Is Chess Finally Dead?

Back in 1617 (!) a chess author named Carrera thought that chess was to simple, and that it should be made more complex by adding two new pieces.
The death of chess has been pronounced a few time already :
In the end of the 19th century, people were complaining about Steinitz style.
Capablanca thought that chess was too simple. Then came Alekhine
In the 50's, people thought that chess was dying because of draws. Then came Tal
In the 60's, people thought that chess was dying because of draws. Then came Fischer, Larsen, and Korchnoï.

Fischer said that chess was dead. 
Then came Karpov and Kasparov.


 

Chess is growing, and Magnus is a refreshing addition to the game in this world of computer lines and reasoning!

So... that´s the way Ivanov was doing it...

then Ivanov is a rat

Who knows... 50 years from now our entertainment culture might become so jaded and desperate for the next new thing that chess becomes a televised "Russian Roulette" style competition. The loser gets killed off. As messed up as that sounds, just think about it... "Survivor", "American Idol" and other current "hit" reality shows can't last forever... before long the television audience will be demanding more and more. 50 years might even be a bit generous for when we get to that point and chess truly does become "bloodsport"... 

No, rats can't move the pieces properly.

Chess died when Napoleon lost against The Turk.

Stop playing then.

Don't quit, just switch to chess960. Hopefully chessdotcom will incorporate it in live section soon. Probably won't stop the cheaters though.

What´s the problem? We are not even close to being masters.

If Kramnik can draw a game with anybody if he wants to do that with black just using 10 minutes for his first 20 moves (as he made in the world cup and in candidates) because he has all those openings memorized, how does that affect us?

The last WCC match between Anand and Carlsen was getting higher ratings than cricket events. Game analysis of that match is currently topping YouTube.

Far from being dead, chess is currently enjoying one of it's most prestigious momewnts. A 'Golden Age", if you will.

To summarize, all our efforts to kill chess have not yet resulted in success. I recommend we move to Phase III.

Even players closer to our level memorize.They spend time memorizing opening lines and get an early advantage and possible win the game.

I assume that they have hopeless positions, right?

That you don't understand how chess works, how programs work, what makes top players strong, the Anand-Carlsen match, what makes Carlsen a good player, why people find professional games interesting, or how ratings work.

Also I think the loser of the WCC match won ~1 million dollars, anything Fischer said was crazy, and that people were calling chess dead in Capabalanca's time.

Chess is not dead, but games with an hour or more need to stop getting venues.  Chess is not the most exilerating exibition sport at its most exciting.  The new standard needs to be 30 mins.

I wonder why every beginner is obsessed with opening lines as the secret to chess strength and why every strong player says it's pointless to memorize openings and to study opening last (after things like endgames, middlegames and lots of tactics).

All you need to know as an amateur (not that it's always so easy) is the idea of the middlegame position you get into.  You need to have some tactical patterns and common mating patterns in your memory for reference.  You need some endgame knowledge and the ability to calculate a few moves ahead and visualize the position clearly in your head.

If you neglect any of that and memorize lines instead you're going to be at a big disadvantage.

Also funny are threads like these that couldn't misunderstand the Anand - Carlsen match more.  The openings are not what won the games.  This match was the least opening centric in 100 years.

30 minutes? Time is already too short (in Go professional tournaments players have over 2 hours on the clock and in some tournaments clock's time can be also 8 hour)

There are plenty of entertainment options for people with no attention span.  In my opinion 30 minutes for a professional game is absurd.

chessmates, again i repeat, the computer are fancy calculatators using the data from our games. so big deal about the computers rating, right? i saw a post on chess.com that 10,000 plus players signed up during and after the world match. that seems to be a surge in interest. and while enjoying games online, the real fun is person to person, isnt it?

maybe for the people who want 30 minute professional chess they could add a mixed martial arts component where after every set of one move each the players could pummel and maim each other, and then when the clock flag signalled they could get back to their one move each. I imagine some people would like that more.

IF, however, chess is in fact dead, even thirty minutes is too long for death. I propose those who find chess dead find, as wafflemaster proposes, other entertainment options.

In the book three moves ahead, the author parrallels the philosophy of the century to the philosophy of chess at that time. During the french revolution, strides had been made in chess to focus more on the pawn.

The chess board is more than a game it's a representation of the times and peoples mode of thought. I notice what's dying isn't chess, it's creative thought. Chess was exciting when creativity existed, now so much of everything is regurgitated crap and the chess board is victim to this now.

But, everything in life changes even when we think their isn't change possible. It takes playing an instrument to really see this. When you see an instrument you see an x amount of keys, strings, frets etc, and it's intimidating to approach it when so much has already been done. Yet, their is still new music, new ideas and new compositions to explore. It hasn't all been done. It just requires breaking away from memorization and comparison, and approaching something, anything for the first time in a new light like a child.

Though im not religious, I do like some philosophies behind certain quotes and scriptures, one that comes to mind which I think was meant to convey a similar context was that

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."-Isaiah 11:6

I think what this means, to me anyways, is that as information progresses we are exposed to everything between dangerous things and every day things, and the only thing that will keep us all moving forward is to have a childs mind. My opinion anyways...