Chess

[version]

Just learned Alexander Cockburn wrote a book on chess. Dunno whether it's any good.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Or play Stratego, which is basically Fischer random crossed with poker and has very few players so you'd be catapulted to the heart of the UK scene from the get-go.

 

[Murphy]

Are you there?

 

[luka]

Biscuits is really into games. Hes in the england world cup squad for table footbsll and hes banned from certain pubs for making too much £ on their quizz machines

 

[luka]

What are you good at?

Fucking hell Mixed Biscuits! I bet you're a talented snogger/fingerer too if you had skills like that in the playground. Edit: Please disregard above comments if you meant with a yo-yo.

www.dissensus.com

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm annoyed at myself for inadvertently engineering a stalemate while playing with my regular chess partner the other day, even though I was threashing him. Second time that's happened. I need to be more careful when it gets to that stage in the game.

 

[Corpsey]

I've been playing it a lot today hungover against a bot

I keep getting the bot down to their king but I am too stupid to understand the concept of checkmate and so keep ending up in stalemate

I need someone (they need only be very mildly clever) to explain to me

 

[Corpsey]

I'm annoyed at myself for inadvertently engineering a stalemate while playing with my regular chess partner the other day, even though I was threashing him. Second time that's happened. I need to be more careful when it gets to that stage in the game.

So yeah basically this except you know what you've done wrong lol

The important thing is that next time I get a haircut I thrash my barber

 

[Mr. Tea]

I've been playing it a lot today hungover against a bot

I keep getting the bot down to their king but I am too stupid to understand the concept of checkmate and so keep ending up in stalemate

I need someone (they need only be very mildly clever) to explain to me

A checkmate occurs when one player's king is in check and there's no legal move they can make (i.e. no way to get out of check), as I'm sure you know.

But if a player can make no legal move while their king is not in check, it's a stalemate, regardless of the other player's level of advantage. So if your opponent has hardly any pieces left - e.g. just a king and a couple of pawns that can't move because they're got your pieces in front of them - you need to think very carefully about how you move, so as to avoid preventing the king from moving without putting it in check. So don't instinctively rush to make what seems to be the most aggressive move, as this can mean throwing the game away.

 

[Mr. Tea]

 

[Corpsey]

A checkmate occurs when one player's king is in check and there's no legal move they can make (i.e. no way to get out of check), as I'm sure you know.

But if a player can make no legal move while their king is not in check, it's a stalemate, regardless of the other player's level of advantage. So if your opponent has hardly any pieces left - e.g. just a king and a couple of pawns that can't move because they're got your pieces in front of them - you need to think very carefully about how you move, so as to avoid preventing the king from moving without putting it in check. So don't instinctively rush to make what seems to be the most aggressive move, as this can mean throwing the game away.

I felt "dog being shown a card trick" levels of incomprehension today as I stalemated the AI again and again

 

[Corpsey]

You start to realise the capabilities of the pieces and feeling terror when you see that queen coming for you

And the bastard knights, and the bastard bishops

What a discovery so late in life and all because I got drunk before getting a haircut

 

[Corpsey]

tried it once, spent a few days doing nothing but playing online and watching youtube videos on openings, but had to put an end to it because it invaded my brain to a degree where my dreams became these abstract inescapable feedback loops of distress

Looking forward to this

 

[Corpsey]

Already spending circa 3 hours a day playing balatro now I've got chess.com on the go

Where will I find time for Proust and my fleshlight?

 

[Corpsey]

Transformation of the nerds: The modern chessplayer is a sleeker

THE FACE of chess is changing. For one thing, it is getting handsomer. Gone, it seems, are the bespectacled eccentrics, the mumbling autists and reeking regressives of yesteryear. The Grand Master Analysis Room no longer resembles the soundstage of Revenge of the Nerds. And look at the TV team...

www.independent.co.uk

The ladder of incomprehension, at any rate, is clear enough. I don't understand the arcana of the GMs; the GMs don't understand the arcana of Short and Kasparov; and Short and Kasparov don't understand the arcana of their own positions. None of us understands. How very cheering. Chess-promoters shouldn't try to meddle with or minimise the near-infinite difficulty of the game: they are absolutely stuck with it. It is what surrounds the board with holy dread - the exponential, the astronomical.

So what are they up to out there, approximately? Because no one really knows. It would seem that comparatively little time is spent doing what you and I do at the chess board: hectically responding to local and immediate emergencies (all these bolts out of the blue). We are tactical, at best; they are deeply strategic. They are trying to hold on to, to brighten and to bring to blossom a coherent vision which the arrangement of the pieces may or may not contain. And of course they are never left alone to pursue this search. Chess is savagely and remorselessly interactive: it is both mental game and contact sport. What's it like? All-in wrestling between octopuses? Centipedal kickboxing? In its apparent languor, its stealthy equipoise, as each player wallows in horrified fascination, waiting to see what his opponent has seen, or has not seen, one may call to mind a certain punitive ritual of the Yanomami. Only one blow at a time is delivered by the long stave. The deliverer of the blow spends many minutes aiming; the receiver of the blow spends many minutes waiting. Garry Kasparov is the best there's ever been at it, and he knows what chess is. 'The public must come to see that chess is a violent sport,' he says. 'Chess is mental torture.'