulative knowledge and understanding gained by careful, focused training and demanding practiThese habits/skills/behaviors (or how to obtain them!) are not necessarily learned in schools or in the home today.
Culturally here in the US, a greater emphasis is placed on body image, consumption of specific brands (status symbols), traditional sporting endeavors that require a certain degree of physical conditioning, etc. and not problem-solving techniques and brain and mind development.
And let’s face it; although it is simple and uncomplicated to learn the basics and even some of the fundamentals, chess is a difficult game to master!
I could also not disagree with your post more.
Every generation believes the next is being "dumbed down" when in fact the opposite is mostly the case.
Also, you seem to verge on the bitter in your rant about sports and designer clothes. That's rather odd for someone who sports a Florida State Seminoles logo. What exactly is wrong with encouraging students to play sports? Physical fitness and personal appearance are of great importance not only as kids, but also entering the work force, dating life, marriage, etc. Physical fitness enhances self-esteem, sports teaches working together in groups and socialization, and physically fit societies also have lower health care costs.
You are also totally off base on how American culture "encourages" designer fashion. Europe and Japan are much more superficial in that regard.
I know for a fact, as many others do, that British education has been consistently "dumbed down" since the 70's and that this has been done to give a distorted and dishonest picture of exam results. If they appear to be improving year on year, the political party in power can make what is actually the entirely bogus claim that its education policies are bearing fruit. These claims over the last forty odd years have been a disgraceful fraud perpetrated on the British people.
For results to have improved as often and as much as claimed, they would have had to start from an unbelievably poor level.
There was a time when I knew people to play chess with. We weren't aiming to be GM's, we were more or less just moving pieces around. I don't even know people that just want to causally want to move pieces around. That's the main reason I quit playing. I don't like playing only computers. I don't think we have a local club anymore.
stuzzicadenti wrote:
for chess to have decreased in popularity it must have been popular in the first place, which it never was.
You need not to be popular to decrease in popularity. For instance, if I am not a popular person but I somehow manage to soil my pants in public anyway, my popularity accordingly decreases. This is a very rough example and absolutely not what has happened or is happening with chess, but you get the idea.
Anyway, tell that to Cold War era Soviets.
If you ask a person to name a few mindgames, chess is going to be their first pick. Ask them to name the pieces, no problem there either. Ask them how each piece moves, most people will come out clear. Ask them the objective etc. etc. point is, majority of people have a thing or two to say about chess. As far as mindgames go, chess undoubtedly has the lion's share and is widely known. It is widely known amongst the population therefore it is popular.
The reason why chess is not commonplace lies with the question why mindgames are not as popular as sports. The day mindgames catch up to sports in popularity, is the day that chess will become commonplace.
Sep 21, 2015
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#69
Part of the reason chess seems less popular is online chess, when I was younger, i played in club every week. I have not been to a club in years, because I can face much better competition online and have play at anytime, where as in a club I will face one or two people who are close to my level. There are many chess players like me around, we actually plays more chess than we used to, we just do not play face to face with someone.
Sep 22, 2015
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#70
Why do people here badmouth chess if they have a chess.com account?
Sep 22, 2015
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#71
I think smart phones make its easier to.play chess than say 20 years ago, now you can find a game in seconds and you could be in middle of desert with no board and still find a game
Chess experienced a post-Fischer popularity bubble which is deflating. Nothing unusual.
Sep 22, 2015
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#74
Quiksilverau wrote:
Chess experienced a post-Fischer popularity bubble which is deflating. Nothing unusual.
Deflating since 1972? Lol.
none of us goes around boasting of playing chess. we don't even mention it normally as it's considered a nerdy hobby and nerds are nowadays taken for the most stupid kind of human beings (if human at all). well, except in the criminal series where they work at CSI and the like and speak very fast and techy. but there are many more out there interested or even devoted to chess than we think. the other day I did a casual comment on the topic and I found out that two friends of mine were also chess players, one of them even regularly played Anand at the time he settled in Barcelona, as they shared same club. we had never talked about it before for several years, since we made acquaintance!
I have no qualms about mentioning chess, except it suggests I'm "nerdier" than I really am. I work in a laboratory so I wouldn't be stigmatized. I don't really give a crap about what people think so I'm not under any pressure to perform. When I was much younger It seems like more people at least attempted to play chess, or at least move the pieces around because it came with checkers.I don't think Fischer had anything to do with it, he wasn't that popular in rank amateur circles. people don't play board games of any kind anymore, probably because video games have become more popular I'm just wondering who's purchasing all those fancy schmancy chess sets and why. I wonder if carved chess pieces will go the way of slide rules and film processing.
Chess is a game of logic and thinking ahead what mover would be benefical. It is a very good game for people to learn to play. All people should be taught the game in schools either by volunteers or teachers. It is a shame that the American care more about reality tv shows.
Its really sad how people dont like chess
Oct 23, 2015
0
#79
chess isn't virtuouous simply. morals are culturally relative. so in soviet russia chess is virtuous. not in the us. not a problem, baseball here and not others. just don't play chess - plenty of virtuous activities to choose from, I think.
A friend of mine wrote once me a funny story about Paul Morphy being kidnapped by the James Gang and forced to give blinfold simuls against the passengers during train robberies while the outlaws pilfered their valuables.