feeling sorry for chess players

today i went to study GO in a cafe where many chessplayers play.

when i finished studying, a friend call me to play racketball and he will be picking me up like in 3o minutes.

so what can i do in those 3o minutes...let me play some chess.

well, while playing with these rude fellow, i notice that many chess players gather around so i took the opportunity to ask if anyone play GO...nobody play and didnt know the game.

i tried to explain and one guy ask me if the game has any strategy, i told them that GO has strategy and more stategy than chess...

ooooops!!!

big mistake!!!

i thought they were going to linched me.

they refuse to believe that there exist another game with more strategy and difficulty than chess. i found that funny because how cuold they make that statement if they dont even know what GO IS?

i felt sorry for them.

chess is a good game, i still enjoy playing. it relaxes me. now i play chess and dont try to think hard...i even forgotten so many openings i studied...even my favorite; the latvian gambit.

but when i discover GO i dont seem to take seriously chess.

i see all those chess people in the cafe and i feel sorry for them that they are missing something so beatiful as GO.

im not saying that they should give up chess but to try something new and different.

that is why i like LG...i found people that can enjoy a good game of GO or chess and still enjoy a game like backgammon without making judgements about it.

Go is a fine game. Too tough for moi. I'll stick with chess :)

Chess is a game for people of all ages. You can learn to play at any age and in chess, unlike in many other sports, you don't ever have to retire. Age is also not a factor when you're looking for an opponent-young can play old and old can play young. Chess develops memory.

The chess theory is complicated and many players memorize different opening variations. You will also learn to recognize various patterns and remember lengthy variations. Chess improves concentration. During the game you are focused on only one main goal-to checkmate and become the victor.

§ Chess develops logical thinking. Chess requires some understanding of logical strategy. For example, you will know that it is important to bring your pieces out into the game at the beginning, to keep your king safe at all times, not to make big weaknesses in your position and not to blunder your pieces away for free. (Although you will find yourself doing that occasionally through your chess career. Mistakes are inevitable and chess, like life, is a never-ending learning process.)

§ Chess promotes imagination and creativity. It encourages you to be inventive. There are an indefinite amount of beautiful combinations yet to be constructed.

§ Chess teaches independence. You are forced to make important decisions influenced only by your own judgment.

§ Chess develops the capability to predict and foresee consequences of actions. It teaches you to look both ways before crossing the street.

§ Chess inspires self-motivation. It encourages the search of the best move, the best plan, and the most beautiful continuation out of the endless possibilities. It encourages the everlasting aim towards progress, always steering to ignite the flame of victory.

§ Chess shows that success rewards hard work. The more you practice, the better you'll become. You should be ready to lose and learn from your mistakes. One of the greatest players ever, Capablanca said, "You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win. You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player."

§ Chess and Science. Chess develops the scientific way of thinking. While playing, you generate numerous variations in your mind. You explore new ideas, try to predict their outcomes and interpret surprising revelations. You decide on a hypothesis, and then you make your move and test it.

§ Chess and Technology. What do chess players do during the game? Just like computers they engage in a search for the better move in a limited amount of time. What are you doing right now? You are using a computer as a tool for learning.

§ Chess and Mathematics. You don't have to be a genius to figure this one out. Chess involves an infinite number of calculations, anything from counting the number of attackers and defenders in the event of a simple exchange to calculating lengthy continuations. And you use your head to calculate, not some little machine.

§ Chess and Research. There are millions of chess resources out there for every aspect of the game. You can even collect your own chess library. In life, is it important to know how to find, organize and use boundless amounts of information. Chess gives you a perfect example and opportunity to do just that.

§ Chess and Art. In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia chess is defined as "an art appearing in the form of a game." If you thought you could never be an artist, chess proves you wrong. Chess enables the artist hiding within you to come out. Your imagination will run wild with endless possibilities on the 64 squares. You will paint pictures in your mind of ideal positions and perfect outposts for your soldiers. As a chess artist you will have an original style and personality.

§ Chess and Psychology. Chess is a test of patience, nerves, will power and concentration. It enhances your ability to interact with other people. It tests your sportsmanship in a competitive environment.

§ Chess improves schoolwork and grades. Numerous studies have proven that kids obtain a higher reading level, math level and a greater learning ability overall as a result of playing chess. For all those reasons mentioned above and more, chess playing kids do better at school and therefore have a better chance to succeed in life.

§ Chess opens up the world for you. You don't need to be a high ranked player to enter big important competitions. Even tournaments such as the US Open and the World Open welcome players of all strengths. Chess provides you with plenty of opportunities to travel not only all around the country but also around the world. Chess is a universal language and you can communicate with anyone over the checkered plain.

§ Chess enables you to meet many interesting people. You will make life-long friendships with people you meet through chess.

§ Chess is cheap. You don't need big fancy equipment to play chess. In fact, all you may need is your computer! (And we really hope you have one of those, or else something fishy is going on here.) It is also good to have a chess set at home to practice with family members, to take to a friend's house or even to your local neighborhood park to get everyone interested in the game.

§ CHESS IS FUN! Dude, this isn't just another one of those board games. No chess game ever repeats itself, which means you create more and more new ideas each game. It never gets boring. You always have so much to look forward to. Every game you are the general of an army and you alone decide the destiny of your soldiers. You can sacrifice them, trade them, pin them, fork them, lose them, defend them, or order them to break through any barriers and surround the enemy king. You've got the power! To summarize everything in three little words-Chess is Everything!

YYLZZ

yes, i agree...now multiply all those things by a 1,ooo to GO.

You've got the power! To summarize everything in three little words-Chess is Everything!

yes, i once thought that...then GO came to my life.

The case, then, is exceptionally strong for using chess to develop our children’s minds and help them cope with the growing complexities and demands of a globalising world. More and more schools around the world are recognising the value of chess, with instruction now becoming part of standard curriculums. It’s of course just a game. Yet it has fascinated and challenged some of the greatest minds of the last century, sparking enough books about how to play to fill an entire library.

Chess is an especially effective teaching tool. It can equally challenge the minds of girls and boys, gifted and average, athletic and non-athletic, rich and poor. It can teach children the importance of planning and the consequences of decisions. It can further teach how to concentrate, how to win and lose gracefully, how to think logically and efficiently, and how to make tough and abstract decisions (Seymour and Norwood 1993). At more advanced levels it can teach flexible planning since playing well requires a coherent plan, yet not one that is rigidly followed regardless of the opponent’s response. Chess can also build confidence and self-esteem without overinflating egos, as some losses are inevitable, even for world champions.

Chess can potentially help teach underachieving gifted children how to study, perhaps even leaving them with a passion for learning. Chess tournaments can, moreover, provide a natural setting for a gifted child to interact with other children of all ages, as many tournaments are not divided by age but by ability (unlike most school activities and many other sports). It’s common to see a six-year-old playing a twelve-year-old, or a ten-year-old playing a seventeen-year-old. Young players can also perform remarkably well in adult chess tournaments. In 1999-2000 in Australia, for example, a thirteen-year-old won the New South Wales championship, a fourteen-year-old won the South Australian championship, a fifteen-year-old won the Queensland championship, and a thirteen-year-old tied for second in the Australian championship.

Studying chess systematically has also been shown to raise students’ IQ scores, academic exam scores (Dullea 1982; Palm 1990; Ferguson 2000, p. 3), as well as strengthen mathematical, language, and reading skills (Margulies 1991; Liptrap 1998; Ferguson 2000, pp. 3-4). Tournament chess games, which involve clocks to limit the total time each player can use, are also a fun way to provide practice at making fast and accurate decisions under pressure, a skill that can help students cope with the similar pressures of school exams. This is also a fun way to practise how to put the mind into high gear, where intense concentration increases alertness, efficiency of thought processes, and ultimately mental performance.

Perhaps most importantly chess is a fun way to teach children how to think and solve an ever-changing and diverse array of difficult problems. With millions of possibilities in every game, players must continually face new positions and new problems. They cannot solve these using a simple formula or relying on memorised answers. Instead, they must analyse and calculate, relying on general principles and patterns along with a dose of creativity and originality – a skill that increasingly mirrors what students must confront in their everyday schoolwork.

In June 1999 the International Olympic Committee officially recognized chess as a sport. This is welcome news for the world’s six million registered chess players as well as countless more unregistered players. With such recognition hopefully even more of our children will turn to chess, striving for sporting dreams that will leave them smarter, and ultimately able to cope better in the real world of perpetual problems.

yes, you are right...is more shameful that GO isnt well known in our occidental countries so that it can developed more fully our young minds.

\_\_\_____________

i remember when i started studying GO i found interesting the saying;

"chess is a battle but GO is a war".

now that im understanding some fundamentals on GO i understand now what it meant.

But there is one striking difference to these other popular games. While learning to play almost any game can help build self-esteem and confidence, chess is one of the few that fully exercises our minds for peace and harmony.

Many of us could probably use this exercise, although it may be a bit late for some. (At least for those of us old enough to read an article like this voluntarily!) It’s not, however, too late for our children.

Chess is one of the most powerful educational tools available to strengthen a child’s mind. It’s fairly easy to learn how to play. Most six or seven year olds can follow the basic rules. Some kids as young as four or five can play. Like learning a language or music an early start can help a child become more proficient. Whatever a child’s age, however, chess can enhance concentration, patience, and perseverance, as well as develop creativity, intuition, memory, and most importantly, the ability to analyse and deduce from a set of general principles, learning to make tough decisions and solve problems flexibly.

i remember when i studied chess and reading from nimzovich's classic; "my system" that it was ok to make "waiting moves" when a player doesnt have much to do...

hahahhha...

now i found that so childish comparing to GO when EVERY moves counts because when u play, that stone will be looking at u the entire game (unless is capture)

The statement that go is a game with more strategy and difficulty than chess, can easily be refuted by an "experiment" which took place in Amsterdam over 40 years ago.

Around 1960-61 a chessplayer had brought his go set to the chess club and the players there, who had never before played the game, became intrigued with it and started playing go games among them. After two weeks of go play, these absolute beginners challenged the Amsterdam Go Club, where Holland's best go players gathered (they could be called the Dutch National Go team without exaggeration).

The match was won 9-1 by the chessplayers. Soon afterwards a chess player became the first dan player of Holland. And later it was a chessplayer who was Go Champion of Holland for many years.

If strong chess players can become the strongest go players of their country overnight, it can only be because there aren't many go strategies to be learnt as compared to chess, and because go is a much less difficult game than chess.

The "experiment" was described by Tim Krabbe in his diary on his website:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/diary_11.htm

Look for item number 214: "30 May 2003: Chess and go"

That chess has more strategy, more theory and more complexity, more beauty, etc., than go, can also be derived from the fact that there exist more chess books than books on any of the other mind sports combined; you can even throw in theoretical works on soccer, athletics,...

Does there exist a go move, played near the end of a game, which has been discussed by the leading go players for 150 years, without them being able to arrive at a final conclusion?

A few days or weeks ago, the position at White's 19th move in the game Anderssen-Dufresne, Berlin 1852, was again discussed by Kasparov and his readers, at the ChessBase website. Earlier Kasparov had discussed the same position in one of his books. The game itself has been published in thousands of books and magazine articles, and the position itself has been discussed by Lasker, Reti, Euwe, and many other of the best players in the history of Chess.

A position like the above-mentioned, is not exceptional: chess literature abounds in such discussions and analyses.

wow, i found so strange that those "incredible" chess players who manage to do so many extraordinary things playing GO "overnight" didnt continue to play and winning the thousands of money in the japanese league?

easy money for them, no?

how much is the prize for winning the honinbo title?

hahahahahah...even kasparov wouldnt mind to get some rest from chess and winning that "easy" "overnight" game of GO and the prices...

hahahahahahah

There is nothing to laugh about. Chessplayer Tan was Holland's first dan player, and chessplayer Rebattu was Dutch Go Champion seven times between 1963 and 1977.

Go is neither studied nor played at the same level as chess. I'd like to see a several-thousand page treatise on go openings; ditto for go "endgames", which are only endgames by name, not by their nature.

Chess is definitely one of the most fascinating games over GO, ever invented and played by human beings, and it is also a wonderful field for testing and developing one’s problem-solving abilities, although it is far from an accurate or thorough measure of one’s talent in this regard. For life has many more possibilities, threats, opportunities, and options than the chessboard.

One chess story that I particularly like deals with a man who won a chess game even before it began! He asked his opponent one or more questions, evidencing uncertainty about how the pieces moved, and then proceeded to whip him! Furious, at the match’s end, his opponent demanded: "What’s going on? I thought you told me that you barely knew how to play chess!" Whereupon, the trickster-player replied: "That was my first move!" Pretty clever, though hardly noble, or recommended. After all, brains really shouldn’t part company with basic rules of human decency! ("The tool’s to be used, not abused…")

Besides this, there are many tales of brilliant problem-solving in chess, though most of them require a respectable knowledge of the game in order to make sense, and are, in any case, quite difficult to convey without the use of chess notation, and accompanying positional diagrams. One of my favorite games - and unfortunately I do not remember the players involved, though they were both top-of-the-line grandmasters - involved a miraculous escape from defeat. For those unfamiliar with the game, "stalemate" is a term used to designate certain conditions which can produce a "draw", or "tie." In the world of high-level chess competition, draws ( ½ point) play a major role in defining the winners of tournaments, as outright wins (1 point) are, many times, hard to come by. One way that a stalemate can occur is when one player is left with no move on the board, except for one which would place his King in "check." "Check", of course, means "exposed to direct enemy attack." As most of us know, even those who are only peripherally familiar with chess, if the enemy player makes a move that puts one’s King into check, and one can’t move "out of check", it’s called "Checkmate", and one loses. But if one is not in check to begin with, and it is one’s own move, and one has no other move than to place one’s King in check, then the game is not lost. Then, it does not count as a checkmate, but as a stalemate. (Being in a situation in which no further action is possible without violating the rules of the game, the game is automatically ended, and declared a tie!) Why this slightly technical explanation? Observe!

In the game in question, a renowned grandmaster was in desperate straits, hemmed in by his brilliant rival, and now short on pieces with which to continue the struggle. His position was quite hopeless, and he could have resigned at this point, which is always the respectable thing to do, in chess, when defeat is imminent. However, quite unexpectedly, this grandmaster saw something that his confident opponent did not yet notice. His King was boxed in by enemy threats, and could not move anywhere without being put into check. However, the condition was not yet a stalemate, because the embattled grandmaster did have a couple of other pieces on the board which were still mobile. With eyes and mind like a hawk, he quickly realized that if he could either immobilize these pieces, or get rid of them, leaving himself with no mobile piece but his trapped King, which was forbidden by the rules to move into check, then he could produce a stalemate, and snatch a tie from the clutches of certain defeat! Scouring the board for options, he realized that his salvation lay in staging a "suicidal attack" with his remaining mobile pieces, which is what he then proceeded to do. Launching a series of daring "sacrifices", he hurled his remaining mobile pieces into hopeless attacks against the well-guarded enemy position, compelling the enemy to take them, however, in order to avoid the danger of checkmate. Under normal circumstances, the attacks would have been foolish blunders - but under these circumstances, they were exactly what he needed. The enemy was forced to eliminate the last vestiges of his mobility, leaving him with only his penned-up, King, who was not allowed to move into check. As it was his move, and there was no legal move left for him to make, the rules automatically dictated a stalemate: a tie! From losing badly, he had suddenly managed to salvage a draw, and to prolong his chances for a successful outcome in the tournament!

Again, this example shows the importance of alloying logic with imagination, and of preserving the ability to look at old positions from new angles. In this case, a tie, less disastrous than a loss, was really a victory. Reality was not superseded, or escaped, but better results were, nonetheless, attained from reality and GO, than had previously been thought possible.

Kptd

Guys,

You're mad to discuss the differences of games this way. Both games are really fine and very challenging. Respect those, who don't deal Your taste.

Stalemate:

You were doubtless referring to the game Bird-Englisch, London 1883, in which Black gave up Queen, two Rooks, Knight and three Pawns, in order to reach stalemate.

I read Tim Krabbe's story already (I think it was in the Dutch Go magazine, even), and I think it tells us more about the state of Dutch Go than about the game itself.

You can be sure that even Kasparov will never beat Go professionals in Korea or Japan, simply because of the time they spend studying the game exluding everything else; the same goes the other way, of course - there will never be a pro Go player who beats the top Chess players.

Go players might go (hah!) over the top when they're comparing their game to others (e.g. the famous "if aliens play game, they play Go" quote), but Sakiko is doing the same for Chess. I don't doubt the "thousands of pages long treatise" about Go openings HAVE been written - but we can't read them because they're in Japanese, Korean, Chinese...

(and yes, the endgame of Go is a lot less interesting then in Chess - that's why it's hardly ever played even on higher amateur levels. But there's plenty excitement before that.)

I think pitirre's point has been proven - re:

" _ooooops!!!

big mistake!!!

i thought they were going to linched me._" :-)

(But probably also an exaggeration to say that go has 1000 times the strategy (and everything else) of chess.)

FYI:

Game Game Tree Complexity (Logs base 10)

Connect Four 21

Checkers 31

Lines of Action 56

Othello 58

Chess 123

Backgammon 144

Xiangqi 150

Shogi 226

Go 360

Game-tree complexity is normally defined as the product of the games average branching factor and the number of plies (half-moves) in an average game. Games with a higher game-tree complexity are considered "harder" in game theory.

Chess, Shogi & Xiangqi are all originated from the 6th century Indian game of Chaturanga.

Go is originated from China around 2000 BC.

Personally, I do play all 4 games (Chess, Go, Shogi & Xiangqi), but no way I am expert in anyone. I think that all of them are good tool to train our mind, and all points someone list about Chess do also apply to all others. In China, we also use Go & Xiangqi to develop our children's minds, and you will surprise that the high number of girl is playing Shogi in Japan. Also, there are lot of great story & discussion about Go.

chess, shogi & xiangqi are battle but GO is a war!! this is very true after you learn the games.

Lastly, I am actually an Contract Bridge player. I think Bridge is even better, mainly due to hiden information & partnership nature of the game. :P

Enjoy your favour game & have fun.

the reason that there isnt much literature of GO is because many of them are written in japanese, korean or chinese...that is why you dont see too much in the west.

by the way, u know how i got to GO? when after looking for other board-games in books most of all references say that GO is the most intelectual game of all time...when i read that, i said to myself; "i got to know this game"!!!

and u know what...it is.

it is so much difficult than chess that every game of GO consist of 4 games of chess at once!!!

i think is more but that is the general saying.

but like i said that is my opinion and of many of researchers of games and cognitive theories...

I wonder - how can you say that one game is more "difficult" than another? If you were to play against me, I believe you would find that GO would be a complete walkover, chess would be easy (or at least not very difficult), and Hex would be difficult.

Unless you are a world champion, undefeated in every game, I say there is still much to be learnt from the game in question.

I will not participate in the debate on which game is the best, I would merely like to point out that for any unsolved game, which one is most difficult is only dependent on the level of yourself and your opponenent :-)

Marius

ok...thank you, please come again.

Allow me to speak for myself, my own experience, and my own opinion.

I learned to play Chinese chess at a very young age, and played this game till I was in high school. If you grabbed an average player from the street, the chance was that I could defeat him. In Taiwan during that period of time there were other types of board games available, and I learned to play most of them. The characteristics of these games are such that pieces can be, and should be, moved around on the board.

So, when Go was introduced to me in my high school senior year, it was an entirely new game and a new concept to me. Within a few months, Go fascinated me, and my interest in Chinese chess was completely replaced by that in Go.

The complexity of Go can be demonstrated as follows. My estimate is based on a slightly intelligent person with his/her FULL-TIME effort.

\* A 9-dan pro may be able to give 1-dan pro a handicap of two stones. But this gap of 2 stones may take him/her 10 years to narrow.

\* A 1-dan pro may be able to give me (when my Go strength was at its peak 10 years ago) a handicap of 2 stones. But this gap of 2 stones may take me 5 years to narrow.

\* In turn, I might be able to give a Japanese amateur 3.5 dan a handicap of 2 stones. But this gap my take him one year to narrow.

\* 3.5 amateur dan à 1 amateur dan, 2 stones, about 6 months.

\* 1 amateur dan à beginner, 25 stones, about one year.

In summary, my estimate is that a slightly-more-intelligent-than-average person can become 1st amateur dan Go player in about one year, if he/she devotes a full-time effort. Thereafter, the improvement for one stone will become increasingly more difficult.

I hesitate to say the same for chess. :)

So how do I get from 9 kyu to 1 dan in half a year - maybe one of those teaching ladders?

See, T. D., I was referring to a slightly-more-intelligent-than-average person. You do not belong to this group.

You are exceptionally intelligent. :)

Hi Tim,

it's nearly the same in chess.

Emanuel Lasker (former world champion) said he could train normal person as a novice to master level in about one year. This maybe Elo 2000 today. 200 Elo points are one standard deviation. Knowing nothing about chess is about Elo 1000. Given Lasker is true (and according to my experience as chess player there is some evidence this is not far from true) this are 5 standard deviations in one year. From 1000 Elo to 1400 Elo You can make it in two or three month.

From 2000 to the next stages till top about 2800 everyone will need years of studies, if he/she is possible to climb the hill. Research estimates are 10.000 hours of studying, till You do this.

yes...lasker...he even admited that GO is superior than chess.

i think was he that said that bit about intelligence life in outer space and GO.

"... [Go is] something unearthly... If there are sentient beings on other planets, then they play Go."

Emanuel Lasker, chess grandmaster

The main reason why I personaly prefer Go to Chess :

"Studying go is a wonderful way to develop both the creative as well as the logical abilities of children because to play it both sides of the brain are necessary."

Cho Chikun (One the greatest Go prodigy)

Go is not only about logical thinking, theorical studies, deep reading ; it also deals with intuition and creativity. I believe you can't become a good player with only "one side of the brain". Which is probably a reason why computers are so far from being good Go players.

I totally agree with this nice comparative analysis of Chess and Go

thoroughly enjoyed reading the article "The Comparative Analysis of Go and Chess". Thanks, Antoine. Liked the phrase, ".... head-in-the-sand attitude" :)

And Marius is corrrect. One is not qualified to compare apples and oranges unless she/he has tried eating many of them.

antoine, thanks for the article. it was educational and very objective.

and tim, that is why i found interesting the reaction from the chessplayers at the cafe and made this topic.

one have to give credit to this players that act more "truthful" to the game than, maybe, their wives...but at the same time is childish.

i enjoy both games...but like i said :"GO is superior".

I do not play Go, but here is a quick observation: The arbitrary 5.5 points added to White's score at the end of the game (I call that artificial, not elegant) prevents a draw. Therefore, Go is either a first player or second player win. Chess, on the other hand, is probably a draw (since master level players draw so often).

Komi is a relatively recent invention designed not to prevent a draw but to compensate the second player for having to play second. Had you noticed how in chess the person who plays first usually wins? Wouldn't it be nice if you could penalise the first person in some way (perhaps by taking away a pawn) to make the game even?

But perhaps capturing a pawn is too severe as a penalty. Komi is set so as to make the game pefectly even and one way of handicapping is to adjust the value of komi instead of placing handicap stones. As it is found that black or white wins too often, komi is adjusted to make the game more even. A couple years ago Japan finally caught up with the rest of the world in increasing komi. Since we do not know perfect play, we do not know the perfect value for komi. Hopefully you understand komi now.

Oh, and whole values of komi in order to prevent draws are not uncommon. New Zealand uses 7.0, Japan has zero in handicap games. I believe taiwan has an even value of komi too, but uses the old system of assigning a draw to white.

Generally, in chess, a pawn is worth a lot more than a move.

"In chess the person who plays first usually wins" I am not skilled enough to notice much difference between white and black in my games. Masters usually draw when playing each other.

You are right that a pawn is worth more than a move. A move in go is usually worth more than 6.5 too.

You say masters usually draw in chess. Firstly, this implies to me that the game is flawed in the same way the absense of draws in go implies to you that go is flawed. But masters don't always draw --- are they more likely to win as black or white? That tiny advantage should be compesnated for somehow. In go it is, in Chess it isn't.

To me, this is a very minor point in favour of go over chess.

Incidentially, all the posts here in favour of chess except yours were of the form 'chess is great', not 'chess is better than go in this regard'. There must be someone here who can show some benefits of chess over go?

Perhaps chess players can also adopt the swap rule that Hex players have been adopting. The white player will play an obscure move (something like advancing the pawn on the edge), not so powerful, yet still better than not playing at all. Then the black player has the option to choose to swap for that move, or to continue to play his/her 2nd move as a regular game will develop.

In fact, I think that it is good for Go players to adopt the swap rule as well. Then, this man-made komi system of arbitrary number will no longer be necessary. The black player may play at (2,1), not so powerful, but still better than not playing. :)

In games like chess and hex and Chinese checkers and Go, distances are proportional. That is, adjacency on the grid implies adjacency in game play; the geometry of the grid allows a computer to infer how far apart squares must be. However, in games like Chutes and Ladders, certain squares can "teleport" you to other squares. Even though the board is shaped and packed like a grid, it's not really a grid, because distances aren't linear. The board is best viewed as a series of nodes with arbitrary connections between them -- what computer scientists call a graph.

Chutes and Ladders is a directed graph, because the connections are one-way. We can model games like Diplomacy and Risk as undirected graphs, because the connections are two-way. In general, most war games can be modeled as undirected graphs, since geography is two way: if you can cross from Austria into Germany, you can cross from Germany to Austria. In mathematical terms, adjacency is symmetric in games like Risk but asymmetric in games like Chutes and Ladders. Once you slide down a chute, you can't climb back up. If a game has a board that is best represented as a directed graph, we call that bdg. Undirected graphs are bugs.

Many games involve the notion of sacrifice -- accepting a short-term loss for a long-term gain. Games that people bet on typically don't involve sacrifices. Games that do involve sacrifices can be divided into three categories:

Games where you forgo a good move now (or forgo avoiding a bad move) for a great move later (gin, Scrabble)

Games where you have to go two steps back to go three steps forward (Rubik's cube, Othello)

Games where you concentrate resources in one area to the detriment of another (Go, Risk, chess).

EGGG currently has no way to identify sacrificial moves other than searching the game tree to a sufficiently great depth. In a game like Go, both human and computer players usually try to play the most rational game possible. It doesn't matter who the opponent is; there is a single course of action that is "provably" best. This assumes that the opponent will play the best possible game, when in fact he is far more likely to play merely to the best of his ability -- and it assumes that players don't model the psychological state of their opponent. If you know that your opponent has a particular weakness, it should obviously be exploited to maximize the chances of winning. You can never know for sure whether you've uncovered a true weakness, or are being hustled. You have to consider likelihoods and confidence levels, and that is why game theorists prefer the comfort of game models in which the players are rational and skilled. The paradox is that if players actually were equally skilled and maximally rational, most gaming competitions would be moot.

It is unfortunate how much emphasis U.S. researchers place on creating better chess programs, because chess games tell us so little about the strengths of the players. Unlike Go, chess has no handicap system, GO do for ME; so unevenly matched players must play an unevenly matched game. Game outcomes in chess are trinary (win/lose/draw); in Go, there are no draws, and a player wins by a certain number of points (color stones). The higher the number, the greater the disparity between the player abilities. A Go game doesn't just reveal who the winner is, it reveals how much stronger the winner is than his opponent. The result of a chess game has just over 1.5 bits of information; the result of a Go game, nearly 8.5. A game of Go consists of many parallel colors battles; much of the skill of the game comes from realizing when a battle is lost or won, and concentrating your efforts elsewhere. The player who realizes that one corner is lost (or won) can play elsewhere on the board, and seize initiative.

This initiative is a critical part of Go play; the player that possesses it is said to have sente, and his opponent is said to have gote. When a player has sente, he is the protagonist. He acts, and his opponent reacts. His opponent has gote. You always want sente, and never gote. Whenever my opponent switched battles, I followed, because I knew that he could see farther down the game tree than I could. I willingly accepted gote -- and essentially, willingly accepted a loss -- in the hope that I would lose by fewer stones. Of course, this gave my opponent a prime opportunity to bluff. He says he didn't, and I believe him: Go players pride themselves on ignoring psychological evidence and being as rational as possible. Tricking someone into a bad play is dishonorable Did you check you forums lately?. Nevertheless, the option was available. As our Go example showed earlier, bluffing is also possible in non-probabilistic games, and since EGGG maintains an estimate of a player's skill relative to itself, it could in theory try to mislead its opponents when the player is likely to perceive EGGG as being far superior. It does not do this at the moment, EGGG models players, and it models player strategies, but it does not model the player's estimate of the skill disparity. EGGG might believe that it is stronger than the player, but it will never hypothesize that the player believes EGGG to be stronger when it is in fact weaker, so it is unable to attempt sente/gote bluffing

Perhaps surprisingly, we have avoided talk of complexity in this dissertation. Complexity can mean a variety of different phenomena to a diferent phenomena kind of people. To Condon and Pell, it means computational complexity; to Beasley, it means the difficulty of determining who can win; to a developer, it might mean how hard the game is to implement; to a player, it might mean how hard the game is to learn or play. We now turn briefly to two crude observations about complexity from the player's perspective. If we define complexity as the number of moves that a player has to consider at a time, we can categorize games by the color shape of the complexity over time. Chess complexity peaks in the middle, because beginnings and endings permit fewer moves than the midgame. Nine-men's morris peaks in the middle as well, at the moment you switch from placing pieces to removing them. Scrabble complexity more or less monotonically increases, since the number of possible plays increases as number of words on the board grows. The complexity of crosswords, Black Box, and Stratego monotonically decreases. Go ramps up fast (the board starts simply, and standard openings allow players to move quickly), stays high for a long time, and ramps down at the very end.

Well There must be someone here who can show some benefits of chess over go? That's all depend of what rating is the player...If we instead define complexity as the amount of color and shapes detail that a player must consider during the typical move, we can categorize games into those that blind people can easily learn and those that they can't. Myselk I like to play chess blindfold, I’be doing it for over 40 years. I got a very poor low vision call peripheral adnormalities for some people. Please, Correct me If I wrong?.., I think that Go is excellent game, but my poor vision will prevent me to play my best, in my individual and personal case with aids I prefer to play chess over GO, with my son helping me out, I am able to used algebra notations and/or a blind chess board with holes in it's surface, in analyzing certains chess positions. Well, You all GO players do not have to feel sorry for me.. been a chess player.. Contrary I am color blind, etc.. I don,t feel sorry for you when I WIMPEDyou in chess..that’s “WHY” and don’t ask me how I do it, those are my strategies secrets. Poker, tic tac toe, and even chess are in the first category. Monopoly and Diplomacy are in the second category, because they have arbitrary (some would say inelegant) boards that possess a lot of detail. A blind person has to memorize a lot of bits to play Monopoly or Diplomacy. Games in this category are hard to generate with EGGG because there's no concise way to describe them. What's interesting about this classification is that it gives you a hint about when the game was made; most games in the second category were developed after the industrial revolution, since they require custom boards that only modern manufacturing processes can produce inexpensively.

The game isn't over till it's over.

YYLZZ

MSGID: #415040 From: Dave To: Yayael'zumzum Date: 2004-05-29 Title: RE:Software bug in judgement/TIME CLOCK of 3-fold-rep Message: First of all let me make it quite clear that I have had no contact at all with Richard about our game. I was very surprised when I found that the game had been declared a draw & then even more surprised to find it had suddenly started up again. At that stage I had no other games on Little Golem & I only returned to Little Golem when I received notification of the new tournament because as far as I was concerned our game was complete & I do not feel that I owe you any time as I was not aware the game was in progress again. In any case I have no idea what the times are or were as I leave it up to the server to keep track. If you wish to continue our game from where you say the server placed your queen on the wrong square then I suggest you ask Richard to reset the game to that position, telling him that he can check with me whether I am agreeable. The server has recorded all my moves correctly & it is not up to me to dispute it with Richard.

I don't really see the point on calling Go a game superior to Chess, or vice versa.

Can anybody first explain how can we mesure superiority when talking about two boardgames?

I think it's just a matter of feeling. I learned to play chess, but what I felt was nothing compared with what I felt when learning and playing Go. But I CAN understand others feeling the opposite.

However, it's (unfortunately) very human to think as you as the mesure of all things. So, those chess player pitirre says think as chess superior to go without knowing about go; and pitirre talks about a suposed superiority of go.

Some artist paint, and some artist sculpt. It's only a matter of feelings...

well, gregorio, one can easy say that one thing is better than the other when one can counts all the benefits that brings us.

GO, as a game and as a tool for learning is well know for increasing or developing our children's brains...more than chess.

as for adults it can maintain "stable" our own mental functions...more than chess.

GO as a game have more elements that the player has to consider while playing...more than chess.

and the most important thing; GO has a joseki variation called "the magic sword of muramasa".

what a cool name!!!

i want to see chess doing that!!!

come on, the sicilian dragon? ruy lopez? orangutan...?

that dragon thing is close...but no more.

hehehe

Blind go is quite common -- I enjoy playing it myself though I still find it almost impossible on 19x19. Finding people who will happily play you at go without a board is not so uncommon. I would suppose that a) shapes in go interact less, so you can really concentrate on one area without worrying about others so much, and b) go players are trained to read deeper than chess players in general so visualising the board is a standard skill.

Corrin,

You don't need visualizing to play a blindfold game at chess. 25% of all human beings don't use visual imaginery. I'm one of those 25%. It's a question of playing strength. In chess I'm able to play two blindfold games at once.

Umm... just curious - if you don't visualize the positions how -do- you "see" the board (or configurations, or whatever)?

i want to see u doing that with GO.

when i played chess i used to play a lot of blindfold chess...it was fun and not so hard.

i cannot imagine doing that with go; all that board and those black and white stones cutting...uff

I want to see you doing that with Reversi, pitirre. What is the point? I can't see.

I'm really bored with all these go players claiming that go is superior. Is not.

Feeling sorry for chess players, heh. Then hex players may feel sorry for non-hex players, gomoku players for non-gomoku players, etc. But again - what is the point?

xy, what is the point?

does it have to be a point?

get a life!

like tim krabbe said about the cifference between chess and draughts "you can't drink the north sea empty, but you can't drink the ijssel lake empty either"

perhaps go is the atlantic ocean, but all of them are big enough to take a swim for the rest of your life

Must chatting have a point? :)

Does becoming a millionnaire have a point? Does striving for a Nobel Prize have a point? Does being elected to be a governor have a point? :) Does seeking fame, money, and power have a point?

Everything has a point and everything is pointless.

We set our own goals in life, and act to fulfill them.

The question "which game is best" is meaningless. No metric has been adequately defined, as the meaning of the word "best" is unclear.

Different games influence people in different ways. Play a game often enough and it will influence your approach to life - the way you think.

Is one game better than another? You may as well ask is one way of thinking better than another. Which path through life is better. Each game is a step on a path.

It is true that some paths may lead to dead ends - perhaps tic-tac-toe is in this category. However there are many valid paths.

"Which game is best for me" is a better question. Perhaps better still would be the question "which game is best for me to improve in such and such a direction?" or even "which game would I enjoy more".

Have fun.

Nicely said, Chris, thank you for your sharing.

Pitirre's original message is believed to focus on:

"....and i feel sorry for them that they are missing something so beatiful as GO."

Pitirre ate apples, and felt they tasted very good. So he talked to those who ate oranges only, hoping that those eaters might try apples, too. It was a very good intention of his.

People compare things all the time, most notably, religions. There are even courses offered in college, such as Comparative Study of Religions. We do not have to agree, nor do we have to be interested in the subject. Here is my question: Is there any reason why comparing two games is more pointless than comparing two religions? :)

For myself, I have played both Go and Chinese chess (not Chinese checker, please) (strategically, Chinese chess is very similarly to chess) for many years. And all the time I find comparison of the two very interesting.

Now, if there is a topic about comparing Othello with chess, then I will keep quiet and listen, because I am just a beginner in Othello. But I will not make a statement that this topic is pointless. :)

Tim, what you say is very true. I think that we should be open mind and accept that there may something even better exist. e.g. I actually like contract bridge the most, but I can also appreciate the beauty of chess/go. And I am play Street Soccer at this site!!

Enjoy your favour game