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

many people  prefer slow chess because they believe are more intelligent playing slow chess or just deffending the custom of ancient fossils like Botvinnik who believed they were more smart thinking this bulls it .   ,  

 they suffer the the classical Dunning-kruger effect.

future of chess is 960 : at the FIRST MOVE the FIRT minut, it is exciting. No human can really master in all 1st MOVE events!

Watching MVL for the hundreth time masterizing fifteenth or Drawjacking is not a cup of tea for Mr Smith, I guess.

In rooms, there are exactly NO people pying to watch. As says Freud if u don't pay, it doesn't work   !!

btw 30 +5 ' is interesting as reflex game like ping pong compared to lifted Borg tennis, emptying stades in the 70's. 

I have no problem with slow chess, its just the players that are too slow for their own good, and then petition to get longer time controls.

My club has a time control of 80/G and the weekend swisses are usually 100/G. If at the amateur level, you cannot figure out how to win a game in that alloted time, then you should lose on time. 

Slow chess is the only true chess. Gimmicks for bullet and blitz control are just gimmicks that are crushed on slow chess.

This is actually where he lost me:

"Now wait you might tell me, 'I really do love to play slow chess, and so do all of my friends'.

I have an answer for you: 'No you don’t'."

So, he knows better than me what I like?

Needless to say, I won't be bookmarking his blog.

Hey mindwalk could you please post about a million posts in a row with wating for replies that would be awesome

Absolutely!  We live in a world where everyone wants everything NOW. Studies have shown people cant pay attention like they used to, attention spans are shorter, no patience, road rage, etc.  No wonder faster time controls are popular.

slow chess rules

No, he shouldn't be silenced; He has the right to his opinion. It's just that we don't necessarily have to pay any attention to him.

Oh, OK. Sarcasm is often hard to pick up over the internet. (Lack of voice inflections, and all that stuff...)

Chess will never be appealing to the masses and draw large crowds of spectators , the sooner this is understood the better .  I love chess and have been playing almost 50 years and even I don't care much to watch top GMs battle it out , even when I can do so from the comfort of my home on the internet . In 1974 the Korchnoi/Mecking candidates match was held in Augusta Georgia , only 35 minutes from my hometown . I went to a couple of the games and paid to see the games in progress live .  I was bored to death ! If people who love the game find it boring how do you think it will ever attract people who dont care about the game ? It won't , so lets do whats best for the players involved first and foremost .

This blog post is a partial, unargued and complacent piece of bitterness. How can I unread it?

MW is so right here !....For those who haven't come a'x MW before ?....he is extraordinarily cerebral....and to his credit - for it's who he is.

And he's also right about inning sports. Like Cricket. It's a social event. But, some people don't get that 'cuz they just can't stop to smell the concession stand to appreciate it all.

MW & I may not meld with what's above the clouds, but we're pretty much in agreement w/ what's happening on this hurtling stone. And that includes the Allan Parsons Project. MW told me to listen to them and I've enjoyed them ever since ! 

MindWalk is earnest and that's why I like him.

It won't , so lets do whats best for the players involved first and foremost .

Reb: What is best for the players?

I too question Shahade's optimism that with shorter time controls chess will become more of a spectator sport. However Shahade is mainly arguing -- and this may not apply to you -- that slow chess is not what  most people really want to play and in tournaments it is a real rat race for competitors.

Shahade is arguing for what he believes is best for chess players.

I also prefer slow/classical chess when playing rated chess but such events are becoming less and less frequent here in the USA southeast . 

I guess to find what the majority of players prefer/want you would have to ask the players . I would imagine what the children want would be different from what adults want , and among adults there may well be different preferences among the young , middleaged and older/senior  adults ... The senior adult players are the most ignored of them all in the USA , unfortunately I know this first hand ... 

From experience w/ my Mom, senior adults in general are typically the most ignored. Sad.

But that's another spool.

Reb: You are a lot more of a player than I am. I really don't know what players want.

I'm also curious how well rapid games compare with slow games in terms of quality. I didn't realize until now that GMs have rapid ratings. Are GM rapid games noticeably weaker than their slow games?

   As you've previously said, there is a point of diminishing returns. Even doing chess puzzles...if one doesn't get the answer in a certain amount of time, spending a lot more time may not help.

   Those who enjoy a 4+ hour game compared to those who endure a 4+ hour game must be a very small percentage.

   We are quibbling. In some instances more time may be helpful. In other situations, no.

   You can give 15 hours per move for someone unskilled at chess vs. 1 minute per move to his opponent, a GM. Now who do you think shall win?