chess is great i love it people are just to lazy to think
Will Chess Experience Another "Fischer Boom," In The Next Decade?
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In my opinion chess has a number of factors preventing the kind of rise in popularity that you're hoping for.
- A single game played at any kind of watchable timeframe is still much longer than a hand of poker. This means the build-up and release of dramatic tension for the participants and (importantly) observers is on a wider arc. And I don't think the answer is to play faster games.
- Where's the money in chess? Any common Joe can still get dealt a fair hand in poker and win a little, even if only in the short term. And I suspect that there are a lot of folks that only need to win once for them to get "the bug".
- Chess lacks the element of luck that pervades and levels the playing field for poker players. In poker, there's at least the romance-of-the-possible that I can pull off a victory against a top player.
Other factors come to mind (e.g. the perception of chess "nerds", the lack of many North American champions, the extreme study and dedication required to reach the upper levels of play, the fractured and questionable legitimacy of the various chess bodies - i.e. think FIDE/PCA, Ilyumzhinov).
On the bright side, poker's history (around 1890, maybe later) is but a blip on the vast radar screen of the chess timeline, and I'd certainly wager that a hundred years from now chess will be lumbering onward whereas poker may well have been cast off for a shinier bauble.
You can teach someone poker relatively easily. Chess requires much more skill to derive any amount of enjoyment. I can tell who is beating who in poker without a thought in my head. If people wanted to think, they wouldn't be watching television.
Unfortunately too, we must consider the circumstances of the popular events, and question why we were drawn to it. The chess junkies on this site were interested in the chess, but the flocking masses were at the party for a different reason.
Fischer was an icon for American Elitism over Communism, it was an ideological battle as well as a chess game. You don't get the government asking a football player to please play in the championship and not go home... The US had more at stake than just chess.
Kasparov was the novelty of a computer beast. Can humans really be beaten by computers??? OH NO.... we're all going to die, computers are geniuses....AHHH. Spectacle. This phase is more an investigation into AI and the ever growing human paranoia of our lovely computer pals getting smarter than us and possibly taking over when they realize we're just slightly smarter than monkeys.
Sadly, the mainstream crowd, which isn't usually worth paying attention to, is not drawn to these wonderful chess events for the chess. They are drawn to these events for the hype of the secondary battle. Some of them pick up chess and join the rest of us addicts, most will just go back to watching poker and watching NASCAR.
I think we are already in a chess boom. As the previous poster mentioned, the internet has become a paradise for chess players because of chess playing sites such as our beloved Chess.com and many other sites (FICS, ICC, etc.). It really is remarkable that in this day and age of big budget gaming on the consoles and PC, chess is still attracting kids and adults in record numbers. If that isn't a boom, I don't know what is!
I often hear that there is no money in chess...but if that is the case, why do the top players often compete for prize funds in the six (or sometimes seven) figures? Sure, chess at the club level might lack big money, but so does AAA baseball for that matter.
As for chess on TV, well personally I believe it just hasn't been done right yet. But in the 21st Century, is a television program a valid criteria for popularity anymore? Does chess even need TV?
The same goes for federations such as the USCF. Do we need such bureaucratic organizations when most of the work performed by the USCF can be handled by a well-programmed chess site these days? I suspect Chess.com rates far more games on a daily basis than the USCF and charges less for a membership. What is more, I suspect Chess.com offers more useful services to casual chess players for that fee than the USCF could ever hope to match.
Again, chess boom? It's already here!
My point regarding the lack of money in chess wasn't particularly about the top .001% players that can pull down anything close to "six (or sometimes seven) figures", but rather the always-present chance that a poker player can win any hand regardless of his or her skill or that of the opponents.
Perhaps viewed from a different perspective - poker (and many other classical gambling endeavors) doles out wins and losses on a much more random basis, and on a shorter time-scale.
The act of observing a gambler is just as much about seeing whether the "fates smile upon him" as it is about witnessing his skill. And as observer, I know, at least subconsciously, that it could be me there in his place and I still might succeed - with the right luck. In my opinion this is a huge and possibly crucial difference that gives poker (and other more egalitarian amusements) an advantatage over chess.
Jul 19, 2008
0
#8
Munchies said:
Fischer was an icon for American Elitism over Communism, it was an ideological battle as well as a chess game. You don't get the government asking a football player to please play in the championship and not go home... The US had more at stake than just chess.
Kasparov was the novelty of a computer beast. Can humans really be beaten by computers??? OH NO.... we're all going to die, computers are geniuses....AHHH. Spectacle.
This is exactly it. You need a great person, and a great context to create the sort of hype that the above events got (more so the Fischer-Spassky match). It's not enough to be good at something, you must also be born at the right time.
For example, skateboarding is still quite a new sport, if Tony Hawkes had been born 100 years ago, he'd of missed his opportunity.
RooksBailey wrote:
I think we are already in a chess boom. As the previous poster mentioned, the internet has become a paradise for chess players because of chess playing sites such as our beloved Chess.com and many other sites (FICS, ICC, etc.). It really is remarkable that in this day and age of big budget gaming on the consoles and PC, chess is still attracting kids and adults in record numbers. If that isn't a boom, I don't know what is! I often hear that there is no money in chess...but if that is the case, why do the top players often compete for prize funds in the six (or sometimes seven) figures? Sure, chess at the club level might lack big money, but so does AAA baseball for that matter. As for chess on TV, well personally I believe it just hasn't been done right yet. But in the 21st Century, is a television program a valid criteria for popularity anymore? Does chess even need TV? The same goes for federations such as the USCF. Do we need such bureaucratic organizations when most of the work performed by the USCF can be handled by a well-programmed chess site these days? I suspect Chess.com rates far more games on a daily basis than the USCF and charges less for a membership. What is more, I suspect Chess.com offers more useful services to casual chess players for that fee than the USCF could ever hope to match. Again, chess boom? It's already here!
Here are some of the 'record numbers' that you speak of: Average # of users logged onto world of warcraft at any time is somewhere around hundreds of thousands.
Average number of users logged onto the most popular chess servers at any time, somewhere around 3,000.
"Sure, chess at the club level might lack big money, but so does AAA baseball for that matter.
It's not just the club level. It's also the FM level, the IM level , and even the GM level. Even promising youngsters who have talent to become top -class players like Hikaru Nakamura decided that there's no money in chess. I have seen Valery Aleskulov (Gm, champion of ukraine very young at like 21 years old) tell me and a friend that he wanted to take up poker because it's far more promising in terms of making money. There are many GM's that just don't make much money at all. Really the only people making money in chess are the world's elite and only very few of them exist.
I mean just compare chess to poker in terms of how much money you can make. If you study poker and become skilled at poker within a year you can make at least 10-15$ an hour at poker sites. Put in the same effort in chess and you won't even have a high enough rating for anyone to want to be your student, don't even talk about making money any other way because there's no way someone that's played for a year is going to make it in the tiny cash prizes offered in local tournament prizes.
The sad reality is that the money in chess for those who are not geniuses is in sandbagging, but not just small time sandbagging, I mean "become a 2200 strength on icc then sandbag an under 1400 tournament for 10,000$ " type sandbagging. That's the most money you're going to make and then you can never repeat the scam.
Also, competetive chess has *NO FUTURE WHATSOEVER*. Let's face it, top tournaments are already ruined by cheating, there are cheating scandals happening all the time in us opens and events like that. But the sad reality is that only the dumb cheaters are getting caught. You can own a computer nowadays that is smaller than a credit card. You could put it anywhere on your body and if you have a little bit of brains or technical friends you can think up an interface to a chess engine that will allow you to cheat at a tournament. It's not detectable. Even if everyone was searched for cheating devices, in the future computers are going to get smaller, be embedded in clothing, etc.
So wait - I didn't mean that chess has no future in competitions, but only that human chess with no computer assistance has no future. I think this is a horrible, horrible thing but let's face it our future is controlled by pervasive computing, nanotechnology, and computer-human interfaces and there's no way to prevent that =)
But the bad thing about this is that chess is not a game that can survive the next 10 years of computer technology. The entire game is going to get played out. Not every possible move will be calculated, but every *decent* move will be known. If you look at the trend of modern chess in the last 5-10 years the openings are getting explored and certain openings are getting wiped off the face of competetive chess. Chess engines are already around 3000 strength and soon due to the exponential rate of information technology growth they will be so amazingly strong that no one can stop them, or those preparing with them. But more than that chess is not the ultimate board game. There is another game called "Go" that has a bigger exponential tree of possible moves than chess, and is less influenced by computers and opening theory. I predict that chess will die a draw death within the next 10 years and then the only game that people will play seriously will be go or other experimental games that have been created, but eventually that too will dissapear as computers develop insane calculation and artificial intelligence powers.
I really think that what we need to do in the future is prepare for an exponential growth of human/computer intelligence by designing games that are so amazingly complex, that their complexity raises in some kind of hyper-dimensional self-reflecting fractal nature such as that no matter how much intelligence or computing power is thrown at these games, they only become more and more subtle to an infinite degree. This way we will create games that can be played until the end of the universe fairly by all parties.
I leave you with these words my friends: Checkers has been solved. Chess will be psuedo solved soon. Go will go on a little longer...but why not bank on a game that can stand the test of exponentially increasing intelligences of the future?
Zenchess wrote:
Checkers has been solved. Chess will be psuedo solved soon. Go will go on a little longer...but why not bank on a game that can stand the test of exponentially increasing intelligences of the future?
Oddly, I was under the impression that Checkers had been solved as well. I certainly remember hearing people make that claim for years now, but consider:
- Chinook, the leading checkers computer program from a research team at University of Alberta, is to my knowledge the only software that makes any kind of "solved" claim, and that came in a July 2007 Science paper ("Checkers Is Solved") http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5844/1518
- The authors of that paper concede that their definition of "solved" is "Perfect play by both sides leads to a draw". In a New York Times article they go on to state: “It’s a computational proof, it’s certainly not a formal mathematical proof.”, meaning that there are still many imperfect-play avenues unexplored where the outcome is not certain.
- Also, Chinook had only "solved" 21 of the 156 three-move openings used in most tournament play.
At best, I would categorize this as "pseudo-solved", and despite it all there are still many checkers organizations and competitions on a regular basis.
With chess' mathematical complexity far exceeding checkers I don't think chess is close to any kind of point of exhaustion, certainly not in head-to-head human play.
At most, I'd think, minor alterations and variants such as Chess960 could be used to spice up tournament play and pose monstrous challenges to any established computer algorithms.
Jul 19, 2008
0
#11
Zenchess.
If tiny little computers are invented, and then hidden in clothes with the intention of cheating. Then someone could invent something that detects tiny little computers. Admittitly, there would be a technology race. Cheaters would attempt to get tiny little computers that could not be found, however, chess players can't even afford to toast both sides of a bit of bread, so they would lose the technology battle :)
so amazingly complex, that their complexity raises in some kind of hyper-dimensional self-reflecting fractal nature such as that no
I liked this bit, most people would have gone with super duper - but this is top notch :)
CCCP wrote:
chess is great i love it people are just to lazy to think
Q.
F.
T.
Zenchess wrote:
“Here are some of the 'record numbers' that you speak of: Average # of users logged onto world of warcraft at any time is somewhere around hundreds of thousands.
Average number of users logged onto the most popular chess servers at any time, somewhere around 3,000.”
But that is not a fair comparison. World of Warcraft is a single game. If you want to play WoW, you have to play it on the servers provided by Blizzard. That is not true with chess. To reach a fair comparison, you would need to pool all the players on all the internet-based chess servers to get a comparable figure. While I doubt that will ever be achievable, I do not doubt that if one did so, the total number of players playing chess would far exceed WoW.
“It's not just the club level. It's also the FM level, the IM level , and even the GM level. Even promising youngsters who have talent to become top -class players like Hikaru Nakamura decided that there's no money in chess. I have seen Valery Aleskulov (Gm, champion of ukraine very young at like 21 years old) tell me and a friend that he wanted to take up poker because it's far more promising in terms of making money. There are many GM's that just don't make much money at all. Really the only people making money in chess are the world's elite and only very few of them exist.”
Good points, but I think we might be comparing apples and oranges again. You seem to be arguing that it is easier to be a lesser light in the poker world and be able to financially make a career out of it. That is true. However, I am refuting the blanket notion that there is no money to be made in chess…period. With jackpots for the elites reaching six and seven figures, there is quite a lot of money to be made for the top of the pyramid players. Granted, as you point out, this player pyramid is top heavy, so to speak, but nonetheless there are millionaires who have become so by playing a board game. That is astounding when you think about it and also disputes the notion that there is no money in the game.
"I mean just compare chess to poker in terms of how much money you can make. If you study poker and become skilled at poker within a year you can make at least 10-15$ an hour at poker sites. Put in the same effort in chess and you won't even have a high enough rating for anyone to want to be your student, don't even talk about making money any other way because there's no way someone that's played for a year is going to make it in the tiny cash prizes offered in local tournament prizes."
But again, apples and oranges. Comparing chess to poker is a false analogy because poker is gambling. There is a lot of money to be made because there is a heavy element of luck, which means there are fewer “sure things”, which also means that casinos are quite happy to incorporate the game into their regular offerings. There is no “house” in chess…which means that there is no incentive for casinos to get in on the action. If one could take poker out of casinos, there would be far less money to be made in that game as well.
"The sad reality is that the money in chess for those who are not geniuses is in sandbagging, but not just small time sandbagging, I mean "become a 2200 strength on icc then sandbag an under 1400 tournament for 10,000$ " type sandbagging. That's the most money you're going to make and then you can never repeat the scam."
That’s not true at all. You don’t have to be a “genius” to make money at chess, you just have to be devoted to the game. It’s like any other activity: if you think you can play a sport just on the weekends and stand a good chance of making a career out of it, it’s not going to happen. But if you are dedicated, practice a lot and compete regularly in tourneys (whether or not there are large purses), you will start to achieve a degree of success. And, again, like any other sport, the more successful you are, the more money you will make. But no one is just going to hand you a bag of cash because you like to play chess for money.
"Also, competetive chess has *NO FUTURE WHATSOEVER*. Let's face it, top tournaments are already ruined by cheating, there are cheating scandals happening all the time in us opens and events like that. But the sad reality is that only the dumb cheaters are getting caught. You can own a computer nowadays that is smaller than a credit card. You could put it anywhere on your body and if you have a little bit of brains or technical friends you can think up an interface to a chess engine that will allow you to cheat at a tournament. It's not detectable. Even if everyone was searched for cheating devices, in the future computers are going to get smaller, be embedded in clothing, etc."
Of course, this is false (and a bit paranoid). In fact, with such a bleak attitude towards both the Royal Game and your fellow players, I am wondering what you are even doing at Chess.com in the first place! 
"But the bad thing about this is that chess is not a game that can survive the next 10 years of computer technology. The entire game is going to get played out. Not every possible move will be calculated, but every *decent* move will be known. If you look at the trend of modern chess in the last 5-10 years the openings are getting explored and certain openings are getting wiped off the face of competetive chess. Chess engines are already around 3000 strength and soon due to the exponential rate of information technology growth they will be so amazingly strong that no one can stop them, or those preparing with them."
Wrong again. Don’t take my word on it:
"It's probably impossible. [Chess is] just too complex," remarked Michael Genesereth, an associate professor of computer science at Stanford University, “I don't think it will ever be done."
"But more than that chess is not the ultimate board game. There is another game called "Go" that has a bigger exponential tree of possible moves than chess, and is less influenced by computers and opening theory. I predict that chess will die a draw death within the next 10 years and then the only game that people will play seriously will be go or other experimental games that have been created, but eventually that too will dissapear as computers develop insane calculation and artificial intelligence powers."
In ten years, if no one is playing chess, then I owe you a Pepsi. But this is not going to happen any time soon (not to mention the fact that some computer scientists don’t believe it is even possible to “solve” chess. Not every game has a perfect “solution.”).
But let’s suppose it is possible to solve chess and a computer does so? Will it change the game for humans? No, as indicated by this:
"No human can possibly memorize the billions of combinations that Dr. Schaeffer has covered," said Richard Beckwith, player representative for the American Checkers Foundation. "You still have to play as you see it, based on your own expertise and knowledge."
"I really think that what we need to do in the future is prepare for an exponential growth of human/computer intelligence by designing games that are so amazingly complex, that their complexity raises in some kind of hyper-dimensional self-reflecting fractal nature such as that no matter how much intelligence or computing power is thrown at these games, they only become more and more subtle to an infinite degree. This way we will create games that can be played until the end of the universe fairly by all parties."
Or you and an opponent can just sit opposite each other across a chess board and play a game and leave the laptops at home. I think my solution is easier.
"I leave you with these words my friends: Checkers has been solved. Chess will be psuedo solved soon. Go will go on a little longer...but why not bank on a game that can stand the test of exponentially increasing intelligences of the future?"
But again, why?!? We’re here because we like chess just fine! Why should we abandon the greatest of games just because perhaps someday a computer might solve the game in some fashion. If you want something different, feel free to go off and play some Warcraft (which by no means is free from cheaters and scammers) or some other video game. Chess is alive and well and will continue so for long after I’m gone.
If you want to know how popular chess is just remember that beyond FIFA, FIDE is the 2nd largest hobby/sport/game organization in the world. I do not see this changing for the worse anytime soon. I don't really see any boom coming either. As for chess being "solved" a la checkers: pretty much everyone who has thought about it has come to the conclusion it is a draw but they cannot prove this so it still is nebulously researched, and I didn't really see any drop in the popularity of checkers after the machine crunched it.
Maradonna wrote:
Zenchess. If tiny little computers are invented, and then hidden in clothes with the intention of cheating. Then someone could invent something that detects tiny little computers. Admittitly, there would be a technology race. Cheaters would attempt to get tiny little computers that could not be found, however, chess players can't even afford to toast both sides of a bit of bread, so they would lose the technology battle :) so amazingly complex, that their complexity raises in some kind of hyper-dimensional self-reflecting fractal nature such as that no I liked this bit, most people would have gone with super duper - but this is top notch :)
If that microcomputer thing really came to be, they could just start having chess players sit on magnetic chairs which would pretty much kill the computers functionality.
I am 34 years old and just getting back into chess, I'm admittedly an average player. I'd like to know your opinion on this subject because it seems to me that we are due. I guess when Kasparov was playing Deep Blue, chess was in the news but it didn't seem to bring the game into the mainstream. How does texas hold 'em sweep the nation but chess is still on the back page? Maybe it will take a loud flamboyant type to turn heads and give the game the attention it deserves, but I would think the game itself should be enough. Just my 2 cents, I'd like to hear from others.