IM Greg Shahade: "Slow Chess should die a fast death"!

Greg Shahade says that slow chess should die a fast death. He points out that less than 1% of 1% of all online games is slow (longer than G/60), and that when people want to have fun playing chess, they play fast chess. 

He argues that it's time professional chess players start playing 30+5 time controls instead of the standard 5 hour games. 

I agree! 

Read what he has to say. Yeah, it's controversial, but it makes great sense to me!

https://gregshahade.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/slow-chess-should-die-a-fast-death/

I disagree. When people wants to play soccer for fun, they play about 20-30 min at maximum, does this mean that professional and more serious players should do so? IMO no:)

Anyway, thanks for the link

So it's on his blog? I suspect it's clickbait.

I think that it should just go the way it goes, and let people decide for themselves. Right now I am enjoying having some of both, long chess OTB, and short chess over internet.

I'll post his quotes for those afraid of clicking on the wrong link. This is from the link I mentioned in the first post. I won't repost the entire article.

"There is no way to prove this, but I’m making you a promise right now.

Imagine that chess was invented last week. Imagine it’s invented in a time when we have clocks, when people are working 40 hours a week, when we have computers, Internet, video games, professional sports on TV, and dozens of other distractions on a regular basis.

There is absolutely zero percent chance that the world of excited chess enthusiasts would band together and say “Let’s make sure every single chess game lasts anywhere from 4-6 hours”. Just like every other new and popular game/esport that’s emerged, a typical chess game would not last longer than 30-40 minutes.

Slow chess should disappear and be replaced by rapid chess. Rapid chess should not be rapid chess, it should be chess. What should the standard time control be? Something like 30+5 second increment sounds perfect to me. And when I suggest 30+5, please note that I’m choosing a time control this slow only to appease the masses. I think 15+5 is more appropriate.

Why is slow chess so horrible? There are so so many reasons. But the main one is the simplest:

People don’t like to play slow chess!"

One of Shahade's great points is that the best players in the world today are really, really good! They can play "rapid chess" at a higher level than any of the first five world champions could play slow chess!

What's next? Blitz poker? Give me a break. Part of the game is endurance and concentration. I'm not opposed to rapid or even blitz chess, but shorter time controls can not replace the experience of a full-length game.

I have now unsubscribed from Mr. Shahade, if that's his real name. 

I guess you're not familiar with the term "clickbait". It has nothing to do with being afraid to click a link.

Guess so, Escher.

I disagree but he is certainly entitled to his opinion.

Studies have shown that epople attention spans are getting shorter, in fact goldfish now have longer attention spans than people.

Escher, my understanding of the word is that clickbait is a way to get people to visit a certain page. 

But I'm hoping this thread doesn't get derailed on the first page. His suggestion is provocative, it is controversial, but it also makes sense!

While I have yet to play an OTB game of longer than G/120 d5, moving to faster time controls, as a standard, is something I don't support.

In general, I pay better games with a longer time control. For rated games that are not blitz/quick, I want at least 60 minutes to play my best game.  I still enjoy quicker time controls though.  

Aw.  So sad that people could feel this way.  The fellow's remark on the blog post, referring to anti-intellectualism and McChess, isn't too far off, if at all.

And that was my point. I wasn't afraid to click the link; I just thought it probably wasn't worth clicking the link.

It's sort of like arguing that since most people don't travel to the moon, we shouldn't have any rockets capable of going to the moon. Or any number of similar arguments.

It really seems to me that Mr. Shahade is trying to generate controversy for his own benefit.

Actually, that's how many young pros get started.  Multi-tabling on 16 SNG tables (need a 17''+ monitor) online is not too rare among players who are about to go (or are) pro.

I respect the tradition of the game and the fact that its normally something that lasts for hours. Theres also plenty to be said for some of the legendary moves that have been played because players had time to work out the subtleties in the position as well as the accuracy of the games today.

Having said all that I think shorter time controls would be better for the game. Increasing the chances for errors just makes accurate play even more impressive and likely more rewarding. When the players are so good more games end in draws than victories its time to make things harder. They're top caliber players they should be able to handle it.

Like I said in another post,if we leave it up to the Americans,they will certainly ban Classical chess and will try to convince everybody -even with the most outrageous arguments-that bullet,blitz and rapid at the most are the only true and worthy types of chess.We will have Maurice screaming "baam" and "that's all she wrote" and chess pieces from now on will be referred to as "guys".Americans love boxing and they want to inject a similar excitement into chess.Also they are right in that faster time controls are more TV friendly.However,since Bullet,Blitz or  Rapid chess games cannot inherently be of the same high quality as Classical,I expect there will be a solution that will cover everybody..

No,

The quality of chess and the art would suffer greatly it would turn chess into a 100 meter dash that's not what the game is suppose to be about do you want piece banging error prone games or do you want hard fought matches that are well played?

It's as bad as having the world championship fought for 12 games when it should be at least 30-25.