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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 a

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?

gwd 7y ago
> > The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess > So just as many draws? Right, we interpret that differently. He said "win/loss" ratio, not "win/loss/draw" ratio. It's possible your interpretation is correct, but I think the full sentence favors my interpretation: > suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player. The question he's trying to answer is, "Does a lack of castling make it harder for Black (or White) to win?" And the answer is, "No; Black and White still win about the same percentage of the time, so removing castling will not suddenly make it harder for Black (or white) to win." The draw ratio isn't important to answering the question, and isn't mentioned, so I assume he wasn't saying that the draw ratio was the same. > I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from That's possible, but it doesn't necessarily follow, even if your interpretation about the draw percentage is true. A draw after a dynamic and unpredicatable battle down to a pair of kings is a lot more interesting than a draw after a "trench battle" of small moves. But in any case, time will tell. :-)
- igravious 7y ago
  Look, no worries. A straight-forward interpretation of the article favours your reading of it for sure. I know it's bad form around here to complain about downvoting but god damn I'd like to know why I got downvoted so much for the opinions I expressed :( Oh well, must try harder to be more articulate.
  - gwd 7y ago
    I do appreciate you trying to clarify your position. I don't have a huge amount of experience here, but people seem to value 1) politeness and 2) correct information. I haven't talked to the people who downvoted you obviously (and in case you didn't know, you can't downvote a direct reply, so it wasn't me). But to me the first reply sort of came off as, "chess sux0rz, just play go". Go is of course a very nice game, but it's very different than chess; seeming to show disdain for all the people who like to play chess and watch chess played fails somewhat on the "politeness" front. The second reply didn't really articulate well your position, so seemed to be just "repeating the mistake" from the first post, and so failed (it seemed) on the "correctness" front. I think if your first reply had been more like the previous reply in this thread -- asking whether there actually were fewer draws, and whether the gameplay was actually more "dynamic" or was simply "different" -- or perhaps adding in your take on games played that way; say from the recent exhibition in London, or from analyses of AlphaZero games played under these rules (e.g. [1]) -- it would have been seen more as a contribution than a detraction. That's my guess anyway. :-) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo

gwd 7y ago

> > The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess > So just as many draws? Right, we interpret that differently. He said "win/loss" ratio, not "win/loss/draw" ratio. It's possible your interpretation is correct, but I think the full sentence favors my interpretation: > suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player. The question he's trying to answer is, "Does a lack of castling make it harder for Black (or White) to win?" And the answer is, "No; Black and White still win about the same percentage of the time, so removing castling will not suddenly make it harder for Black (or white) to win." The draw ratio isn't important to answering the question, and isn't mentioned, so I assume he wasn't saying that the draw ratio was the same. > I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from That's possible, but it doesn't necessarily follow, even if your interpretation about the draw percentage is true. A draw after a dynamic and unpredicatable battle down to a pair of kings is a lot more interesting than a draw after a "trench battle" of small moves. But in any case, time will tell. :-)

igravious 7y ago
Look, no worries. A straight-forward interpretation of the article favours your reading of it for sure. I know it's bad form around here to complain about downvoting but god damn I'd like to know why I got downvoted so much for the opinions I expressed :( Oh well, must try harder to be more articulate.
- gwd 7y ago
  I do appreciate you trying to clarify your position. I don't have a huge amount of experience here, but people seem to value 1) politeness and 2) correct information. I haven't talked to the people who downvoted you obviously (and in case you didn't know, you can't downvote a direct reply, so it wasn't me). But to me the first reply sort of came off as, "chess sux0rz, just play go". Go is of course a very nice game, but it's very different than chess; seeming to show disdain for all the people who like to play chess and watch chess played fails somewhat on the "politeness" front. The second reply didn't really articulate well your position, so seemed to be just "repeating the mistake" from the first post, and so failed (it seemed) on the "correctness" front. I think if your first reply had been more like the previous reply in this thread -- asking whether there actually were fewer draws, and whether the gameplay was actually more "dynamic" or was simply "different" -- or perhaps adding in your take on games played that way; say from the recent exhibition in London, or from analyses of AlphaZero games played under these rules (e.g. [1]) -- it would have been seen more as a contribution than a detraction. That's my guess anyway. :-) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo