Magnus Carlsen is no longer World Chess Champ but he is still the highest rated, and best human Chess player on the planet so it is noteworthy when he loses a game of Chess.
The article begins: “As birthday presents go, defeating the world No. 1 and five-time world champion must rank up there among the best for chess grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh.”
Reading further one finds: “On his 17th birthday, the young Indian chess star beat Magnus Carlsen in the blitz event ahead of the Norway Chess tournament.”
I have been involved with Chess for over half a century and have no idea what constitutes the “blitz” time control used in the event because the writer does not mention the specific time limit used in the event. I am guessing “blitz” means three minutes for the entire game for both opponents. I could be wrong. “Back in the day “blitz” was just another word for “speed” Chess, which was also called “rapid transit.” Last century a “speed” Chess game was was also called “5 minute,” because each player had only five minutes on the clock for the entire game.
In an excellent article at Chessbase, which contains each and every game, one finds:
Herceg Novi 1970 and the Fischer Papers by André Schulz
4/8/2020 – 50 years ago today, on April 8, 1970, Herceg Novi in Yugoslavia hosted a blitz tournament that might well be the best blitz tournament of all time. Twelve of the world’s best players competed in a double round-robin. Bobby Fischer won with 19 out of 22. |
‘Back in the day’ some called speed Chess “Throw away games.” Games scores of speed Chess were rare because there were no electronic boards. The only games recorded were those played by the top Grandmasters, and a human had to actually write down the moves, called “taking notation.”
The problem is that now people who know little, if anything, about how Chess is played, write articles making it appear “blitz” Chess is Chess. There was no “blitz” in the title of the article, so for a casual reader it appears the young player defeated the highest rated Chess player on the planet, Magnus Carlsen in CHESS! One can imagine a hypothetical conversation between two people knowing little, if anything, about Chess, in which it is said, “Didja see where that young teenager defeated the top Chess player on the planet by blitzing him?”
“Yeah buddy, he blitzed him right offa the board!”
I have heard that “Any publicity is good publicity,” but this kind of thing only cheapens and devalues serious Chess, which is really all that matters.
Having had a very late start playing Chess at twenty I was never very good at “speed” Chess, which was five minutes for each player for the whole game. I therefore watched in amazement those who could play so well with very little time to cogitate. I was more like Rudy, who was “on a train to nowhere/Halfway down the line/He don’t wanna get there/But he needs time…”
I needed more time, and when playing fifteen minute Chess my strength went up exponentially. The trouble was that the speed demons did not want to play with that much time. There was a nice gentleman who was a habitué of the Atlanta Chess and Game Center, aka, the House of Pain, named Oddo Fox, who was a hairdresser greatly in demand. Oddo made it to lower class B, which means he had stopped dropping pieces and could give almost anyone a decent game. But when it came to speed Chess Oddo’s strength increased tremendously, probably because he played so much of speed Chess. I recall seeing a player in San Antonio way back in 1972 who was defeating very strong players at speed Chess, but who could no longer play over the board, classical type Chess because of a heart problem. I recall wondering why he could play fast Chess, but not slow Chess, when it seemed it should be the reverse, because the adrenaline really gets pumpin’ when playing any kind of “speed” Chess. The dude was drillin’ Grandmasters, who would get up from the board after losing shaking their heads.
The new Chess clocks with a “time added” feature have revolutionized the Royal Game. Organizers no long want to spend a whole weekend hosting “around the clock” Chess events. They are, though, pleased to spend and afternoon or evening hosting quick play events. What does this mean for the future of Chess? I have no idea. Life is change, and often not for better. Nevertheless, one must adapt to change because there is no alternative, other than to stop playing. Unfortunately, Chess has become the “go to” game for many of those with a short attention span, who will, and are, bringing the game down to their level.
Why, indeed, was my first thought, because I am one of those people. At the end of the article this was read: This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
That was the day before discovering the article at the Unexplained Mysteries website. I wrote “see” because I cannot actually “see” anything when my eyes are closed; all I see is black.
The article at The Conversation begins: “When asked to close their eyes and imagine a sunset, most people can bring to mind an image of the sun setting on the horizon. Some people may experience more vivid details, such as vibrant colours, while others may produce a mental image that is blurry or lacks detail. But recent research has found that some people don’t experience mental imagery at all.”
“This lack of mental imagery is called aphantasia. People with aphantasia are often surprised when they learn others see mental images in their minds. Many people with aphantasia have said they assumed others were speaking metaphorically when they described seeing something in their “mind’s eye.”
Because of Chess I knew some players could see a picture of the board, or many boards, when they play blindfold Chess, or any kind of Chess without sight of the board, for that matter. Some players are able to keep a mental picture of myriad games in their mind’s eye. I thought they were freaks. Turns out I am the freak because, “It is estimated that roughly four per cent of people have aphantasia.” (https://theconversation.com/were-just-starting-to-learn-more-about-aphantasia-the-inability-to-picture-things-with-the-minds-eye-202670)
After reading the article emails were sent to some of my friends in the Chess community asking the question, “When you are playing Chess can you visualize the board and pieces when you close your eyes? Can you move a piece and see the new position?”
Some did not understand the question but after replying to their reply they found understanding. Some elaborated, which I greatly appreciated. The answer that made me smile came from one of my all-time favorite people, The Discman (https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/the-discman/), who replied with one word: “Yes.” Not one person contacted said they could not visualize anything. One wanted more information, asking why I had asked “such a ridiculous question.” Although I have yet to inform anyone of why the question was asked, I did reply to the person, who, after reading, sent a very nice apology, using the word “profusely” prior to “sorry.” He was completely unaware, like most people, I suppose, that there are people who “draw a blank” when they close their eyes. “How the hell can you play Chess?” he asked. How indeed…
My roommate, the Legendary Georgia Ironman, was incredulous upon learning I could not visualize a Chess position, or a picture of my Mother. “That’s scary,” Tim said. He, too, questioned me, asking, “How do you analyze a position?” That is a difficult question to answer. Tim also asked about my being able to “see” a picture of my Mother. The only way for me to describe it is that I have a memory of her smiling, and a picture of one particular photo of her smiling, which are contained in my memory, but I cannot exactly ‘see’ the picture. It is more like something vague in a kinda, sorta nebulous way, I suppose one could say. “That’s frightening,” he said. “How is it possible you could win tournaments and become an Expert without being able to analyze in your head?” He also said, “I would not let anyone know you cannot visualize, Mike.”
I did not start playing Chess seriously until the age of twenty, and because of that fact I have always known there was a ceiling for me that would never be broken. Another friend questioned asked, “How is it possible you could have become an Expert without being able to see the board in your head?” How indeed… Now I know it was not just beginning late that held me back. After winning the Atlanta Chess Championship with a score of 5-0 in 1976 I discovered Backgammon, becoming Atlanta and Georgia Backgammon Champion. In Backgammon one need not visualize future positions because there are simply too many possibilities because the roll of the dice determines the next move. Although I still played tournament Chess occasionally, and did play two fifteen minute games with former Texas State Junior champ Steve Moffitt at Gammons, the only time any other game was seen played there, I was a shadow of the former player. After the Backgammon bubble burst and the boom ended I returned to tournament Chess, but although my rating increased, putting that much sought after crooked number (2) at the front of my rating, I was never again as strong a player as I had been before leaving Chess for Backgammon.
I decided to write this post because this is all new to me, and at my age, there is not much all that new to me now. I want to know how many other players cannot visualize. Therefore, I ask you to contact me at the email found at the AW website. I give my word that nothing written will ever be seen by anyone other than me, unless permission is given by those who contact me. In addition, I ask any and all who read this to share it with others. If the USCF forum was still operational I would ask someone to post it on the forum. If and when (or should that be when and if?) the forum is up again maybe some reader will put this up for discussion. Inquiring minds wanna know…
Here is a partial list of the articles, by date published, read in the last week:
Truth be told, this blog has more readers during the week than on the weekend, and even fewer readers on a holiday weekend. Therefore, this post will be up until after the holiday in order to, hopefully, reach more people.
Yet another article has appeared at the New York Times concerning the Chess Boom:
There was a time not too long ago when people who played Chess were thought to be “smart.” Chess was a serious game held in esteem by many people all over the planet. Unfortunately, as can be seen from the above picture, Chess has become a frivolity. Case in point:
Mr. Allebest, Chess.com’s C.E.O. “When I was a kid, chess was for nerds,” he said.Credit…Kim Raff for The New York Times
From the article:
“But by all accounts — from players, parents, teachers, website metrics — the game’s popularity has exploded.”
At least there is one honest and objective ‘player’ in the current ‘game’ and his name is Mike Klein.
“Mr. Klein has been traveling the country trying to convince schools to include chess in the curriculum. He argues that chess is good for the brain, but he concedes that the scientific studies he invokes, linking chess with better performance on standardized tests, “are pretty old or don’t have a good control group or are not a large enough sample size.”
28, another chess celebrity on Twitch and YouTube, earned a particular claim to fame: Once, while streaming a match, she blundered into losing her queen and reacted with an endearing, bemused shock that made the gaffe seem cool. To accidentally lose your queen is now known as the Botez Gambit.
Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi (“Nepo”) defeated China’s best, Ding A Liren (Ding A Ling), in one of the worst, most pitiful, games ever played in anything called a “World Chess Championship.” Much has, and will be written, about the fourth move of the game by Ding A Ling, 4. h3. There was only one other game found with the move having been played at 365Chess.com:
A victory by Ian Nepomniachtchi or Ding Liren would come with political overtones. But Magnus Carlsen’s absence is the talk of the final.
Ding Liren, left, and Ian Nepomniachtchi in 2019. They will face each other for the world championship starting Sunday.Credit…Koen Suyk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Anna Cramling is one of the most popular chess streamers online. Courtesy Madelene Belinki
With multiple women coming forward about their disturbing experiences in the chess world, including accusations of sexual misconduct by a grandmaster, the historic game is having its own #MeToo moment.
Popular online chess streamer Anna Cramling says she’s also had uncomfortable experiences during her career in the game.
The 20-year-old, who boasts almost 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, says being a woman in chess has sometimes led to unwanted comments by men that left her feeling uncomfortable and lonely during tournaments. Alejandro Ramirez at the 2016 Pan-Ams.
US Chess Federation investigates grandmaster following accusations of sexual misconduct
“I’ve had weird experiences in the chess world ever since I was a kid,” Cramling told CNN Sport.
“From adult men complimenting me at chess tournaments, to receiving DMs from my chess opponents saying things such as ‘I couldn’t stop looking at you’ during our chess game.
“This made me feel very uncomfortable, as a chess game typically takes four or five hours, so it felt weird knowing that someone so much older than me had been thinking about me in that way for so many hours.”
As the daughter of two grandmasters – her mother, Pia, was the fifth-ever female grandmaster and her father, Juan Manuel Bellón López, a five-time Spanish champion – chess has always played an important role in Cramling’s life.
Born in Spain, Cramling said she spent a lot of time traveling with her parents to tournaments around the world and eventually decided to develop her own skills.
She says she started taking chess more seriously after moving to Sweden with her family, studying the game for up to two hours every day.
“Even if I didn’t study every day, I constantly heard about chess, I constantly saw my parents analyzing their chess games, talking about chess,” she said.
According to Chess.com, Cramling reached a peak International Chess Federation (FIDE) rating of 2175 in 2018 which qualifies her as a Woman FIDE Master – the third-highest ranking for women, behind the woman grandmaster and the woman international master.
Since 2020, however, Cramling says her focus has been more on building her social media platforms. ‘Embarrassed and guilty’
Cramling recalls the moment when an arbiter questioned her outfit during a youth tournament that she was part of when she was 15.
It was summer, she said, so like many she was wearing shorts, and had gone over to speak to some friends she knew competing in the men’s tournament.
She said a tournament official approached her and told her she was “distracting all the male players.”
“I remember going back to the women’s section of the tournament and feeling so embarrassed and guilty that I couldn’t concentrate throughout my whole game – I just wanted to leave,” she said.
“One of the main issues has been that there are so many more guys than girls that play chess, and being a woman at a chess tournament can sometimes feel lonely.
“I have sometimes played in tournaments with over 300 participants, where only five have been women.
“I think that one of the reasons so few women compete is because the environment in chess tournaments can be very hostile to them, and I know that many, many women have stories like mine, or worse.”
Despite these incidents, Cramling still has an obvious passion for the game that is visible on her online platforms.
She regularly uploads videos, such as informal matches against grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, and streams her games online.
The world of chess streaming may be relatively new, but it certainly has an audience.
In addition to her growing YouTube channel, Cramling boasts 301,000 followers on Twitch and almost 150,000 on Instagram. She says that most of the feedback she receives online is friendly.
Cramling says her presence and subsequent following have grown monthly, and she was recently nominated for Best Chess Streamer at The Streamer Awards this year.
She’s come a long way since her first video, which she says she made using her then boyfriend’s laptop.
By chance, her decision to experiment with streaming coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw the world of online chess experience a boom in popularity – online platform Chess.com said earlier this year it had more than 102 million users signed up, a 238% increase from January 2020.
Cramling says she is grateful that her knowledge and enthusiasm for chess have found an audience.
“I never thought I was going to make a living out of this,” she said. “It was so fun in the beginning, and I still think it’s really fun.
“I think that also translates into streams, people see that I’m having fun and I think that’s the most important thing.
“The moment when it starts not being fun, I think it’s really hard to make good content.” What chess must do for women
Cramling says she wants her content to serve as more than just entertainment.
According to researcher David Smerdon, only 11% of FIDE-rated players and only 2% of grandmasters – the highest chess title awarded by the sport’s governing body – are women.
Just like her mother was her role model, Cramling now wants to inspire other women to play chess, but says tournaments must do their part.
She says she wants officials to be more engaged in monitoring behavior toward women and has called on them to take charge if an issue arises.
“Chess trainers, players and especially tournament officials should all set an example to make everyone feel welcome, no matter who they are. Chess is a game for everyone,” she said.
“I hope that, through my online presence, I can contribute in showing that women have a voice in chess and inspire more women to play.
“I know that chess tournaments will not forever look this way, we just need to get more women to play.
“The more we talk about how badly some women are treated at tournaments, and the more we listen to everyone’s stories, the more we are able to make a change.”
The fourth chapter, in which the author rips FIDE a new one several times, is the best part of the book, and it is a chapter every person involved with the Royal Game should read. The chapter opens with this paragraph:
“Technically, of course, FIDE is not a word at all, but a French acronym-Federation Internationale des Echecs-and by titling this essay in the manner that I did, I have sportingly given its defenders the opportunity to launch a counter-attack by being able to point to a minor inaccuracy on my part. Because it does, of course, have defenders-everyone does. Hitler had his defenders. Pol Pot had his defenders. Vladimir Putin currently finds himself surrounded by hordes of sycophantic defenders-indeed, the current President of FIDE was one of his most loyal supporters for deacdes. But I am getting ahead of myself.”
Several paragraphs follow in which the author takes FIDE to task for holding a World Chess Championship, writing, “It could have, in short, done away with the entire antiquated “world champion” idea right from its very beginning-a notion which has done so much to emphatically hold chess back in its forward sporting progress and lies at the heart of so many of its current concerns. But it didn’t.”
I do not know about that, because things were different ‘back in the day’. Mr. Burton is writing about a time prior to when he was BORN, for crying out loud. Who knows where the Royal Game would be if there had been no World Champion. Things have changed drastically this century, so the writer may (does?) have a point about the current irrelevance of the title. But still, unless one was alive, and playing Chess at the time, one cannot imagine how the WORLD, and not just the “Chess World”, was captivated by the Fischer vs Spassky match. As many have written, “It put Chess on the map.”
The author continues, “Whatever the intentions might have been, shortly after its creation FIDE immediately plunged into the businesses of promoting Chess Olympiads and managing the chess world championships, with varying results.”
There follows a history of Chess which was interesting reading considering the writer is new to Chess and has no preconceived notions about the past. For example, the author first hits a forehand smash prior to a backhanded shot: “Max Euwe’s subsequent eight year term as president from 1970-78, meanwhile, represents the unequivocal apex of FIDE leadership-which is admittedly a bit like being the most tasteful hotel on the Las Vegas Strip-but still.”
That is followed by this: “And then things just got completely ridiculous.’ Campomanes, a former Philippine national champion, was FIDE president from 1982-1995, overseeing what was widely considered to be a period of unprecedented corruption.”
There is that word “C” word again, which seems to go hand in hand with anything written about the unctuous Campomanes.
Campo “was followed by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, FIDE president from 1995-2018 and president of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia from 1993 to 2010. Ilyumzhinov has repeatedly claimed to have been abducted by aliens (“chess comes from space,” he adamantly maintains)…”
“Finally, Ilyumzhinov’s 23 year reign was followed in 2018 by the current FIDE president, Arkady Dvorkovich, an economist…”
“Despite having placed his demonstrably ambitious fingers in many pies throughout his life, Dvorkovich never seems to have manifested any particular interest in chess.”
Can you say, “Titular figurehead?” Campo was not the only FIDE president with greasy hands… How Chess has managed to succeed while being run by kooks and criminals is anybody’s guess. Then one reads this:
“Why on earth, you might be forgiven for interjecting at this point, is the international chess community so intent on portraying itself as such an irredeemable laughing stock? In a world replete with behind the scenes horse-trading and “gentleman’s agreements” that decide who should head global organizations, how can it be that the international chess federation, of all things, stands out as one of the most cavalierly corrupt of them all, nonchalantly lurching from one buffoon-like leadership situation to the next, decade after decade?
Well, because on the whole, nobody gives a damn.”
There’s more…
“And you can’t really blame them, of course. Concern that the world chess federation is so wantonly politicized and laughably incompetent is naturally going to fall exceptionally low on the global priority list, somewhere between cultural subsidies for korfball and doctoral scholarships in the philosophy of quantum theory. And the powers that be at FIDE-i.e. the Kremlin-are all too well aware of this.”
Then he unloads the other barrel:
“More significantly for our purposes, they are also well aware of the fact that the few people who do care about such issues-i.e. chess players-will not be able to do anything about it, given that, on the whole, chess players are, as a group, the most politically hopeless of all human beings.”
Why hold back when you are on a roll?
“Indeed, while I’ve long been convinced that becoming an excellent chess player is no more proof of superabundant intelligence than becoming an excellent pole vaulter, I’m beginning to suspect that chess players are somehow exceptionally disastrous to a statistically significant degree when it comes to appreciating matters of governance and social organization; and the better the chess player, on the whole, the more hopeless things are.”
“This is, I recognize, a curious sort of claim. Am I implying that those who become strong chess players are somehow a priori inclined towards such sociopolitical dysfunctionality? Or could it be that the very act of rigorously developing one’s chess skills produces a consequent inability in these domains-a sort of “inverse far transfer”?”
“I have no idea, and even less inclination to attempt to parse this particular correlation-causation conundrum. All I know is that the closer I examine the chess world, the more convinced I am that such a link exists.”
“Which brings me to Garry Kasparov.”
“By far the most dominant chess player of recent times, Kasparov’s remarkably long reign at the pinnacle of chess is second only to that of Emanuel Lasker. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest and most influential chess player in living memory, whose manifold contributions to chess, both over the board and through his extensive chess-related writings, are simply unparalleled.”
“And very much in keeping with the mooted correlation above, it turns out that his level of sociopolitical naivete and bombastic non-chess maladroitness is also unparalleled. Over the years Kasparov has vigorously portrayed himself as a knowledgeable spokesman for business leadership, historical scholarship, artificial intelligence, human rights, philanthropy, democracy and much more besides-the upshot of which goes a considerable distance towards convincing anyone with the slightest shred of genuine understanding of any of these issues that an essential requirement for elite chess dominance must be the ability to remove oneself, wholesale, from reality.”
Say what? After stickin’ and rippin’ the Royal Game to the point where there is blood all over the board (the tables, chairs, and floors) HB gives us “the bad news.” Which is:
“Nobody who is not directly competing in the Chess Olympiads knows or cares the slightest bit about them; and the world chess championships are a ridiculous anachronism that has well and truly outlived any possible value that it might have possessed. It’s very much time to grow up and move on from all of that.”
Indeed…why stop when you are on a roll?
“Let’s take the Chess Olympiads first. I have talked to enough professional chess players to know that these are unquestionably very popular events within the chess world, with many people spontaneously waxing on about the uniquely uplifting spirit of camaraderie that they’ve experienced while participating. But here’s the thing: if you want to make a living by pushing pieces of wood around a board, the only thing that matters is whether or not there are sufficient numbers of other people around who are willing to watch you do so, not how warm and fuzzy the experience makes you feel, or to what extent various self-important members of your national federation can take pleasure in schmoozing with you and your teammates.”
“This might well be, I appreciate, quite confusing to most modern-day professional players, many of whom-particularly women-have spent their lives feeling deeply beholden to the interests of their national federation. But it is long past time to wake up and smell the coffee: these federations are holding you back. Indeed, they are precisely the reason that FIDE has the “power” that it has at all.”
“So here, finally, is the good news-and to any chess-lover, from the Magnus Carlsen groupie to the would-be professional chess player, it is very good news indeed.”
“There is lots of money in chess. It has an enormously large international following and is poised to grow much, much more. And no, this is not because of Netflix or coronavirus pandemics or any of the nonsense that chess people are so often repeating to themselves, but because chess is one of the very few activities that can so easily and so naturally lend itself to modern communications technologies.”
“It’s not just that you can play chess online too-you can play backgammon online too-it’s that the rapid creation of a comprehensive online chess infrastructure has incomparably transformed the chess experience.”
There is a footnote, number 42, in which it is written: “I’m sorry to be picking so much on backgammon, and doubtless this will raise the hackles of any Pahlavi-speaking ancient Zoroastrians out there who are indignant that I am not being sufficiently respectful of its cosmological allegorical potential (which is certainly the case), but I can’t help feeling that it is a worthy point of comparison.”
The author continues: “Chess, through the internet, has come of age. It has not just “adjusted” to the new normal, or found a way to successfully harness the fruits of modern technology in order to better do what it was already doing: chess has been nothing less than comprehensively transformed by modern technology. And, needless to say, this state of affairs has absolutely nothing to do with anything that FIDE, or any national chess federation, has ever done.”
“So let me set the record straight. It is certainly true that devotees of chess have an alarming tendency to consistently make sweeping, rigidly hierarchical judgments about virtually all aspects of their fellow human beings based solely on their Elo rating, which I find particularly unpalatable. It is true, too, that they are particularly prone to confuse wishful thinking with actual evidence when it comes to anty chess-related issue, irrepressibly holding forth on how chess can cure ADHD and prevent Alzheimer’s in a way which seems to comprehensively annihilate any claim that acquiring chess competency is linked to the development of critical thinking skills. And it cannot be denied that chess players, even more than most of us, do not generally take kindly to having their flaws pointed out to them, and will reflexively resort to any criticism coming their way be promptly launching a bevy of ad hominem counter-attacks inevitably linked to the Elo rating of their perceived attacker (see above).”
“Yes, yes, yes,. But it is also most conspicuously the case that the chess world is peopled by an extremely large number of capable, passionately dedicated individuals who exhibit a deeply impressive sense of community spirit. I have never witnessed anything remotely like it.”
“You see it in the astonishing number of thoughtful, well-constructed, instructional chess videos on YouTube. (Footnote 74: In a world replete with “content creators” of every description, including thousands who post abominably-edited tutorial videos on how to edit videos, the chess word stands out as nothing less than a paragon of content excellence.) You see it in the spontaneous sharing of any and all chess-related resources. You see it on the thousands of chess newsgroups scattered throughout the internet. And you see it whenever you speak, as I have, to the many, many extremely kind and gracious people within the remarkably large and varied “chess ecosystem,” from chess teachers to chess organizers to the countless altruists using chess as an innovative means of personal empowerment and social change.”
“How such a uniquely supportive global environment could have possibly emerged from a frequently ego-destroying contest based on ancient Indian war practices is one of the world’s great mysteries. But emerge it most assuredly has.”
“Which makes it all the more exasperating when the likes of FIDE so blatantly hijack the interests of this extraordinary community while cynically purporting to serve its interests. Back in 1924, when FIDE adopted the motto Gens Una Sumus, it was likely an honest and accurate reflection of what those founders felt they were doing and on whose behalf they believed they were doing it. These days, however, it has an unquestionably Arbeit Macht Frei ring to it.”
“The key point, then, is that chess today is different-very, very different-from chess of 20 years ago. The rise of powerful, universally-available chess engines naturally represents one part of the transformation which has garnered the lion’s share of attention, but it is, in fact, a relatively minor part. By far the most dominant factor is that an extremely large and dedicated international community has emphatically embraced an entirely new communications technology that just happened to perfectly fit its needs.”
“Intriguingly, too, this has coherently played out in both a capitalist and non-for-profit context, with the rapid simultaneous development of the likes of chess.com and lichess.org. Both of these organizations, along with several more, are flourishing in the new age of chess. Both provide continually expanding, top-quality services to their loyal membership. And yet, business-wise, they are completely different: chess.com is unabashedly corporate, operating through advertising and paid subscriptions; lichess.org is unabashedly non-corporate, offering all of its content freely and with no advertising within an avowedly open-source framework while being supported through volunteer donations. In any other domain, the rivalry would be tense, cutthroat even. In the chess world, however, they exist together relatively harmoniously, with significant overlap in their international user base.”
“I have no idea to what extent the business ecosystem of online chess is a harbinger of things to come or a temporary aberration, but it is, most assuredly, quite different.”
“And the difference, I’m convinced, can be traced back to the uniqueness of the global chess community itself-and in particular its passion.”
“Passion is he vital common denominator throughout the international chess community, the secret sauce that has ripples through everyone, from the novice unexpectedly finding herself hooked on the game to the spontaneous panegyrics of the ageless Bruce Pandolfini, expounding upon the unparalleled beauty of Morphy’s “Opera Game.”
The review concludes with this: “In order to build a steady following, it’s important to create a full contextual environment for fans to follow along with the sport. If I’m a fan of major league baseball, for example, I know from the first days of spring training that the regular season consists of 162 games, and that my team has a good chance of making it to the postseason if it wins 90 of those games, while it will almost certainly make it if it wins 95. And if I’m a tennis fan, I know which tournaments count the most, both in terms of prestige and associated ranking points; and I can confidently tell you at any given moment who is the tenth best player in the world and who is #1.By following a particular sport, in other words, I’m doing much more than simply watching a ball being struck or people running around: I am entering a world.”
“Now consider chess. Suppose I want a clear sense of which players are ranked fifth and sixth in the world respectively and why. It’s far from clear.”
“What about which tournaments I should pay the most attention to? If I follow men’s chess, the situation seems to change almost hourly, presumably depending on whatever shady backroom deal happened to be agreed upon at some mediocre, overpriced Swiss tournament, (Footnote 54: It’s true: I don’t like Switzerland. I could tell you why, but this essay is long enough already. Instead, let’s just ask why Kirill Alekseenko officially the world’s #39 player, was involved in the 2020 Candidates Tournament? The answer, I’m afraid, is simply because he’s Russian.) while if I try to follow women’s chess, it’s somehow even worse. That’s no way to run a bingo parlor, let alone a sport with such tremendous international potential.”
“So why are things so terrible? Why, notwithstanding the outstanding global penetration of a tradition-rich, highly engaging activity that is passionately endorsed by millions of dedicated and capable people-and moreover, just so happens to fit perfectly within the modern technological sporting entertainment paradigm-is there simply nothing to hang on to for the incoming fan: no program, no schedule, no context whatsoever?”
“Well, because of FIDE, of course. Rather than letting someone both appropriate and competent run things, FIDE has customarily opted to “take control” of professional chess competitions in its inimitably corrupt, antediluvian fashion, thereby ensuring the continual repulsion of any would-be professional chess fan.”
“Not so!” protest the indignant FIDEstas. “There’s a wonderful international sporting culture associated with chess: there’s the World Championship and the Olympiads, both of which we run!”
“Well, that’s exactly my point.”
Whew…was that something, or what?What can I say? The Dude has a point.
Although there is much more, far much more, such as the last four chapters: 5. Watch Her Play; 6. Far Transfer; 7. Farther Transfer; and 8. Farthest Transfer, about which to write, the fact is that I have written enough for you to have a clue about the book, and therefore must truncate the review, and let you enjoy the latter chapters.
Driven By Curiosity
Howard Burton is a documentary filmmaker and author. He is also the founder of the award-winning multimedia initiative Ideas Roadshow and the editor of 120 books that are part of the Ideas Roadshow Conversations and Collections series. Howard holds a PhD in theoretical physics and an MA in philosophy and was the Founding Director of Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He lives in France. (https://howardburton.com/)
What follows are excerpts from a rather long, but interesting and informative, article from the Military Review, which was published prior to the pandemic.
We use metaphors and analogies to help us connect the dots and uncover hidden patterns of thought. They provide us with a way to go far beyond the meaning of words and are tools guiding the manner in which we think and act. Gen. David Perkins describes how the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command is preparing the Army for the future of warfare in “Big Picture, Not Details, Key When Eyeing Future.” Perkins uses metaphors as he compares warfare to checkers and chess:
Checkers and chess are played on the same style board but the games are far from similar. For a long time, the Army has designed forces based on a “checkers-based” world outlook. Today, we’re switching to a “chess-based” appreciation of the world. In this world, there are many paths to victory; few events allow for linear extrapolation. Victory no longer comes from wiping out an opponent’s pieces, but by removing all his options. By employing pieces with varying capabilities in a concerted manner, one creates multiple dilemmas that over time, erode a challenger’s will to continue.
Perkins is attempting to use an argument from analogy; however, this is a false analogy. He is attempting to compare the U.S. Army’s contemporary outlook on war to that of the board game checkers and compares the future outlook to chess. I argue that the U.S. military already designs forces using a chess-based outlook, not checkers. The U.S. military and Western way of war is a theoretical expression of Carl von Clausewitz
and Antoine-Henri Jomini. Taking a Clausewitzian approach is similar to chess, whereby you focus the energy of your forces on a center of gravity (COG). The fixation on COG has led to a number of costly disasters for the U.S. military. Examples include conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Examining the “Strange model” for conflicts in Iraq (1991 and 2003), Robert Dixon writes,
The fixation on the Republican Guard (operational COG) and Baghdad (the strategic COG) led leaders to ignore the emergence of something that did not fit their template. This is the true danger of the term: while looking for Clausewitz’s focal point (something central, the source of all power, the hub, etc.) leaders forget that they are not observing a static system. Dynamic systems do not have centers, and if they did it would constantly move.
Perkins is actually moving strategy back to the chess-based outlook used by Gen. William Westmoreland
in Vietnam. Evidence of this can be found in the new Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations. FM 3-0 signals a shift in military strategy and a focus back to that of large-scale ground combat operations against near-peer threats, where belligerents possess technology and capabilities similar to the U.S. military. Gen. Mark Milley,
Adversaries including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have spent nearly two decades studying the U.S. military’s strengths and vulnerabilities as it has fought terrorist groups. Those nations have invested in modernizing their forces and preparing them to exploit vulnerabilities developed while the United States focused on fighting insurgents.
The U.S. military, just as in chess, focuses on the centrality of physical force and maintaining an edge in capabilities; yet, it is weak in regards to strategy and stratagem. I argue that, to truly understand threats such as North Korea and China, we must shift from a chess-based approach to a wei-chi approach; this is where we will find a true understanding of complexity. Where chess is a game of power-based competition representing the American way of war, wei-chi is a skill-based game representing the Chinese way of war. Furthermore, an understanding of wei-chi will help us bridge the gap between how the U.S. Army perceives conflict and how our threats perceive conflict. It is only through a deep metaphorical understanding of this topic that we can uncover our hidden patterns of thought in war.
The U.S. military seeks a strategy for complex problems, and chess deals with complicated issues. Evidence of this is within the game itself. As we initiate a game of chess, we first start with all the pieces on the board; hence, we have the information, just not the correct answer. Compare this to the game of wei-chi, where we start a game with no pieces on the board; the information is out there somewhere, we just do not know what we are looking for.
Chess—Center of Gravity
In chess, the underlying philosophy is winning through decisive victory with a clear objective in capturing the enemy king and destroying enemy forces. Chess is a linear game with a simple center of gravity (COG)—the king. We initiate a game of chess with all the pieces on the board, seeking then to move forward linearly in a war of attrition. As described in table, chess is typically divided into three distinct phases: opening, middlegame, and endgame.
The strategic, operational, and tactical approaches identified in FM 3-0 resemble Westmoreland’s approach in Vietnam, where he used a strategy of attrition warfare. He sought victory by winning a head-to-head war through the collapse and defeat of the enemy by “grinding it down.” He saw the battlefield like a game of chess and wanted to destroy as many pieces as possible. Westmoreland was predictable and placed his pieces on the table. In contrast, the North Vietnamese did not.
Wei-Chi board showing a game in progress. (Photo courtesy of Goban1 via Wikipedia)
Westmoreland Strategy in Vietnam
“You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said the American colonel.
The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. “That may be so,” he replied, “but it is also irrelevant.”
—Conversation in Hanoi, April 1975
Wei-chi—Understanding North Korea and China
Figure 3. Chess Board and Maneuver Graphics (Chessboard graphic courtesy of ILA-boy via Wikimedia Commons; maneuver graphic from Field Manual 3-0, Operations; composite graphic by author)
Wei-chi (otherwise known as Go in Japan and Baduk in Korea) is an abstract strategy board game. Having its origin in China roughly four thousand years ago (making it the oldest board game in the world), it is an abstract way to examine the Chinese way of war and diplomacy. David Lai writes in Learning from the Stones: A Go Approach to Mastering China’s Strategic Concept, Shi,
The game board is conceived to be the earth. The board is square representing stability. The four corners represent the four seasons, indicating the cyclical change of time. The game pieces, the stones, are round, hence mobile. The spread of stones on the board reflect activities on earth. The shape of the stone engagements on the board is like the flow of water, an echo in Sun Tzu’s view that the positioning of troops be likened to water.
In The Protracted Game: A Wei-Chi Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy, Scott Boorman remarks, “The structure of the game [wei-chi] and in particular, its abstractness makes possible a depth of analogy which has no parallel in the relatively superficial comparisons of Western forms of military strategy to chess or poker.” Boorman compares wei-chi to the writings of Mao Tse-tung, for which Mao wrote in a 1938 essay, “Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War against Japan,”
Thus there are two forms of encirclement by the enemy forces and two forms of encirclement by our own—rather like a game of wei-chi. Campaigns and battles fought by the two sides resemble the capturing of each other’s pieces, and the establishment of strongholds by the enemy and of guerrilla base areas by us resembles moves to dominate spaces on the board. It is in the matter of dominating the spaces that the great strategic role of guerrilla base areas in the rear of the enemy is revealed.
Table 4. Characteristics and Descriptions of Wei-Chi (Descriptions from Scott Boorman, The Protracted Game; table by author)
Table 4 describes some of the characteristics of the game of wei-chi. A key definition Boorman provides us is the tactic of encirclement, which he describes as, “First, encirclement should be roughly outlined in such a manner that the enemy group cannot conduct an effective breakout to safety. Next, the encirclement should be tightened, and attempts made to prevent creation by the opponent of an invincible position.” Moreover, Boorman provides a description of successful strategies for wei-chi (see table 5).
Lastly, there is an old Chinese saying, “When you kill 10,000 enemy soldiers, you are likely to lose 3,000 lives as well.” If we enter into conflict with North Korea and/or China, we will discover (just as we did in the Korean War and the Vietnam War) that we will not be able to sustain a war of attrition with an enemy poised to throw an endless number of soldiers at us. We cannot plan for war by playing chess when our enemy is playing wei-chi. If we identify North Korea and China as our next threats, we must start doing our homework and start learning Chinese strategic thought. As Sun Tzu wrote, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/November-December-2018/Schwandt-Wei-Chi/
Why Life Is a Game of Chess (And Why It Helps to Know This)
By Darren Matthews @Darrenmmatthews
Life is a game of chess.
Right now, you’re thinking one of two thoughts. I know—or more likely, as you reflect on your knowledge of chess and try to form a comparison, is life really a game of chess?
A more significant observation comes when we look for games within our lives.
Competition riddles life. For example, schools are obsessed with league tables, and success is defined more by status than happiness, even though the later is far more important.
Games are everywhere.
Financial health is your credit score. Physical health is your BMI, and education success is judged on the grades you receive and so on.
Life is a game.
Even with this association, I find people end up in one of three positions.
Those who don’t see life as a game
Those who do, but lose
Those who win
Most people don’t see life as a game, let alone a chess game. These people rarely, if ever win. They see luck as a fluke.
It is a big problem.
When you see life as a game, things change.
Luck becomes seen as an opportunity. One you can prepare for and be ready to seize when it appears.
But I digress.
So, what does chess have to do with life? After all, they don’t strike an obvious relationship.
Chess offers insights few consider when seeking to understand life.
When we begin to see the comparison, our minds become open to new ways of living. Decisions take on a different dimension as the future begins to matter more than today.
Chess and life are the same.
Chess And Life
Is the game of life really comparable to chess?
To answer this, I want us to look closer at the game of chess. The classic board game requires many single piece moves. Most of them appear inconsequential.
But combine those moves with a strategy filled with tactical flair and a winner appears.
We believe our decisions embody the same single piece moves chess offers.
Most of our choices and actions appear unimportant to our futures so we act quickly. Our urge to move with haste is enforced by biases telling us we’re right, so we act. We fail to see the relationship between each decision and often it is only a matter of time before we end up losing.
Here lies the truth of this unusual comparison.
Author Allan Rufus said “Life is like a game of chess. To win you have to make a move. Knowing which move to make comes with insight and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are accumulated along the way. We become each and every piece within the game called life.”
The most important sentence is this: “Knowing which move to make comes with insight and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are accumulated along the way.”
Insight and knowledge are grasping the connections which exist unseen between every single decision you make and every consequence you create.
The same logic applies when playing chess.
Every single piece moves matters—and life is no different.
Our greatest challenge is that we miss this. Of course, this is compounded by a further problem.
Unfortunately there were problems with the transmission of the games from the Bay Area at lichess.com so the number of games not played is unknown. Here are a few that were able to be downloaded just to give you an idea of how they do not play Chess on the left coast:
Armchair Warrior 