Chess

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Anyone read about the new Bobby Fischer documentary? - sounds pretty interesting, all told, with contributions from Karpov, Kasparov and all the big players. Even if the review I saw did suggest that it was 'especially odd' (!) that Fischer turned out to be an anti-Semite since his own father was probably Jewish (some historical reading clearly needed), the rest of the review seemed pretty convincing that it was a film I'd like to see.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah, read something about it, it sounds pretty interesting what with the whole cold war issue around his match against Karpov - especially since both players later turned out to be far from proselytisers for their respective "empires". With the father issue, I believe that it's most likely that his actual father may not have been the person who was with his mother at the time and whom he grew up believing was his father.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Yeah, read something about it, it sounds pretty interesting what with the whole cold war issue around his match against Karpov - especially since both players later turned out to be far from proselytisers for their respective "empires". With the father issue, I believe that it's most likely that his actual father may not have been the person who was with his mother at the time and whom he grew up believing was his father.

Yeah, not sure of the family backstory, but seems that, whatever the exact story, that there was something of self-hatred in his crazy anti-Semitism (though I read his 'real' father was Hungarian Jewish? May have read too fast).

Karpov is one scary motherfucker. Eyes like a fish. However much I dislike Kasparov, he was a welcome change from that.

D'you ever see one of the various docus on the Spassky-Fischer match (to me one of the great sporting match-ups of all time, up there with Ali-Foreman, McEnroe-Borg etc)?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I think I meant Spassky above didn't I not Fischer.

ah possibly, thought you might be referring to the whole Fischer-Karpov unconsummated thing around 1975, cos Karpov apparently has quite a large role in the film, from what I understood (but hey, Spassky is dead, I think (?), so that might be an explanation).
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
D'you ever see one of the various docus on the Spassky-Fischer match (to me one of the great sporting match-ups of all time, up there with Ali-Foreman, McEnroe-Borg etc)?
I've got the C H O'D Alexander book that came out at the time which is very interesting. Reasonably detailed analysis of both the chess and the buildup.
 

Ulala

Awkward Woodward
I've been playing chess against the computer this week whilst having lunch, and keep getting trounced. I used to be quite good when I was younger, and I still think my middle-game and endings are decent - y'know, forks, pins, skewers, sacrifices for position, all that good stuff. I know to check after each move the computer makes for things like: is one of my pieces under threat? Where is the computer's piece going next? Has that move freed up another of the computer's pieces? Despite all this, though, I keep losing. Aside from the things discussed upthread about the mathematical capabilities of the computer and how it will inevitably outplay a human, I have deduced that it's because I'm crap at openings. I always default to e2-e4 to get something in the centre and free up a bishop, and invariably the computer dicks me via clever use of knights. Even the fianchetto is met with smug indifference by the all-powerful black army. (And yes, I know computers can't be smug, and I'm projecting, but it feels that way.)

So... am I going to have to learn all the different openings and then appropriate counter-strategies? Any tips? I recall there being a Sicilian Defence and various 'gambits' but is there anything obvious I could try to outfox the wily CPU?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
A minority interest of course, but the Carlsen-Caruana World Championship match has just burst into life, with two particularly peculiar games. Fascinating - it's as though the ubiquity of supercomputers have made human masters search for really weird lines solely in order to deviate from the prepared lines (up to 20 moves and beyond sometimes) that are now so easy to come up with if you have the machines. It's reinvigorated the whole game for me, watching this match - maybe it only happens at WC level where the competitors are obscenely well-prepared, but it looks like marking an AI-enforced transition of the game into something Other. Almost as if we could go forward and back to a digital version of the sharpness and spectator-pleasing cut-throatness of 19th century chess, which is what invigorates most beginners to fall in love with the game in the first place.

Plus Carlsen is pleasingly egomaniacal, like a more self-aware Federer:

and Caruana likes hip hop, which is relevant somehow.

The live feed is engagingly odd too . The male half of the presenting duo would probably fit well on a Jordan Peterson undercard in terms of vibe, if not views.
 
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Woebot

Well-known member
very inexperienced at chess.

i bought an electronic chess game (because i'm a bit short of pointless pastimes these days) and it ABSOLUTELY CRUSHED ME.

even on the lowest beginnner level.

i felt so stupid - it was extremely humbling and even a little depressing.

i went back and played it a couple of times - improved a teeny weeny bit but still ABSOLUTELY CRUSHED.

i'm looking at it out of the corner of my eye - a bit bruised - a bit ashamed - wondering when i can work up the courage to have another go.

the alternative was to play solitaire.
 

luka

Well-known member
Nowadays you can play games where you get to shoot vampires and zombies so there's no need to get humiliated by a chess robot.
 

version

Well-known member
It's the same with pool. You don't want to lose a game of pool. There are certain games which feel like a test of character.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's the same with pool. You don't want to lose a game of pool. There are certain games which feel like a test of character.
I've had most temper tantrums about trivial pursuit I think. Rage. Humiliation. Tears. Flip the board over.
 
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