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

That's completely ridiculous.

That is completely ridiculous. You know, in the old days, 4-6 hour games were the only legitimate time control. I could choose not to play two 90 30 games a week, but I do.

That number could go up to three soon.

Viewers are happy to watch basketball or football for many hours. A volleyball match can last longer if the teams reach the 5th set, the so-called tie break. A tennis match duration also depends on the number of sets played, not to mention how many times the games of every set are tied!

Why some of you propose to make a chess game shorter than the aforementioned sports? I can't realize the way you think.

The main reason chess is not popular is obvious to me:people don't really want to think, they don't want to press their brain. It is easier to watch anything else, because chess requires mental participation.

Now the ratings for rapid and blitz exist, which was a very useful progress. Besides chess is already faster than it was a few decades ago. If time dontrols for standard chess become even faster then the thinking process will be lost resulting in the dissapointment of the already existing chess fans, while less new audience will be brought to chess.

cricket lasts for days and can still end up a draw! 

funny.

Draws are common in cricket in longer format. And guess what, the longer format is dying(or already dead) but its kept artificially alive by the authorities. I see lot of similarities with Classical Chess format and Test Cricket. Both have lot of draws, both are boring(with no audience) and both have small set of fanatic supporters who resist pragmatic changes.

And oh yea, both Test Cricket and Classical Chess emerged at the same time period 1850-1920.

Wow, people. There is a difference.

First of all, Test cricket lasts for days.

A game of GM classical chess lasts 4-6 hours.

A game of 90 30, a slightly quicker and widely used option, lasts 3-4 hours.

You could make an argument that Test cricket is way longer than is needed.

But in chess, you can spend 4 hours and still not play a good game.

That's 3 minutes per move on the nose.

So yes, there is a difference.

The reason slow chess is still around is that it is the only kind of chess where "lies and hypocrisy do not survive long".

In classical chess, you can't get away with playing bad moves.

Well I enjoy both test cricket and classical chess. I also enjoy a pint of Guinness. 'Good things come to those who wait'.

I saw this tennis match during its live broadcast, and I must say that it was riveting.

Amazing!

Actually in classical chess, bad moves are made quite often.

My point is that in a slow game with a decent player, your mistakes will never go completely unpunished.

Indeed. Nobody, outside of GM's playing one another plays a casual game in such a shortened time.

I admit, I've played a ton of games drunk with competent players also drunk. It does end fast.

I've also played hundreds of blitz games, sober, on the benches of Waikiki. While the quality of players has gone down, the interest of chess hasn't.

Not in 10 yrs or 20.

I guess the future of chess does belong to the next gen. That's what they were saying when I first started playing. 30+ yrs later, commercial interest has grown, not much, but yeah to some extent.

Can anyone tell me, honestly...that conforming to recent trends (trends that started 10 yrs ago to make chess faster) really "progresses" chess?

I don't think so. Damn corporate sponsors. Chess lives

At the recent 42nd chess Olympiad in Baku the Indian chess team stated that they got some of their ideas from looking at correspondence chess games, the slowest form of the game there is. At chess dot com correspondence is too long a word and has been shortened to daily chess, or the misnomer, on-line chess (all chess on the server is played online), for people that don't like four syllable words.

Look at the youtube videos being made by GMs and IMs for their accounts. They all make blitz and bullet videos because they know that no one will watch long games. Maybe some make a video of even a rapid game. Interestingly, people don't mind watching blitz games for 1-2 hrs as can be seen from youtube videos being made by GMs and IMs. But, I don't think anyone makes a video of their 4-6 hr classical game because everyone knows that no one would be interested or have time to watch a 4-6 hr game. And this is not even unique to chess. No one want to watch anything for 4-6 hrs.

So, on online chess sites like chess.com people, mostly play blitz and bullet. But, they also play rapid. No one ever plays 4-6 hr game on these sites. On sites like youtubes, videos of blitz and bullet are mostly seen. Rapid game videos are rarer but still present. So, whenever, people and players have a choice, they mostly choose blitz, bullet and then rapid. Rapid is less popular online(but it might be more suitable to TV). However, classical chess of 4-6 hrs just does not belong to this century. It was a format invented in 1850s-1920s for, godsake! This outdated and unpopular classical format is kept artificially alive by FIDE rules based on mindessly sticking to ancient traditions.

Analysis of games can be done of any format. The point is that IMs and GMs don't make and put their long games online because they know in their hearts that no one will watch that game. Yet, they know that people don't mind watching short games for hours. The same experience is seen on online chess sites where people prefer to play blitz, bullet and even rapid. That tells you how classical format is slowly killing the chess popularity by making it so damn boring and long drawn out.

Yes, but albiet this conversation is about coverage of chess if you really think about it, and not about the tournaments themselves.  The reason most people like watching fast games is that... well, yeah, it's much more exciting and tension-packed than watching two people sit around for hours thinking. 

But to cut time controls in tournaments as a whole due to coverage needs? That's not necessary. People will watch what they want to watch, and let the players who enjoy long time controls enjoy it for what it is.