My Obsession With Chess

http://www.scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/chess/chess.html

by gnosis • 17 years ago

88 42 17 years ago

DTrejo• 17 years ago

Powerful.

sho2• 17 years ago

And a powerful reminder of the profound differences between the minds of each and every one of us. I can no more understand this kind of obsession than a dog could understand calculus.

Not saying it's bad, mind you. Rather the opposite, I enjoyed it immensely. Just that .. I'm always struck by a sense of forboding by this kind of thing. I could never be like this, and the fact that someone is .. has implications I find unsettling. If such variation is possible - who's to say it's not the norm? Maybe being obsessed with chess is the norm and I was just dropped on my head one too many times as a baby or had alcohol in my blood-surrogate and I'm the sub-gamma who is too stupid to see the fascinating brilliance of chess.

gnosis6• 17 years ago

Unless you play chess a lot for years, it's hard to really see the beauty in it.

In that way, it's sort of like mathematics. Few adults would find arithmetic very beautiful, and if that's all they knew of math they might wonder what mathematicians see in mathematics. It takes years of dedication and practice to learn enough math to get to the higher levels, where one begins to see the beauty in math.

Chess is the same. Playing it after just learning the basics might be fun, but it's only once you've put in a significant investment of time in to the game that you begin to get a glimpse of its depth and beauty. Don't expect to see it after merely learning the rules and playing a few games.

That said, something has to keep you going until you learn enough chess to begin to really appreciate it. And that something, for most chess players, is mere enjoyment. For us it's just fun, and that's enough.

msluyter• 17 years ago

I have a theory that there's a certain addictive quality not just in chess but in a lot of cognitive pursuits. Anything that has certain payoff either in terms of winning the game, or even in simply seeing the solution (correct sequence) to a given position as a sort of "Aha!" moment.

amichail• 17 years ago

I don't understand the appeal of chess. Tactical play in this game is better suited for a computer than a human.

Computer-aided chess though might be interesting: the human would focus on strategy and get help for tactical play from a computer.

profquail• 17 years ago

You could always learn to play Go instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity#Complexities_of...

I'm not big into playing chess on a computer, but it is fun to play against a friend once in a while. Just because something is better suited for a computer doesn't mean that you can't enjoy doing it yourself.

xenophanes5• 17 years ago

But Go tactics are no less hard to calculate than chess tactics.

archon810• 17 years ago

You clearly never played chess longer than to figure out how the pieces move.

zasz• 17 years ago

Chess is an enjoyable game regardless of what other entities are better than you at it. It is a recreational activity first and intellectual object of interest second. Really, should I give up drawing just because I'll never be as good as da Vinci?

derefr• 17 years ago

Once you're good enough, the tactics melt away and you just think about the strategy. This is true with any competitive game. It takes a long time, and a lot of effort[1] to get to the level where you can have this "fairness epiphany", though. Strangely enough, a good documentary on the process exists in the form of a manga/anime series, Hikaru no Go, following a Go player as he is first guided through games, then plays, struggling, himself, until he finally has the epiphany and realizes he needs no help from a computer (or, in this case, ancient spirit) to make him better.

[1] http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

jibiki• 17 years ago

> Once you're good enough, the tactics melt away and you just think about the strategy.

That just isn't true. Remember the famous game where Kramnik got mated by the computer? It is impossible to play chess without ever searching the game tree. Different players search it to different extents, but there's nobody who is so good that they know all the tactics in a game by instinct.

By the way, thanks for linking to that site. I saw that "playing to win" article a while ago, and was really impressed by it, but then I forgot the title.

gnosis6• 17 years ago

One of the fashions among chess players in these days of computer dominance is to talk about how chess is actually all tactics (or, as they like to put it, all "calculation").

sho2• 17 years ago

Upvoted for recommending the wonderful Hikaru no Go.

flipper3• 17 years ago

Bobby Fischer was widely attributed as saying he played chess because he liked to crush the other guy's ego. That's really the attraction of it - beating someone up with your mind.

gnosis6• 17 years ago

Bobby Fischer was not exactly your typical chess player. Even other chess players generally consider Fischer to be immature, obnoxious, offensive, and mentally ill.

I would not use Fischer as a gauge for anything but genius and madness.

There are literally millions of chess players, and the source of their enjoyment of chess likely varies from player to player as it does for any other human activity.

jah• 17 years ago

In my opinion finding a (sound) tactical chess combination is comparable to solving a mathematical proof. Chess tactics are logical, artistically beautiful, and devastatingly decisive. To gain an appreciation for them, try solving the problem below (it's a classic). Every move white makes has a specific purpose - no subjective, wishy-washy strategies here - just absolute truth on the chessboard.

http://chesstr.com/problems/10

KC8ZKF2• 17 years ago

This is the idea of correspondence chess. In many tournaments, computer aid is allowed for this reason. See the ICCF, which runs many sanctioned web-based chess tournamnets where computer aid is allowed. http://www.iccf-webchess.com/

spot3• 17 years ago

good thing he didn't discover "go" or else we never would have had zot! or understanding comics!

zeynel1• 17 years ago

Beautiful drawings.

kqr22• 17 years ago

This brings to mind, Arthur C. Clarke's ultra short story Quarantine.

http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/learn/html/e.8.2.html

xenophanes5• 17 years ago

I was wondering how good he is, since he never mentions a rating, but he doesn't seem to exist in the US Chess Federation database. Odd.

http://main.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,...

gsastry• 17 years ago

In the comic, he said his rating hovers between class B and class C. So 1600-1700 ucsf ish?

xenophanes5• 17 years ago

Oh, missed that. B is 1600-1800. C is 1400-1600.

kqr22• 17 years ago

Scott McCloud also has an interesting TED talk in which he explores making non-sequential comics:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.h...

He also mentions his father's blindness. Although it probably wasn't true, Scott's father believed it was caused by looking at a solar eclipse.

sireat2• 17 years ago

Chess is a horrible mistress to have, I keep coming back to chess again and again. At the same time, chess can bring such highs. This high comes not only from winning, but also from a well played game(even lost one).

Sad thing is, unless you get most of your 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" at chess from the ages of 10-18, you'll never get any good. I am 2400 FIDE, but I missed ages 14-16, doing other things. The neural pathways in my brain are hard wired now, the basic tactical sense will never improve substantially, no matter how long I practice. I am yet to find a counterexample, that is someone who started after age 25 and became a GM.

KC8ZKF2• 17 years ago

What do you mean by "any good?" I know a lot of twenty five year-olds who would be thrilled to achieve a 2000 FIDE rating.

sireat2• 17 years ago

I might have meant "real good", that is GM strength and up (2500+). However, if we define "any good" as 2000, then, as you said, even that level is hard to reach at a later age.

My point is as follows: almost anyone can reach good strength in chess if they put a lot of deliberate practice at the early age(case in point, Polgar sisters). Conversely, at a later age, it is much, much harder to progress.

Put a 25 year old on an island for 20 years with only a chess computer and chess literature, and they are unlikely to make more progress that a 12 year old would make in 2 years.

Chess is not unique in this regard, in fact, many passtimes/sports/hobbies have the same limitation. However, I think chessplayers often prefer to ignore this facet of chess.

lazyant• 17 years ago

I used to play chess and I still like it. I thought when I had a child I would teach him or her how to play early on.

Then I read "In search of Bobby Fisher" and "the chess artist" and I did a 180; I don't want my kid to become obsessed with chess.

MaysonL• 17 years ago

My parents came to the same conclusion when I was about 5 when Bobby was getting a lot of attention as a real brat of a prodigy. My father had taught me to play, and after a few months, I beat him. Never played me again. Took me a long time to understand what had happened, and longer to forgive him.

My Obsession With Chess

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