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I’m not sure we’re at the point where chess is universally “good”. That might have been the case in Soviet Russia, where chess was hugely pushed by the state, o

I’m not sure we’re at the point where chess is universally “good”. That might have been the case in Soviet Russia, where chess was hugely pushed by the state, or America in those Cold War years where ordinary society saw it as a noble way beat those Soviets. Nowadays, however, chess is probably met more with indifference than anything else. One often hears complaints that it is a gimmick that merely shows that a person is capable of memorizing many, many thousands of positions, not that players are intelligent people in some other, more general respect (whatever “intelligent” might mean here). Furthermore, it is also understood now that unless you invest in a very large library of chess books and dedicate all your waking hours to memorization, you’ll never be able to play chess at a high level regardless of your passion for the game. Yes, people still play e.g. football among their mates even if they know they aren’t ever going to be pros, but chess competition used to have an aura of being open to any clever player who just used his thinker, and that has now been generally shattered. Plus, computers beat people now.

carc 9y ago
As a recreational player that plays in tournaments from time to time and is active in my local chess community, this post really only exposes that you don't know what you're talking about. For context, I'm not amazing but I'm no slouch (~95th percentile in the US) and memorization accounts for so little of my defeats or victories that it's practically meaningless. In fact, studying the openings is usually considered to be the least value-adding way to improve unless you're a titled player (usually 2400+ US ELO)
- Retra 9y ago
  They are talking about perceptions of chess among non-chess players, not the reality of chess for high-level players.
navalsaini 9y ago
On that note, I have been working on removing memorization from chess and at the same time make it more casual. My initial version is https://halfchess.com https://halfchess.com . It does not offer the same level of challenge as international chess, but can be played much faster. It favors deep thinker to a strategic player. The experiment still continues ~ so please share any interesting suggestions.
slm_HN 9y ago
It's a common misconception that chess requires memorization. You don't learn to play chess by memorization. That's like saying that you have to memorize the C language specification to be a C programmer. Back when I was playing chess I was around 2100 (uscf). I knew almost nothing about chess. However I did have the ability to analyse and a good eye for tactics. That was enough to be almost a Master. The key to chess is to analyse better than your opponent, not to memorize better than your opponent.

carc 9y ago

As a recreational player that plays in tournaments from time to time and is active in my local chess community, this post really only exposes that you don't know what you're talking about. For context, I'm not amazing but I'm no slouch (~95th percentile in the US) and memorization accounts for so little of my defeats or victories that it's practically meaningless. In fact, studying the openings is usually considered to be the least value-adding way to improve unless you're a titled player (usually 2400+ US ELO)

Retra 9y ago
They are talking about perceptions of chess among non-chess players, not the reality of chess for high-level players.

navalsaini 9y ago

On that note, I have been working on removing memorization from chess and at the same time make it more casual. My initial version is https://halfchess.com https://halfchess.com . It does not offer the same level of challenge as international chess, but can be played much faster. It favors deep thinker to a strategic player. The experiment still continues ~ so please share any interesting suggestions.

slm_HN 9y ago

It's a common misconception that chess requires memorization. You don't learn to play chess by memorization. That's like saying that you have to memorize the C language specification to be a C programmer. Back when I was playing chess I was around 2100 (uscf). I knew almost nothing about chess. However I did have the ability to analyse and a good eye for tactics. That was enough to be almost a Master. The key to chess is to analyse better than your opponent, not to memorize better than your opponent.