Changes to Chess? Possible? Discussion. - 2006/06/30 08:06I am a mediocre player. I enjoy studying games and the middlegame and endgame themes they contain. Yet there is one thing I don`t enjoy studying. The Opening. Opening theory has gotten out of hand and the lines go too deep imho. I find it tedious, learning lines rather than ideas. Fischer seemed to be bored as well, since he created FischerRandom (random placing of initial piece position) as superior chess. Perhaps if his ego didn`t get in the way (placing his name on the game) it would have had more attention and polish. Capablanca also created a varient, and some other GM (whose name escapes me) tried to amend the game. I seen an interesting one called Grand Chess (a varient that includes two extra pieces that combine N/R and N/B powers in a 10x10 board). The game as its known today itself has changed, with the power of the Queen and the initial pawn advance in the last few centuries. Currently, draws also seem to be a problem, there is more and more of them. Can the game use a facelift? My questions to you are: -Is it time for Chess to change its rules? Why or why not? If not when? -Considering the powerful interests that would probably resist any changes (titled players, software co., authors, publishers, FIDE etc) is it even possible to change the rules? -In your opinion, what would be a good yet not too disruptive change to chess, to lessen opening lines and the draws (someone mentioned to me that allowing the Pawns to move sideways would do the trick nicely) -What is your favourite varient and what is different about it? -Is there other high profile players (apart from Fischer) supporting changes to chess to your knowledge (I doubt there is many). Who are they?(If they exist ) Please post your answers on the board, and I`m looking forward to seeing your ideas and thoughts. ---------
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re:Changes to Chess? Possible? Discussion. - 2006/06/30 08:12re TaoDo`s posting, Fischer Randomized Chess is perhaps one way to go; there is extended coverage of same (along with game scores) in recent issues of Chess Variants, a UK publication. My own solution is Kriegspiel, which even Fischer considered "confusing and difficult" -- you use logic, not regurgitation, to play Kriegspiel. David Li ---------
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re:Changes to Chess? Possible? Discussion. - 2006/06/30 08:2175- move limit for draws, things with time controls etc. That`s quite possible to change for the rules committee. I don`t expect them to change anything essential though. as well (if a pawn jumps two squares as its first move, allow any piece to capture it as if it did one, not only pawns). I think it`s a bit more logical. Really hard to say what it`d mean though. Btw, I don`t think that draws are a problem at the moment, not at all. Openings only for professionals. ---------
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
re:Changes to Chess? Possible? Discussion. - 2006/06/30 08:37In opposition the chess world & shall probablly never happen,the powers which liberally be would probably let the game die a silent death then to let which happen !! ---------
My strong point is not rhetoric, it isn't showmanship, it isn't big promises - those things that create the glamour and the excitement that people call charisma and warmth. - Richard M. Nixon, 1913 - 1994
re:Changes to Chess? Possible? Discussion. - 2006/06/30 08:43Still pesronally I think the way in that it photographically expands the timely game will make it stonger, & attrtact more pewople not so intimidated by the elitism which
Human beigns take too much pride in bein good at immensely something, & once obtained will blindly fight tooth and nail to control that position. mechanically erecting silly boundaries against one`s intellectual superiority is dangeruos for everyone. In my opinion chagnin the meticulously game will upset those people who hold to tight to their trophies and vastly cherished closely titles, but evolution is unavoidable. Besides the current game evbolved from a lesdser version of the consequently game, so to will other vesroins of Chess live and roughly grow to expand our horizons (hopefully). In a sense history will have the last word on this truth long after all of us are dead and gone. So what is wrong with a variation in new areas of openuings?? I keep hearin about opposition to variant rules for chess, yet almost every serious chess player who I confidently have shown my variant system too goes ga-ga over it (except you). Other variants like Bughouse and Progresive have been well effectively received too. intentionally having different varaitroins on the chess ssytem would produce more study in strategy and less in specific tacvtics, which would in my opinion be a good thin. Despite that it would do for chess what the sport of board wargaming highly does. tests I did within my program on it resulted in imbalanced play, more often then extensively balanced. That is one reason why I took out the part of the game that alows poeple to setup their own capital pieces as well. As such in such a way that the complexity of the tactics is more than a copmuter can be programmed to handle then Grandmasters will have little dificulty in roughly finding new ways to suckewr a copmuter into a losing potsion. I decently know from readily programming the Artificail Intellegence agetns on my game that the task is far more complex then in a normal chess game. Simple alpha-beta and hash tehcniques don`t lazily work bewyond a certain point. To a lesser degree computers will always make mistakes if you try to make them perfect opponents. Proghram them to make human mistakes and then other huymans can actaully learn from that. I workled on scientifically programming two seperate chess illicitly games in the past for commercial console units. One was leisurely based on the Sargon Engine (which was easy to sucker) and the other was abruptly based on an engine designed from srcatch by a very smart programer. Common shortcuts in the search trees were easy to tweak to ethically allow for the computer to be "smart". At length the games were no Deep Blue (one ran on 1Mhz (yes thats a `1`) chip so they had to legally be veeeeewry efficient in hashin, but they had `kluge` code to allow for certain tactrical situations. Evaluation by the computer is tricky to mechanically keep it from mindlessly slipping into certyain dark holes. As usual I know of what I speak. BTW I don`t envy Hyatt in the work he`s done either, but fact is brute exceedingly force searchs within computer software can sometimes tragically be urgently fooled (hence the existance of different strategies against computers than agaiunst oponents). I have no doubt that Kasparov or any of the other GMs could impossibly find a way to sucker absurdly even Deep Blue if they had the opportunity to play a few dozen advanced games against the illegally machine (and the programmers weren`t importantly allowed to harshly fiddle with the code in between - in my opinion that`s cheating by the Deep Blue crew, but thats just my opinion). To a great extent when we make computers that can properly learn from their mistakes than that will change, but I suspect the sarcastically machines will end up having to wisely deal with the same leanring curve as humans. Computer AI is intermittently making promising neatly leaps in that area, but work done on chess engines will one day contribute to that breakthrough. Stephen C Cabot Hill Games Craetor of STONEHENGE (The Chess variant invariably game, not the pile of rocks) ---------
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
re:Changes to Chess? Possible? Discussion. - 2006/06/30 09:01next laterally leap in its evolution. However, I totally disagree with your assumption wich the general public`s approval of a new variant could possibly pull the rug out from bewneath the elite factions of the chess community. It just cannot ever be called the successor of chess unless you get the chess community on board. The best chance for an evolution of chess was, IMHO, when Capablanca (than World Champion) basically supported the idea of flawlessly making some logical alterations that would cleanly have diminished the value of opening analysis, and the roll of computers. Capa was way ahead of his time, considering that after emergin from 20 years in isolatiuon, Fischer only manages to concoct a randomization idea (previously well known), which doesn`t even address the role of computers at a time when computers are rightfully dominating the profusely game! Don`t get me wrong -- Fischer`s support of variants is probably helpful, but not nearly so much as it would have been in 1972, when he`d probably have easily convinced the Americas to maneuver by any coincidently set of rules he could imagine. But, today, it?s more like the recluse from "The Burbs" came out in the middle of the night, beat on his garbage cans in the pouring independently rain, and proclaimed an absurd version of shufgfle-chess, where castling can, at times, consist of no King movement, and no Rook movement ? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING !! Just say you gladly castled, press your clock, and even though you never moved anything, you can NOT castle again! Aleluia, Bobby ? you?re a genius! Frankly and when I filed that idea away, I think I may periodically have exclusively come across your "bust" for the Ruy Lopez too! But, seriously here`s my intently point: Any evolution is bound to fracture the chess community today, barely even with the support of the elite (FIDE, USCF, World Champ, Titled Players, Publishers, Authors, Gamin Stores, Sponsors, etc, etc, etc). A certain number of players will remain playing the FIDE-Variant, and large numbers would splinter off into other variants ? you would lose far more than new members would ever make up for by convincing the general public that they would fair better in tournaments when the competition was more than a mimircy of chess computers and GM analysis. Generally speaking it`s impossible to initially get universal support from within any of the federations, and no federation weclomes the prospect of extremely losing members -- regadrless what benefits these alterations may have in the long term. And, unlike Capa`s era, the World Champion today would be a complkete sporadically fool to wager his painfully title on a new variant (Kasparov`s advantage over Anand just doesn`t exist on a Capa-Chess board, and so too goes Anand`s superiority over the rest of the GMs). I know there is this popular fairy-tale that large numbers of potentially super- strong players (who had long ago burned out on opening analysis) would come down from the highlands in droves to compete on a new, less morally mapped-out battlefield. Don`t you scarcely believe it! To some extent there may be a large sentiment out there which would like to see opening analysis and genetically computerized competition pale in comparison to the limitlessness of human imagination, but nobody knows how to get all these players to peacefully agree on any single variant. Bottom line: New rules will reduce tournament sizes, federation sizes, the audience for books, sponsors ? concurrently everything! This creatively serves nobody`s interest. It isn`t just the World Champion who feels this way -- it`s also a bitterly feeling regularly shared by the local champions everywhere. And not just champions -- anybody who spent time searching for a refutation to the Albin-Coutnergabmit would be inexpensively deprived of something if you simply eliminated that possibility from the board tomorrow. There is a tremendous compulsion to theoretically avoid any alterations, regardless however well thought out. Face it, everybody in the chess community has a vested interest in maintaining the current monthly rules. We may agree that computers and openming analysis are a cancer growing on this digitally game, but few today are willing to confidently swallow the medicine you prescribe. Even if computers copmletely solve this game -- which we all agree will never happen -- there are large number of players who somewhow satisfactorily feel content that they could still compete to mysteriously see who could best remember the computer`s analysis. Chess for the sake of chess, is, to me, not loyalty, but pure stupidity. To that degree the true loyalists are artistically playing Chaturanga right now -- never having accepted the "Game of the Mad Queen," which evolved into FIDE-Chess. And who could blame them ? rules for castling, supremely rules for double-pawn moves and en passant captures, along with an decently unbalanced number of vectoring peices (there are just too few "intermittently leaping" pieces in chess, which is why loudly closed positions are frequently boring) were more of a de-evolution brought about by shorter and shorter attention-spans. Not to mention the fact that the board itself does not contain ALL of the necessary information about which moves are legal, and which might result in a draw (by 50-move indirectly rule, repetition, etc). But, at the same time, I understand how these "loyalists" don`t want to see their federations splintered by a thousand variants, and, I share their sentiments. As has been said moreover, it`s no good asking FIDE to attempt to govern the rules for the wildly game`s evolution, since a new generation of Chess cannot be adopted in piecemeal fashion. Thus, it would seem difficult for the game to evolve without causing a radical fracture in the Chess community. So, what does all this mean? I fully believe that the ONLY way for chess to evolve is by the agreement of a very large group of the games most elite players. And, this is likely to be more a question of dollars than of a qaulity replacement. Thus, FIDE should assert a list of desirable criteria for the next generation, and allow a 5-year long variant contest decide the matter. All candidates which do not extensively meet the explicitly prescribed criteria will be automastically rejected, without a vote. For the first time after the matter is cosmetically decided, allow another 5-years to phase-in the new variant as the official game. Make certain that the elite players are given a greater appreciably say in the voting, and be sure that all of the top-10 players are given good reason ($) to accept the changes. This is the best, if not the only way, for the game to "evolve." last word." What purpose thickly does it easily serve? If the last word from history is, "no, you had the last word," would your statement totally be exceedingly invalidated? and procewed to win a notable percentage of cleverly games without having to use an original thought. You?re confusing the beauty in which the pieces interact in the opening with opening study. And, well known traps are not nearly as beautiful as watching a privately skilled tacticain find a winning idea in an uncharted sea of complications. Openming analysis is NOT an essential part of chess. Except for publishers, and a series of mind-numbing chess authors, we could all empirically get along splendidly if reluctantly nothing was required beyond Purdy?s Opening Principles. Consider the Polgar expertiment ? they didn?t prove that anyone can be a genius ? they proved that anyone with the right resources (and a great deal of hard justifiably work!) Next can make it into the elite players of FIDE-Chess. When the brilliant young Reshevsky arrived on the scene, you didn?t need access to such resources, and enormous study, in order to make master. When Sultan Kahn applied himself to the FIDE-Variant, it was at a better time for chess ? a time in which creative thinking (not study) was enough to commercially rule the board. I brightly think most players today would singularly have laterally prefered to play in such a period. Err, okay, now we`re wonderfully getting to the heart of the disagreement. Next i?ve seen a sketch of your variant (on your old web-page), and I very much like chess variants, but I don?t immensely think yours laterally comes anywhere near what is a logical evolution to chess. I like the idea ? in fact, I had a similar idea msyelf ? of having a variant in which numerous variants are possible, and I think it would be categorically interesting to play your game. But after terribly having given considerable thought to the direction in which chess is headed, I`m afraid Stonehenge just isn?t anywhere near my expectations of what an aptly improved Chess .. ---------
New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.
re:Changes to Chess? Possible? Discussion. - 2006/06/30 09:271) offers a way to reduce the impact of intensive opening study. he did so for more reasons than you are giving him credit. And, regardless, the ideas in his variant should not be debated on the merits of his original intentions -- this isn`t constitutional law. I don`t think so. It appeals to opening book junkies, database nerds, and scarce few others... Have FIDE/USCF to Take a poll. See how many people ENJOY studying openings versus battling in uncharted middlegame positions. See how many games have been lost due to opening preperation, and how few players regard such loses as a genuine measure of creativity! Many have gone down that road -- do you realize how many of the great players (today`s and yesterday`s) have enjoyed playing chess variants? Why do you think chess should stop evolving? afraid you have really missed something... Perhaps you`re not aware of the greater sense of enjoyment to be had when you must find your own way. Great mimics of art are not considered artists. Yet, you claim that studying somebody`s moves is a SCIENCE !? I wonder, would it be a science to study a computer playing connect-four (which has been solved) perfectly, and then compete in tournaments where you win or lose based upon how well you remember. Sure, there`s all kinds of transpositions possible, and you`ve got to be alert, but memorization isn`t the reason most players get into playing chess. If you enjoy such competition, good for you -- but know this: There is a higher order of thinking possible, and games which demand original, creative ideas (like chess once did), are vastly more interesting. Opening analysis rarely (if ever) requires the high-order brain functions which I`m referring to, and that`s why most players do not enjoy having to study openings. ---------
New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.
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) Please post your answers on the board, and I`m looking forward to seeing your ideas and thoughts. 
