4 ms·

My Obsession With Chess

88 points by gnosis 17y ago

DTrejo 17y ago
Powerful.
- sho 17y ago
  And a powerful reminder of the profound differences between the minds of each and every one of us. I can no more understand this kind of obsession than a dog could understand calculus. Not saying it's bad, mind you. Rather the opposite, I enjoyed it immensely. Just that .. I'm always struck by a sense of forboding by this kind of thing. I could never be like this, and the fact that someone is .. has implications I find unsettling. If such variation is possible - who's to say it's not the norm? Maybe being obsessed with chess is the norm and I was just dropped on my head one too many times as a baby or had alcohol in my blood-surrogate and I'm the sub-gamma who is too stupid to see the fascinating brilliance of chess.
  - gnosis 17y ago
    Unless you play chess a lot for years, it's hard to really see the beauty in it. In that way, it's sort of like mathematics. Few adults would find arithmetic very beautiful, and if that's all they knew of math they might wonder what mathematicians see in mathematics. It takes years of dedication and practice to learn enough math to get to the higher levels, where one begins to see the beauty in math. Chess is the same. Playing it after just learning the basics might be fun, but it's only once you've put in a significant investment of time in to the game that you begin to get a glimpse of its depth and beauty. Don't expect to see it after merely learning the rules and playing a few games. That said, something has to keep you going until you learn enough chess to begin to really appreciate it. And that something, for most chess players, is mere enjoyment. For us it's just fun, and that's enough.
    - eru 17y ago
      Yes. Strangely even arithmetic can get interesting again.
  - msluyter 17y ago
    I have a theory that there's a certain addictive quality not just in chess but in a lot of cognitive pursuits. Anything that has certain payoff either in terms of winning the game, or even in simply seeing the solution (correct sequence) to a given position as a sort of "Aha!" moment.
amichail 17y ago
I don't understand the appeal of chess. Tactical play in this game is better suited for a computer than a human. Computer-aided chess though might be interesting: the human would focus on strategy and get help for tactical play from a computer.
- profquail 17y ago
  You could always learn to play Go instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity#Complexities_of_some_well-known_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity#Complexities_of... I'm not big into playing chess on a computer, but it is fun to play against a friend once in a while. Just because something is better suited for a computer doesn't mean that you can't enjoy doing it yourself.
  - xenophanes 17y ago
    But Go tactics are no less hard to calculate than chess tactics.
    - spot 17y ago
      That's the point: it's so hard that playing is less calculation and more like visual conversation.
      - xenophanes 17y ago
        No, strong Go players calculate everything out, exactly, quite far.
        spot 17y ago
        if they were so exact then why do they disagree? i play go and i'm speaking from experience.
      - xiaoma 17y ago
        Good go players regularly count the number of points an area under contention is worth.
spot 17y ago
good thing he didn't discover "go" or else we never would have had zot! or understanding comics!
zeynel1 17y ago
Beautiful drawings.
kqr2 17y ago
This brings to mind, Arthur C. Clarke's ultra short story Quarantine. http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/learn/html/e.8.2.html http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/learn/html/e.8.2.html
xenophanes 17y ago
I was wondering how good he is, since he never mentions a rating, but he doesn't seem to exist in the US Chess Federation database. Odd. http://main.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,181/ http://main.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,...
- gsastry 17y ago
  In the comic, he said his rating hovers between class B and class C. So 1600-1700 ucsf ish?
  - xenophanes 17y ago
    Oh, missed that. B is 1600-1800. C is 1400-1600.
sireat 17y ago
Chess is a horrible mistress to have, I keep coming back to chess again and again. At the same time, chess can bring such highs. This high comes not only from winning, but also from a well played game(even lost one). Sad thing is, unless you get most of your 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" at chess from the ages of 10-18, you'll never get any good. I am 2400 FIDE, but I missed ages 14-16, doing other things. The neural pathways in my brain are hard wired now, the basic tactical sense will never improve substantially, no matter how long I practice. I am yet to find a counterexample, that is someone who started after age 25 and became a GM.
- KC8ZKF 17y ago
  What do you mean by "any good?" I know a lot of twenty five year-olds who would be thrilled to achieve a 2000 FIDE rating.
  - sireat 17y ago
    I might have meant "real good", that is GM strength and up (2500+). However, if we define "any good" as 2000, then, as you said, even that level is hard to reach at a later age. My point is as follows: almost anyone can reach good strength in chess if they put a lot of deliberate practice at the early age(case in point, Polgar sisters). Conversely, at a later age, it is much, much harder to progress. Put a 25 year old on an island for 20 years with only a chess computer and chess literature, and they are unlikely to make more progress that a 12 year old would make in 2 years. Chess is not unique in this regard, in fact, many passtimes/sports/hobbies have the same limitation. However, I think chessplayers often prefer to ignore this facet of chess.
    - gnosis 17y ago
      Take a look at this chart of USCF rating distributions: http://main.uschess.org/datapage/adult_ratings_2007.png http://main.uschess.org/datapage/adult_ratings_2007.png 50% of adult chess players with a USCF rating (who already tend to be more dedicated to chess than most chess players, who tend not to have a rating at all) have a rating of only 1400 or below. With a rating of 2400 you're getting up around the 99th percentile. You could easily crush virtually every chess player with a USCF rating. Of course, there are chess players who are even better, but they are the elite of the elite. (Note: I wasn't able to find the equivalent FIDE rating information, so I have to use USCF ratings here. But you can bear in mind that a player with a given FIDE rating is generally stronger than a player with the same USCF rating)
kqr2 17y ago
Scott McCloud also has an interesting TED talk in which he explores making non-sequential comics: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.h... He also mentions his father's blindness. Although it probably wasn't true, Scott's father believed it was caused by looking at a solar eclipse.
lazyant 17y ago
I used to play chess and I still like it. I thought when I had a child I would teach him or her how to play early on. Then I read "In search of Bobby Fisher" and "the chess artist" and I did a 180; I don't want my kid to become obsessed with chess.
- MaysonL 17y ago
  My parents came to the same conclusion when I was about 5 when Bobby was getting a lot of attention as a real brat of a prodigy. My father had taught me to play, and after a few months, I beat him. Never played me again. Took me a long time to understand what had happened, and longer to forgive him.

88 points by gnosis 17y ago

DTrejo 17y ago

Powerful.

sho 17y ago
And a powerful reminder of the profound differences between the minds of each and every one of us. I can no more understand this kind of obsession than a dog could understand calculus. Not saying it's bad, mind you. Rather the opposite, I enjoyed it immensely. Just that .. I'm always struck by a sense of forboding by this kind of thing. I could never be like this, and the fact that someone is .. has implications I find unsettling. If such variation is possible - who's to say it's not the norm? Maybe being obsessed with chess is the norm and I was just dropped on my head one too many times as a baby or had alcohol in my blood-surrogate and I'm the sub-gamma who is too stupid to see the fascinating brilliance of chess.
- gnosis 17y ago
  Unless you play chess a lot for years, it's hard to really see the beauty in it. In that way, it's sort of like mathematics. Few adults would find arithmetic very beautiful, and if that's all they knew of math they might wonder what mathematicians see in mathematics. It takes years of dedication and practice to learn enough math to get to the higher levels, where one begins to see the beauty in math. Chess is the same. Playing it after just learning the basics might be fun, but it's only once you've put in a significant investment of time in to the game that you begin to get a glimpse of its depth and beauty. Don't expect to see it after merely learning the rules and playing a few games. That said, something has to keep you going until you learn enough chess to begin to really appreciate it. And that something, for most chess players, is mere enjoyment. For us it's just fun, and that's enough.
  - eru 17y ago
    Yes. Strangely even arithmetic can get interesting again.
- msluyter 17y ago
  I have a theory that there's a certain addictive quality not just in chess but in a lot of cognitive pursuits. Anything that has certain payoff either in terms of winning the game, or even in simply seeing the solution (correct sequence) to a given position as a sort of "Aha!" moment.

amichail 17y ago

I don't understand the appeal of chess. Tactical play in this game is better suited for a computer than a human. Computer-aided chess though might be interesting: the human would focus on strategy and get help for tactical play from a computer.

profquail 17y ago
You could always learn to play Go instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity#Complexities_of_some_well-known_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity#Complexities_of... I'm not big into playing chess on a computer, but it is fun to play against a friend once in a while. Just because something is better suited for a computer doesn't mean that you can't enjoy doing it yourself.
- xenophanes 17y ago
  But Go tactics are no less hard to calculate than chess tactics.
  - spot 17y ago
    That's the point: it's so hard that playing is less calculation and more like visual conversation.
    - xenophanes 17y ago
      No, strong Go players calculate everything out, exactly, quite far.
      - spot 17y ago
        if they were so exact then why do they disagree? i play go and i'm speaking from experience.
    - xiaoma 17y ago
      Good go players regularly count the number of points an area under contention is worth.

spot 17y ago

good thing he didn't discover "go" or else we never would have had zot! or understanding comics!

zeynel1 17y ago

Beautiful drawings.

kqr2 17y ago

This brings to mind, Arthur C. Clarke's ultra short story Quarantine. http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/learn/html/e.8.2.html http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/learn/html/e.8.2.html

xenophanes 17y ago

I was wondering how good he is, since he never mentions a rating, but he doesn't seem to exist in the US Chess Federation database. Odd. http://main.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,181/ http://main.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,...

gsastry 17y ago
In the comic, he said his rating hovers between class B and class C. So 1600-1700 ucsf ish?
- xenophanes 17y ago
  Oh, missed that. B is 1600-1800. C is 1400-1600.

sireat 17y ago

Chess is a horrible mistress to have, I keep coming back to chess again and again. At the same time, chess can bring such highs. This high comes not only from winning, but also from a well played game(even lost one). Sad thing is, unless you get most of your 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" at chess from the ages of 10-18, you'll never get any good. I am 2400 FIDE, but I missed ages 14-16, doing other things. The neural pathways in my brain are hard wired now, the basic tactical sense will never improve substantially, no matter how long I practice. I am yet to find a counterexample, that is someone who started after age 25 and became a GM.

KC8ZKF 17y ago
What do you mean by "any good?" I know a lot of twenty five year-olds who would be thrilled to achieve a 2000 FIDE rating.
- sireat 17y ago
  I might have meant "real good", that is GM strength and up (2500+). However, if we define "any good" as 2000, then, as you said, even that level is hard to reach at a later age. My point is as follows: almost anyone can reach good strength in chess if they put a lot of deliberate practice at the early age(case in point, Polgar sisters). Conversely, at a later age, it is much, much harder to progress. Put a 25 year old on an island for 20 years with only a chess computer and chess literature, and they are unlikely to make more progress that a 12 year old would make in 2 years. Chess is not unique in this regard, in fact, many passtimes/sports/hobbies have the same limitation. However, I think chessplayers often prefer to ignore this facet of chess.
  - gnosis 17y ago
    Take a look at this chart of USCF rating distributions: http://main.uschess.org/datapage/adult_ratings_2007.png http://main.uschess.org/datapage/adult_ratings_2007.png 50% of adult chess players with a USCF rating (who already tend to be more dedicated to chess than most chess players, who tend not to have a rating at all) have a rating of only 1400 or below. With a rating of 2400 you're getting up around the 99th percentile. You could easily crush virtually every chess player with a USCF rating. Of course, there are chess players who are even better, but they are the elite of the elite. (Note: I wasn't able to find the equivalent FIDE rating information, so I have to use USCF ratings here. But you can bear in mind that a player with a given FIDE rating is generally stronger than a player with the same USCF rating)

kqr2 17y ago

Scott McCloud also has an interesting TED talk in which he explores making non-sequential comics: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.h... He also mentions his father's blindness. Although it probably wasn't true, Scott's father believed it was caused by looking at a solar eclipse.

lazyant 17y ago

I used to play chess and I still like it. I thought when I had a child I would teach him or her how to play early on. Then I read "In search of Bobby Fisher" and "the chess artist" and I did a 180; I don't want my kid to become obsessed with chess.

MaysonL 17y ago
My parents came to the same conclusion when I was about 5 when Bobby was getting a lot of attention as a real brat of a prodigy. My father had taught me to play, and after a few months, I beat him. Never played me again. Took me a long time to understand what had happened, and longer to forgive him.