I have been able to discuss all kinds of chess issues during 15 years on the Internet, but this is definitely not an attractive forum, it's too many angry and weird persons, supposedly many immature youngsters.
The looming crisis of chess
Sort:
Morons, virgins, and weirdos. Oh, my!
bigpoison wrote:
Morons, virgins, and weirdos. Oh, my!
.... and those are the good ones!
RetGuvvie98 wrote:
guys, please dial it back a bit.
no more attacking a user for having weird ideas.
do not respond by attacking him with namecalling or other pejorative comments, just because his ideas are not in the main-stream of thoughts by the general population here. addressing his ideas is one thing, attacking him by namecalling is another.
I agree.
bigpoison wrote:
Morons, virgins, and weirdos. Oh, my!
You forgot "trolls". I have invented hundreds of chess variants, hundreds of new pieces, catapults, bifurcators, and whatnot. I have written programs for them all, and online scripts for many of them. I have also written several articles. How can anybody believe that I do this in order to pester people? I had hoped it would interest people, similar to how people take an interest in chess problems. It is a form of creativity.
Many variants are being played on chess servers. This server, too, might benefit from including variants. Certain chess variants are being played on ICC, too. It only attracts new chess players to a site such as this. There are Seirawan Chess enthusiasts on this site, who have now realized that I've written a script for online play. This is not a destructive activity.
Let's take an example. If we include a new piece, like the Alpaca, which is worth 2 pawns in the standard piece context. What happens? A new stratagem surfaces. It now becomes possible to exchange this piece for two pawns, and thus to break through, with attacking play. I have tried out such ideas and created programs for them. It works, and it is possible to play online, using my scripts. It is at least as creative as playing the exchange variation in the French defense for the umpteenth time.
By the way, it breaches the rules of conduct for this forum to call people names.
I agree with kintoki
Won't all laquear chess variants get solved like normal chess eventually?
We already have Chess 960 for folks like Mister Laquear.
Anybody that followed the last World Championship between Topalov and
Anand understands that chess if far from being solved or boring and that
tremendous expertise is required to compete at that level.
It is one thing to talk about a new variant of chess - but it is another to
speak about a "looming crisis" - better in my opinion would be to
study an Informant or two and then discuss the crisis. The only crisis
is that mankind may never fully understand or appreciate the beauty
and richness of chess due to variants and video games.
So is it a crisis for neighborhood clubs or a crisis for professionals due to computers? Or just a general problem of no new youngsters playing? You switch back and forth between these when certain facts are inconvenient. For future reference, this and exaggerating claims such as "looming chess crisis" is how you get labeled a troll.
However the big question is, if there is a crisis in one or more of these areas, why is it important to promote or play variants now? You say for training purposes? That makes no sense, I think you're just creative and enjoy a challenge and fide-chess gets stale to you after a while.
If you had left out the whole chess doomsday prophecy, something it seems you believe to some degree or another, and just posted about your variants it would have gone more smoothly for you.
Laquear wrote:
bigpoison wrote:
Morons, virgins, and weirdos. Oh, my!
You forgot "trolls". I have invented hundreds of chess variants, hundreds of new pieces, catapults, bifurcators, and whatnot. I have written programs for them all, and online scripts for many of them. I have also written several articles. How can anybody believe that I do this in order to pester people? I had hoped it would interest people, similar to how people take an interest in chess problems. It is a form of creativity.
Many variants are being played on chess servers. This server, too, might benefit from including variants. Certain chess variants are being played on ICC, too. It only attracts new chess players to a site such as this. There are Seirawan Chess enthusiasts on this site, who have now realized that I've written a script for online play. This is not a destructive activity.
Let's take an example. If we include a new piece, like the Alpaca, which is worth 2 pawns in the standard piece context. What happens? A new stratagem surfaces. It now becomes possible to exchange this piece for two pawns, and thus to break through, with attacking play. I have tried out such ideas and created programs for them. It works, and it is possible to play online, using my scripts. It is at least as creative as playing the exchange variation in the French defense for the umpteenth time.
By the way, it breaches the rules of conduct for this forum to call people names.
How good is the AI of these variants or is it possible to play only vs humans?
echecs06 wrote:
I am wondering if this "crisis" has more to do with kids nowadays playing video games and stuff. Parents are too busy to spend time with their kids. When I started chess in my schools, gazillions years ago, I had tons of participants. Now it's just the geeks who can't do anything else.
That's the conventional wisdom, and I subscribe to it.
When I started up the competitors to chess were TV and maybe radio, other boardgames, and other hobbies (stamp collecting, checkers, et al).
Nowadays even chess fanatics are tempted by video games and poker and a myriad of entertainment options.
World of Warcraft, any of the many FPS--the interactive online universe in total.
I'm surprised that anyone plays chess and I feel some sympathy for anyone that gets addicted to that familiar chess bug because they won't get the respect they deserve for being involved in our profound pastime.
Serious adult players are, and always have been in my experience, rare.
I don't think chess is in danger of dying out the way checkers seems to have, though.
Fezzik wrote:
In case it's not clear by now, there's no special impetus for playing chess variants now except for the "inventor" of these variants. Since they don't attract enough of a following to survive because of competition from classical chess or chess960, the "inventor" has argued that classical chess is in deep trouble. Yet his own chess practice gives the lie to the argument.
Are there more xiangxi sites than chess sites online? Are there more games played in all the variants combined than chess?
I tend to agree but I wouldn't describe xiangqi as a "variant", myself. It is a game in its own right, with historical tradition comparable to chess, and played by millions of people.
Heh, I'm the other way around. I gave up video games for chess 
Fezzik wrote:
Fair enough, Atos. The point that chess is far more popular than xiangqi, shogi, and all other games in the "family of chess" combined remains valid.
On the Internet, probably. I can assure you that in China it is a very popular game. (Unlike European chess, although China has produced some strong players in the recent years, but I think the popular base is still pretty thin.)
echecs06 wrote:
Atos wrote:
Fezzik wrote:
Fair enough, Atos. The point that chess is far more popular than xiangqi, shogi, and all other games in the "family of chess" combined remains valid.
On the Internet, probably. I can assure you that in China it is a very popular game. (Unlike European chess, although China has produced some strong players in the recent years, but I think the popular base is still pretty thin.)
You are both right. What about the game of GO?
It's popular too, although I never took any interest in it. (It's nothing like chess. 
)
Was a tossup for me between Go and Chess (my parents had a intro book on each on a shelf. I read them both. The choice became easy when I realized how hard it would be to find a Go game/club/tournament here in the states.
and if promoting chess960 then that will cut down the chess tradition