Magnus Carlsen opts out of the World Chess Championship 2022.

[Danioover9000]

@Ragib Ashraf

1 hour ago, Ragib Ashraf said:

Correct. Pretty much 100% of all GMs were introduced to chess very very early on. I don’t think a GM exists who started chess after age 10. 
 

Then they think they’re special cases or prodigies after memorizing the fuck out of openings and various computer moves from age 4. 
 

Leo’s right. Fuck chess. Fischer random is clearly the future as computers increasingly make this piece of shit “sport” obsolete. 

   Swing and a miss.

[Epikur]

Most sports are unhealthy and weird on a higher level. On a normal level they are quite fun.
I gave up on chess when I heard that it does not make one smarter. On the other hand I read it
is good for memory. Maybe I should try it again as I really want to better my memory.

 

Quote

 playing chess results in better brain function, improved memory and cognitive abilities, strategic thinking and attention improvement.

 

[Bobby_2021]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Classic chess is just too boring. They should all switch to Fisher Random.

This is true. But I can't get myself to accept this and play fisher random, which would get players to put their brains to full use instead of blitzing out computer moves.

 

7 hours ago, mr_engineer said:

The next thing you know, Leo starts calling the hierarchy of international masters, grandmasters, super-grandmasters and the rating-ladder in and of itself a cult. 

It is indeed a cult in many ways. Chess players are weird. The players moves pieces on a weird board and accepts certain configurations of pieces as winning and losing etc.

Astoundingly similar to ouija boards and stuff.

I got similar vibes when playing tournaments the first time. The people are quite distinct from the normal culture that it's so obvious that you now belong to some weird cult with it's own rules. 

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Chess pretends to be creative when it really isn't.

So true. More than half of the game is computer moves at the world championship level. 

[mr_engineer]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The only reason people care about any particular sport is because others around them do.

I have one more reason. 

It is that 'play' is fundamental to the nature of reality. When you are God, nothing is serious anymore, because nothing can threaten you. So, 'play' is fundamental to the nature of God! 

This is why we have a play-impulse. It is God creatively expressing itself in certain forms. 

Now, why sports and why not have this attitude towards work itself? The reason for that is that work is done for an outcome. So, the average human needs sports in order to access the part of them that will do something, that will express itself for no particular outcome. 

[Epikur]

30 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

I have one more reason. 

It is that 'play' is fundamental to the nature of reality. When you are God, nothing is serious anymore, because nothing can threaten you. So, 'play' is fundamental to the nature of God! 

This is why we have a play-impulse. It is God creatively expressing itself in certain forms. 

Now, why sports and why not have this attitude towards work itself? The reason for that is that work is done for an outcome. So, the average human needs sports in order to access the part of them that will do something, that will express itself for no particular outcome. 

Most sports are indirectly connected to an outcome. In some cases it is subconscious. It is no coincidence that chess figures are copied from real battlefield. That gives the motivation. So to some degree play is important for practicing for reality.

[Vrubel]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Really, entirely new board games need to be invented. Chess is such a stale game. It could be made much more interesting but people are just conformist about it. Chess pretends to be creative when it really isn't. And honestly it is sad to see grown ass men devoting their entire lives to something as unoriginal as chess. It's like watching a herd of sheep who think they are extremely smart. Reminds me of how science works. It's a stupid endeavor that only a very smart person would fall prey to.

This is basically the case with all sports.

When I was out of a job, playing chess was the only thing I was daily doing that I felt helped my brain stay challenged, sharp and engaged.

I also think chess played a big role in keeping my old grandpa relativly sharp

[ShardMare]

@Leo Gura exactly. they dont think that much at all.

When i was a kid playing chess would get me in different consciousness states but after a certain level you just stop.

Its boring. The same patterns show up. after 2000 elo or 1800 there is nothing more. Ok you can master the game but it doesnt require the thinking like it used to.

When im watching hikaru on twitch hes playing the same moves, same games somewhat.

Honestly just mixing up the whole starting pieces would be good.

Also what i dont like is that when you play against high rated players they look away from the table trying to remember the line they studied. It does not requires thinking

[Vrubel]

11 minutes ago, ShardMare said:

@Leo Gura 

When i was a kid playing chess would get me in different consciousness states

I have this fond childhood/teenage memory where I concentrated so hard during a chess game that it felt like my brain would shake out of my head. It was pure bliss after I won. I never concentrated so hard ever again in my life. 

[integral]

Creativity depends on the level your at. At 1000 a creative move looks like an elementary patterns to a 1500. Its the same all the way up. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by integral

[ShardMare]

@Vrubel yes exactly. U just concentrate so much. But at high levels how much do you concentrate after thousands of games?

[mr_engineer]

Just in case some of you didn't know, chess is not just about moving pieces and creating patterns. That's not the 'art' we're talking about here! Having different patterns on the board. 

There is a big strategic and intuitive element to it that only players above a certain level get. You can call it an acquired taste. And, it's about playing a human opponent and winning. I'd argue that it's even moreso about the fact that you're playing a human opponent than about the position in and of itself. Cuz humans make mistakes. 

And, about concentration - chess is one of the few activities that will make it so your left and right brains get exercised at the same time. 

[trenton]

As a chess player I would like to weigh in on this topic.

My journey began when I was 7. My grandpa taught me how to play. After beating me in 11 moves I was mad but pretended to be a good sport. I started practicing against a computer hoping to one day best him. After 30 tries I finally won against the computer and then I beat grandpa.

On 8/1/2022 at 10:35 AM, Danioover9000 said:

   Was it true that his parents replaced the toy ceiling with a chess board when he was just a baby? Apparently the few chess players who make it as 1% world class have had very early training of chess.

This is a discouraging truth I have to face as a chess player. World class players nowadays had a high level coach, potentially a grandmaster starting from a young age. I did not have the opportunity to get a coach until after college and I never played in any tournaments until I was in high school where I showed promising results. Maybe I would have been better off if my family wasn't full of drug addicts with a father who fled the state to avoid paying child support. This makes it much more difficult to become a grandmaster while it is easy to become a grandmaster if Carlsen has a father who is a decent coach or the polgar sisters have a father who is a decent coach and they all become grandmasters. I'm sure it's still possible, so I don't turn it into a limiting belief.

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Classic chess is just too boring. They should all switch to Fisher Random.

The argument here is that chess is mostly memorization. This is why Fischer quit chess. In my experience memorization is a huge part of chess in sharp openings. This happens because there is often a computer refutation to even the slightest mistake. One cannot afford any error And must memorize the moves. In quiet openings memorization is not as critical, but if you play them enough times then you will memorize the moves eventually.

As an amateur player I played against another amateur player in a recent tournament. We both memorized the first 20 moves of the Sicilian najdorf with 6.Bg5 and 10.Bd3. we played on the same level as the world champion up to that point. Meanwhile, players must also memorize some endgame theory. If the average chess game is about 40 moves, then in the case of sharp openings chess is at least 50% memorization and amateurs can easily play on a level equal to world champions.

To make matters worse, memorization remains important even for grandmasters. It started before computers with players like Alekhine making extensive opening preparation and it continued from there. Computers made it even more the case after Kasparov lost to deep blue. By the 1980's Kasparov, the world class calculator began to tell the importance of memorization in the poisoned pawn variation. Kasparov said "you know or you die." Embarrassingly, there was a world champion who said "I lost because I didn't leave the computer running long enough". I even had a lesson from grandmaster Anish Giri who is rated over 2700. In reference to the 18th black move g6, he said "I didn't even try to explain that move it just has to be memorized."

On the bright side, my little brother used to get very discouraged because he lost against me easily. I taught my brother how to theoretically force a draw with white against the najdorf. he just needed to memorize 23 moves to play on a level equal to grandmasters. At least he has a mild feeling of accomplishment from this. Sometimes we have fun mapping out theoretical draws.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. O-O-O Nbd7 10. g4 b5 11. Bxf6 Nxf6 12. g5 Nd7 13. f5 O-O 14. Qh5 b4 15. Rd3 bxc3 16. Rxc3 Qb6 17. Nc6 Bf6 18. e5 g6 19. Qh4 Bxe5 20. Ne7+ Kh8 21. fxg6 fxg6 22. Nxg6+ Kg8 23. Ne7+ Kh8 =

The basic strategy of the modern grandmaster is to prepare side variations And hope the opponent does not know the moves. If he can't figure it out over the board then you win. This is how chess games are determined before they begin. The best players in the world commonly have a gifted memory.

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Really, entirely new board games need to be invented. Chess is such a stale game. It could be made much more interesting but people are just conformist about it. Chess pretends to be creative when it really isn't. And honestly it is sad to see grown ass men devoting their entire lives to something as unoriginal as chess. It's like watching a herd of sheep who think they are extremely smart. Reminds me of how science works. It's a stupid endeavor that only a very smart person would fall prey to.

This is basically the case with all sports.

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course.

The only reason people care about any particular sport is because others around them do.

If you think about it, chess has been around for over a thousand years. Surely by now humanity can come up with better board games. Some games I like are shogi and go. I do dabble in other games occasionally because I like the radically different way of thinking required to play them well. I still mainly play chess to help me win tournaments.

I also got a game called cowboy checkers. When I first played cowboy checkers at first my sisters were playing better than me. They had an early advantage, but I turned it around in the middle game and won. By the time I played it a second time I had mapped out all kinds of patterns and quickly started outperforming everyone. By the third game  I started mapping out theoretical best moves, but by that point everybody had already quit.

I think laser chess is an interesting idea. Although the concept is interesting, the problem with board games in general is that all of them can be broken down by computer analysis sooner or later. Artificial intelligence has broken shogi and go already. One reason I like board games is because they minimize the amount of luck needed and mostly require skill, but nowadays the only skill seems to be memorization. It is the creativity skill that I enjoy the most, but it is often lacking. We need a board game that requires skill, but can't be broken so easily by computers. The idea behind Fischer random is that so long as the starting position is different every time it prevents in depth analysis. I'm sure this can be done with new board games as well.

Meanwhile, I don't mind a little bit of luck and playing with the hand you were dealt like In life. This uncertainty should make a skill based game more interesting.

Another idea I have is instead of chess simuls in which a grandmaster plays 30 people at once, we should have board game simuls. The player will be required to outperform 30 players in 30 different board games all at once. One board is chess, another shogi, another go, another go fish, another laser chess, and so on.

What new board games do you have in mind? Maybe tournaments should be based on random board games only announced at the tournament.

[Carl-Richard]

On 1.8.2022 at 0:20 PM, integral said:

Magnus has said many times that all he cares about is winning, it's not about art.

You could almost say the art of chess is to win.

[trenton]

6 hours ago, ShardMare said:

@Leo Gura exactly. they dont think that much at all.

When i was a kid playing chess would get me in different consciousness states but after a certain level you just stop.

Its boring. The same patterns show up. after 2000 elo or 1800 there is nothing more. Ok you can master the game but it doesnt require the thinking like it used to.

When im watching hikaru on twitch hes playing the same moves, same games somewhat.

Honestly just mixing up the whole starting pieces would be good.

Also what i dont like is that when you play against high rated players they look away from the table trying to remember the line they studied. It does not requires thinking

@ShardMare Yes I enjoy the different states of consciousness. This is what I enjoy the most about chess. I can enter a state of flow. I become so peaceful that nothing else in the universe bothers me. I love it. I am most able to achieve this state while in tournaments against strong players. I don't concentrate as much against weaker opponents.

It is this enhanced consciousness that creates a cognitive dissonance within me. Should I pursue consciousness or chess? I know how to pursue chess. It is less clear to me how to pursue consciousness, but I have a few ideas in mind that I'm trying instead of memorization.

[Extreme Z7]

21 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Really, entirely new board games need to be invented. Chess is such a stale game.

They already exist.

 

[mr_engineer]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

You could almost say the art of chess is to win.

The art of chess is to find the right move in an exceedingly complex, strategic battle. 

Chess is not something that has been solved by computers. Humans don't view it as a puzzle to be solved. So, the way we think in chess-positions, even the best of us, is very human! It's 'This is the position. That is my strategic objective. This is my move in that direction.' 

[MarkKol]

On 8/2/2022 at 8:09 AM, Leo Gura said:

Classic chess is just too boring. They should all switch to Fisher Random.

The only chess Leo plays is the one with God instead of the king, infinite moves as well. Otherwise it's just too boring 

[Danioover9000]

@Yali

22 hours ago, Yali said:

The only reason you care / haved cared about A LOT of things is because others told you to do so. You got straight As in gradeschool for that reason, and I wouldn't think to condem your sheepish behavior, I would congratulate you. Regardless, I think the vast majority of atheletes are passionate about what they do. They wouldn't be able to perform at such a high level if they weren't internally motivated. Many are grommed at a young age with heaps of external pressure, but to say ALL athletes are sheep is silly, and I think the best of the best aren't.

@Leo Gura

   True, although sometimes it can get pretty culty, but if you're having fun, and it's your passion, I sau it's ok to pursue.

   You guys don't realise something important: you all have 60-70 average life expectancy, and a decade can and sometimes does fly faster than you think, so you actually don't have time to over think or over analyse if sports is or isn't your passion. Just make the decision and get involved a bit if it is, and if your passion stays strong and true, then purpose is to make it your career then,  if not, then it's a good discovery of what your really passionate about. Life is like a game, like a gigantic RPG game where you explore your character and explore the environment and gain EXP.

   Most cases you can still quit the first 80% of your sports journey, and go do something else.

[Danioover9000]

@mr_engineer

7 hours ago, mr_engineer said:

The art of chess is to find the right move in an exceedingly complex, strategic battle. 

Chess is not something that has been solved by computers. Humans don't view it as a puzzle to be solved. So, the way we think in chess-positions, even the best of us, is very human! It's 'This is the position. That is my strategic objective. This is my move in that direction.' 

   I think similarly, but lately when I do play chess games it's about playing the weird move orders. That's where the fun is mainly in chess, making your opponent try to figure out your pet moves and pet theories of the chess board. At the higher level, it's starts becoming less competitive and more cooperative, as me and the opponent, together, must come up with a solution to solve these weird looking positions.

   Also, grind away with the chess puzzles too. It's more fuel for your mind to churn away intuition of chess moves.

[wpw]

On 02/08/2022 at 6:08 PM, Leo Gura said:

Of course.

The only reason people care about any particular sport is because others around them do.

You can learn a lot of spiritual lessons through pushing yourself in sport, often much much more, than overly cerebral circle jerks you start.