Computers have literally killed chess

@dpcarballo said in #27:

And then there's databases. You can't go play a chess tournament anymore without some kid and his coach reviewing every game you've ever played for six hours before it even starts.
To be honest I think the role of theory has been overstated for the vast majority of players. I have won against numerous players who have out prepped me for that game. There are many players who get their goal position but fall apart later. Sometimes they prep everything but a slightly inferior move that is not on the top list which happened to make sense to me at the time. Sometimes they do actually know what they are doing afterwards too but cannot keep the accuracy up. I currently mostly have a few running systems in mind each game and figure out the rest in game. It works a lot. There was a recent article where one CM spent 200+ attempts in classical to beat Leela piece odds. There is so much richness in chess and I would say most games below at least GM level that are draws are more drawn off of balanced skill level than chess being dry. I also think that your hundreds and even thousands of games of built up understanding and experience in your opening should triumph over an on the fly construction of how to play against your opening.

Someone doesn't know what "literally" means

Kasparov was right after all.

Chess is still alive and so is whimpering :)

Thank you for your post. You certainly have a point. As you can see from my account name, I am deeply saddened that Danya is no longer with us. I will miss his content, his late nights streams, his passion for the game and his bullet matches so much, so so much. I’m really deeply sorry for the loss, and I can only start to imagine how his close friends and his family must be feeling. I agree with you that the computer era has brought a lot of challenges to the chess world. It has done so by also bringing many people to the game, which I believe is something good. Public cheating accusations and any harassment are bad things, both online and in the „real“ world. I hope this tragedy will lead to any change, to some good in the world of chess. But I’m struggling to blame it on the existence of computers and the strive for popularity. Eventually this is the very reason why so many people knew Danya and were inspired by him.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on this matter. Again, thank you for your post, it made me think.

As someone who has spent their entire life working with new technology and/or helping create it, long before computers were a household thing, I will say I think the topic is so complex as to make it difficult to even discuss. The inter-relationships of "Progress" (however you wish to define that), coupled with human nature, create so many angles from which to see "Problems", that it simply spirals into never-ending differences of opinion. Discussions will have so many tangents that nobody can keep up with it or process it.

For example, I could take a couple dozen statements in the OPs blog post and create sub-arguments that could go on forever. And oddly enough, I could take those very same statements and agree with them. Does anyone see the pointlessness of this?

For example, I started using computers (yes they existed) around 1980. As a kid I really got deep in the weeds, well before computer "games" were a thing. I would go to someone's house and I can't tell you how many people told me I was "wasting my time", literally while they were watching TV. (which btw we didn't have at my home). The irony of that still amazes me, but this just goes to show how people are generally predisposed to accepting their choices as good while universally declaring other people's choices to be bad.

As an aside, once I was first able to purchase my own IBM clone PC, while I used it for my business, I also used it for computer games, beginning with Wolfenstein, Doom and so on. This was back in the MS-Dos 3.1 days. I often played way into the night, later got a second PC so I could play with friends via serial cable between 2 PCs (internet didn't exist yet), later played via Modem and phone lines, then to dedicated servers with dial-in lines, and so on. Everyone knows that progression. Gaming didn't harm me in any way, and much later I did plenty of it in FPS games. I stopped gaming at all around the time "Steam" took over the gaming world, and really don't miss it. Local internet in my area was terrible and the disadvantage was so great as to be insurmountable.

Now, I bring up the internet in that last sentence because it's relevant today. I could take my system elsewhere and play on internet that actually worked, and I was instantly getting banned from servers and all sorts of treatment. I had REALLY nice gaming PCs by this time, and wasn't too bad at gaming, but the handicap I played with every day at home had made me much better at the actual games. When I'd have ping/lag (or lack of) and packetloss, equivalent to the people I was playing against, it was an entirely different game. This is precisely one of the things which I think Kramnik and his cohorts are unable to process is that in many cases of the people they are "asking to be investigated", those people have almost ALL moved to cities where there is most likely really good internet, and if you're in the middle of bum____ Russia where internet sucks, you're going to have a massive handicap to your chess. Then because they have no clue about how big a deal all those things are, they believe there's no other explanation than something unfair.

Without anyone even responding, I've already digressed my own post. So, above where I mention all the angles, well, there you are. Ultimately this blog was more about Danya than it was about "Chess", and I think I've highlighted one of the million aspects that go (mostly) unconsidered, which make the topic really really complex. There's no easy answer.

Lastly, just as a side note, ping can mean virtually zero when dealing with non-guaranteed UDP packets. Those who know what I'm talking about will understand. Welcome to online gaming...

Computer's have not killed chess it's losers that see a cheater every time they crap sometimes more often.

I agree 100%. We have entered into a hellish road.

@ZugAddict

I largely agree with your recent blog, but in the back of my mind I kinda feel as if you are a bit of a Hypocrite.

I have followed you for a long, and have been your admirer. When I first read your blog on Hans Niemann and heard your song, the ballad of Hans Niemman, I found it rather hilarious, and honestly I still think it is hilarious.

But don't you think that the song (and the blog) is kinda trolling a player accused (probably falsely at this point) of cheating. Obviously, that song is pretty old, more than 3 years I think. So, I am pretty sure that in three years you may have changed a lot as a human being. (Personally, I feel that I have changed a lot, but I am young.)

Well, it takes a life, for people to understand (or maybe not) the effects and impacts of trolling a person. Anyway, I think it's all about trying to be a better person than you are or were, so there might be a lesson for all of us to take from the recent tragic event.

@Gadhavi_Veerbhadra said in #59:

@ZugAddict

I largely agree with your recent blog, but in the back of my mind I kinda feel as if you are a bit of a Hypocrite.

I have followed you for a long, and have been your admirer. When I first read your blog on Hans Niemann and heard your song, the ballad of Hans Niemman, I found it rather hilarious, and honestly I still think it is hilarious.

But don't you think that the song (and the blog) is kinda trolling a player accused (probably falsely at this point) of cheating. Obviously, that song is pretty old, more than 3 years I think. So, I am pretty sure that in three years you may have changed a lot as a human being. (Personally, I feel that I have changed a lot, but I am young.)

Well, it takes a life, for people to understand (or maybe not) the effects and impacts of trolling a person. Anyway, I think it's all about trying to be a better person than you are or were, so there might be a lesson for all of us to take from the recent tragic event.

Tbh, I feel like hypocrisy is often a kind of growth. That said, I would have thought the "Ballad of Hans Niemann" to be a fairly affectionate (and rather even-handed) take on a patently absurd situation, and the blog itself was clearly making fun of Han's accusers.