5 ms·

> "Better" in this case means more entertaining; and specifically, the claim is that with the king in the center, it's not possible to "bunker down" and play a

> "Better" in this case means more entertaining; and specifically, the claim is that with the king in the center, it's not possible to "bunker down" and play a very static, defensive version of chess. > I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written. This is my point. I wasn't denigrating the effort to make chess more entertaining. I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment. I'm really not trying to troll you by suggesting that a more entertaining variant of chess is go. I mean, if we have to stick with the current set of pieces and how they move then I think that Fischer Random (Chess960) or something like it is the obvious improvement to go for. NoCastlingChess to me is a strange route to go down. Of course novelty makes an old form less jaded but that I'm not convinced it's intrinsically more entertaining – if it were shouldn't we ditch boring old chess?

diogofranco 7y ago
> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment Is your position that disallowing castling does not lead to less king safety and thus less draws, more mating attacks, piece sacs and complex tactical games? Or is it that you think these things do not contribute to more entertaining games?
- igravious 7y ago
  What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle. My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games. Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go). You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.
gwd 7y ago
> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment. Well I'm afraid you're missing the main point of the change; but since I've said it twice now (and you've actually quoted me once), I'm not sure how to explain it any better. It's not primarily change for change sake; but rather, the entire class of possible games changes from "safe, boring, and almost always a draw" into "dangerous, dynamic, and someone almost always wins". At least, that's what I understood from the article. EDIT: As an example, consider the shot clock in basketball [1]. From Wikipedia: > The NBA had problems attracting fans (and positive media coverage) before the shot clock's inception. Teams in the lead were running out the clock, passing the ball incessantly. The trailing team could do nothing but commit fouls to recover possession following the free throw. Frequent low-scoring games with many fouls bored fans. The introduction of the shot clock in basketball wasn't simply change for change sake; it forced teams to actually have a more active, interesting game. Kramnik is claiming that the same thing has happened now to professional chess: the vast majority of games are boring draws. And he furthermore claims that when they trained AlphaZero from scratch without castling, the games were in fact much more dynamic and more interesting, not just different. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_clock
- jfengel 7y ago
  The 99% Invisible podcast did an interesting episode[1] on an even smaller rule change with large ramifications: the back-pass rule. The goalkeeper can no longer hold the ball if it was passed by a teammate. That meant that they had to learn stronger footwork and ended the time-wasting that they could do once their team was ahead. It keeps the game moving and forces everybody to do without the breaks that back-passes used to create regularly. [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unsure-footing/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unsure-footing/
- igravious 7y ago
  I promise you I'm not – if I may copy my reply to a sibling comment of yours: “What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle. My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games. Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go). You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.” F.T.A. > The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess So just as many draws? > suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player. Preventing the king from retreating to a safe distance means that Ok, so the game isn't broken > all of the pieces have to engage in the melee, making the play more dynamic and entertaining, with a number of original patterns. I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from --- Does that clear things up?

diogofranco 7y ago

> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment Is your position that disallowing castling does not lead to less king safety and thus less draws, more mating attacks, piece sacs and complex tactical games? Or is it that you think these things do not contribute to more entertaining games?

igravious 7y ago
What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle. My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games. Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go). You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.

gwd 7y ago

> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment. Well I'm afraid you're missing the main point of the change; but since I've said it twice now (and you've actually quoted me once), I'm not sure how to explain it any better. It's not primarily change for change sake; but rather, the entire class of possible games changes from "safe, boring, and almost always a draw" into "dangerous, dynamic, and someone almost always wins". At least, that's what I understood from the article. EDIT: As an example, consider the shot clock in basketball [1]. From Wikipedia: > The NBA had problems attracting fans (and positive media coverage) before the shot clock's inception. Teams in the lead were running out the clock, passing the ball incessantly. The trailing team could do nothing but commit fouls to recover possession following the free throw. Frequent low-scoring games with many fouls bored fans. The introduction of the shot clock in basketball wasn't simply change for change sake; it forced teams to actually have a more active, interesting game. Kramnik is claiming that the same thing has happened now to professional chess: the vast majority of games are boring draws. And he furthermore claims that when they trained AlphaZero from scratch without castling, the games were in fact much more dynamic and more interesting, not just different. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_clock

jfengel 7y ago
The 99% Invisible podcast did an interesting episode[1] on an even smaller rule change with large ramifications: the back-pass rule. The goalkeeper can no longer hold the ball if it was passed by a teammate. That meant that they had to learn stronger footwork and ended the time-wasting that they could do once their team was ahead. It keeps the game moving and forces everybody to do without the breaks that back-passes used to create regularly. [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unsure-footing/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unsure-footing/
igravious 7y ago
I promise you I'm not – if I may copy my reply to a sibling comment of yours: “What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle. My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games. Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go). You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.” F.T.A. > The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess So just as many draws? > suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player. Preventing the king from retreating to a safe distance means that Ok, so the game isn't broken > all of the pieces have to engage in the melee, making the play more dynamic and entertaining, with a number of original patterns. I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from --- Does that clear things up?