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The rapid games are starting to become more interesting than the full-length games. I would not be surprised if rapid chess starts to become the more popular fo

by lacker 10y ago

The rapid games are starting to become more interesting than the full-length games. I would not be surprised if rapid chess starts to become the more popular form of top-level chess. If you're just thinking about "playing the best possible game", the computers are doing that already. If you want to see two individuals intensely competing in a mental challenge, why not speed things up so that it's actually watchable? Similar to Twenty20 cricket.

sgeisenh 10y ago
Rapid and classical are totally different beasts. Rapid is more fun to watch in real time, but doesn't usually produce high quality games. On the other hand, classical can often be miserable to watch, but typically yields games worth of study for years to come. Watching computers is valuable to a point, but completely different from watching humans. The search space that humans can cover is much smaller, so the games end up being more positional, and easier to understand for a spectator. I wish that they would build a chess engine that emulated a human thought process so that it could be used as part of following a game in progress. The way they used the engine in the official world championship broadcast was frustrating. I don't care if white has a forced mate in 83 moves, I want to know how the position seems based on a shallower but more positional analysis.
lspears 10y ago
Agreed
Jach 10y ago
I became a fan of Karjakin when he played http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751475 http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751475 in 2014. (Move 64 was his divine move. That link shows with forced analysis deep fritz found it too, after 26 plies... but no one or program saw it during the match.) Anyway, humans play differently, and it's a different mental challenge when playing fast or slow. If you want a slow match watchable at quick speeds, don't watch live.
jmharvey 10y ago
I feel like the longer games (in both cricket and chess), because they're often so tactical and slow-paced as to be yawn inducing, have a greater payoff when they do suddenly turn exciting. (See the final day of this past week's New Zealand/Pakistan Test for a great example.) T20/rapid chess is exciting in the moment, but when you step away from any specific match and think of the last, say, year's worth of matches, every high-drama moment looks more or less the same.
thomasahle 10y ago
I'm not sure. The weird blunder by Karjakin in fame three was a bit anticlimactic. I also would have liked to see Magnus find the 30 moves forcing line in game 2.

by lacker 10y ago

sgeisenh 10y ago

Rapid and classical are totally different beasts. Rapid is more fun to watch in real time, but doesn't usually produce high quality games. On the other hand, classical can often be miserable to watch, but typically yields games worth of study for years to come. Watching computers is valuable to a point, but completely different from watching humans. The search space that humans can cover is much smaller, so the games end up being more positional, and easier to understand for a spectator. I wish that they would build a chess engine that emulated a human thought process so that it could be used as part of following a game in progress. The way they used the engine in the official world championship broadcast was frustrating. I don't care if white has a forced mate in 83 moves, I want to know how the position seems based on a shallower but more positional analysis.

lspears 10y ago

Agreed

Jach 10y ago

I became a fan of Karjakin when he played http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751475 http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751475 in 2014. (Move 64 was his divine move. That link shows with forced analysis deep fritz found it too, after 26 plies... but no one or program saw it during the match.) Anyway, humans play differently, and it's a different mental challenge when playing fast or slow. If you want a slow match watchable at quick speeds, don't watch live.

jmharvey 10y ago

I feel like the longer games (in both cricket and chess), because they're often so tactical and slow-paced as to be yawn inducing, have a greater payoff when they do suddenly turn exciting. (See the final day of this past week's New Zealand/Pakistan Test for a great example.) T20/rapid chess is exciting in the moment, but when you step away from any specific match and think of the last, say, year's worth of matches, every high-drama moment looks more or less the same.

thomasahle 10y ago

I'm not sure. The weird blunder by Karjakin in fame three was a bit anticlimactic. I also would have liked to see Magnus find the 30 moves forcing line in game 2.