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Computers have literally killed chess

Why are you even here then, if the game is so "iterally dead"

Why are you even here then, if the game is so "iterally dead"

@Fibromyalgia said in #31:

Why are you even here then, if the game is so "iterally dead"

Inertia, mostly.

That said, the title is more personal than absolute. Chess is of course far from dead in terms of general popularity but for me feels fundamentally changed in terms of what is valued and rewarded, and perhaps one reason is the people who play it online differ increasingly from those who play(ed) it OTB. This is isn't necessarily a bad thing in all ways, but sometimes I am reminded of what is lost when tragedies of a quintessentially 21st century nature occur where the power of social media, trolling, and computer paranoia all take center stage(1).

Change in even as ancient and stolid a game as chess is of course nothing new, but the pace and scope of it has accelerated dramatically with the internet and I think I am learning to belatedly appreciate some of the virtues of reality.

Cheers,

  • Z.

(1) By no means is this to say the 20th century, where a World Championship was once embroiled with accusations of cheating via yogurt signals and parapsychology, was free from character assassination and slander. Far from it. My (highly unoriginal) point was mainly that the internet tends to take pre-existing foibles of the human condition and amplify them exponentially.

@Fibromyalgia said in #31: > Why are you even here then, if the game is so "iterally dead" Inertia, mostly. That said, the title is more personal than absolute. Chess is of course far from dead in terms of general popularity but for me feels fundamentally changed in terms of what is valued and rewarded, and perhaps one reason is the people who play it online differ increasingly from those who play(ed) it OTB. This is isn't necessarily a bad thing in all ways, but sometimes I am reminded of what is lost when tragedies of a quintessentially 21st century nature occur where the power of social media, trolling, and computer paranoia all take center stage(1). Change in even as ancient and stolid a game as chess is of course nothing new, but the pace and scope of it has accelerated dramatically with the internet and I think I am learning to belatedly appreciate some of the virtues of reality. Cheers, - Z. *** (1) By no means is this to say the 20th century, where a World Championship was once embroiled with accusations of cheating via yogurt signals and parapsychology, was free from character assassination and slander. Far from it. My (highly unoriginal) point was mainly that the internet tends to take pre-existing foibles of the human condition and amplify them exponentially.

You say that
"None of this should ever have been so real
This is written in the immediate wake of one of the greatest tragedies of 21st century chess."

It's true that it is the greatest (not one of the..) tragedies of the 21st century but the responsibility for what happened lies exclusively with the people who have been cruel for months to a young champion and those who have not been able or willing to protect him.
Computers and stockfish have never stubbornly defamed anyone since they were invented.

There are no computers behind tragedies, there are bad people instead.

You say that "None of this should ever have been so real This is written in the immediate wake of one of the greatest tragedies of 21st century chess." It's true that it is the greatest (not one of the..) tragedies of the 21st century but the responsibility for what happened lies exclusively with the people who have been cruel for months to a young champion and those who have not been able or willing to protect him. Computers and stockfish have never stubbornly defamed anyone since they were invented. There are no computers behind tragedies, there are bad people instead.

@voidb-tch said in #28:

this is a good thing for competition. it means more people are "on the level". what are you complaining about? we made chess free and accessible. god. these arguments and this article annoy me so much.

That would be true if everybody could spend all their waking hours on chess. I don't know why you think having more and more games decided by memorization of opening lines is a good thing for competition.

@voidb-tch said in #28: > this is a good thing for competition. it means more people are "on the level". what are you complaining about? we made chess free and accessible. god. these arguments and this article annoy me so much. That would be true if everybody could spend all their waking hours on chess. I don't know why you think having more and more games decided by memorization of opening lines is a good thing for competition.

I may have found a kindred soul.

With a 'universal truth' on the chess board available to anyone through engines, it's quite evident to me that the more profound soiutions to the prevalent problems permeating chess society and overall improvement will not come from ideas in the chess world. Various research and data from other fields will need to be applied and become a systemic part of the chess culture before things will truly change. Naroditsky shined a light of what's possible, but the majority must walk the path with awareness and intentionality.

Succeeding in such problems will provide a powerful model for the rest of the world to not only see minority differences as essential for the survival of humanity, but embody it through consistent right action, eventually reflected by the statistics. (The chess world has done this quite well for neurodivergence, reasonably well for ethnic minorities, and vaguely competently for physical disabilities, but quite poorly for almost all other minority groups in my opinion). That is why it's so critical to do everything we can to resolve such challenges, even if the odds of success are objectively relatively low in our lifetimes.

I may have found a kindred soul. With a 'universal truth' on the chess board available to anyone through engines, it's quite evident to me that the more profound soiutions to the prevalent problems permeating chess society and overall improvement will not come from ideas in the chess world. Various research and data from other fields will need to be applied and become a systemic part of the chess culture before things will truly change. Naroditsky shined a light of what's possible, but the majority must walk the path with awareness and intentionality. Succeeding in such problems will provide a powerful model for the rest of the world to not only see minority differences as essential for the survival of humanity, but embody it through consistent right action, eventually reflected by the statistics. (The chess world has done this quite well for neurodivergence, reasonably well for ethnic minorities, and vaguely competently for physical disabilities, but quite poorly for almost all other minority groups in my opinion). That is why it's so critical to do everything we can to resolve such challenges, even if the odds of success are objectively relatively low in our lifetimes.

@TotalNoob69 said in #10:

In conclusion, I find that the problem you are describing comes down to human nature and StockFish.

In a unnatural world where people are utterly dependent on technology to fulfill their physical & psychological needs talking of 'human nature' is a bit meaningless.

It's like watching Squid Game & concluding it's human nature to scheme to kill each other.

The game the modern world is in is attention seeking, specifically profitable attention seeking, in some primordial human setting (say a band of a couple hundred) 'clickbait' and sensationalism wouldn't work, you'd be seen as the village idiot, but in today's slash & burn world where most people's grip on reality is meditated thru a screen it's one of the most effective games in town.

This didn't start with the internet, the internet is just exacerbating what the cult of celebrity & the success of the bite-size narrative already started.

@TotalNoob69 said in #10: > In conclusion, I find that the problem you are describing comes down to human nature and StockFish. In a unnatural world where people are utterly dependent on technology to fulfill their physical & psychological needs talking of 'human nature' is a bit meaningless. It's like watching Squid Game & concluding it's human nature to scheme to kill each other. The game the modern world is in is attention seeking, specifically profitable attention seeking, in some primordial human setting (say a band of a couple hundred) 'clickbait' and sensationalism wouldn't work, you'd be seen as the village idiot, but in today's slash & burn world where most people's grip on reality is meditated thru a screen it's one of the most effective games in town. This didn't start with the internet, the internet is just exacerbating what the cult of celebrity & the success of the bite-size narrative already started.

@OctoPinky said in #24:

establish and rule a toxic trollarchy.

Good term!

@yogurtk1ng said in #29:

And, another age-old habit of good ol' day pieces is whining masked as social commentary. Have an alternative? A solution? A new approach. Give us that than some weak, "gee golly gosh whiz we ought to recognize this!"

Let's not forget the age old habit of telling people they should never complain about anything they can't magically solve.

Humans solve problems by recognizing they are problems, pretending everything is fine just because you can't solve an issue immediately pretty much guarantees you won't ever solve it

@OctoPinky said in #24: > establish and rule a toxic trollarchy. Good term! @yogurtk1ng said in #29: > And, another age-old habit of good ol' day pieces is whining masked as social commentary. Have an alternative? A solution? A new approach. Give us that than some weak, "gee golly gosh whiz we ought to recognize this!" Let's not forget the age old habit of telling people they should never complain about anything they can't magically solve. Humans solve problems by recognizing they are problems, pretending everything is fine just because you can't solve an issue immediately pretty much guarantees you won't ever solve it

Nice article. I'm happy to read that I'm not the only one having similar thoughts and feeling about computers and chess.

Like, of course things are always changing and of course there's many positive things about online chess and engines, but still... I can't help but get some feeling that we lost something very abstract, yet very valuable, in the process.

For me it helps a lot that I can turn off engines and chat whilst watching high level chess. Nobody forces me to use these things. So I can somewhat mimic the old-fashioned experience whilst benefiting from all these modern broadcasting websites. :)

But then again, chess is also a social thing very often, and I can't control other peoples behavior. I always like analyzing after OTB-games, but whenever an opponent grabs his phone to check the engine, I always get this meh-feeling.

Ah well, that's life I guess... thanks for the insights!

Nice article. I'm happy to read that I'm not the only one having similar thoughts and feeling about computers and chess. Like, of course things are always changing and of course there's many positive things about online chess and engines, but still... I can't help but get some feeling that we lost something very abstract, yet very valuable, in the process. For me it helps a lot that I can turn off engines and chat whilst watching high level chess. Nobody forces me to use these things. So I can somewhat mimic the old-fashioned experience whilst benefiting from all these modern broadcasting websites. :) But then again, chess is also a social thing very often, and I can't control other peoples behavior. I always like analyzing after OTB-games, but whenever an opponent grabs his phone to check the engine, I always get this meh-feeling. Ah well, that's life I guess... thanks for the insights!

Since the match Kasparov vs Deep Blue in 1997 computers seem to be the killer of the game. Of course a lot of players play better because of chess engine no doubt about it, it's a great tool. It is always useful to get an practically instant global evaluation of the entire game if we missed something or not in our games. thank you for the programmers who worked hard to accomplish better chess engine but the whole tricks is trying not to depends on it too much like anything in life a good balance is better.

Since the match Kasparov vs Deep Blue in 1997 computers seem to be the killer of the game. Of course a lot of players play better because of chess engine no doubt about it, it's a great tool. It is always useful to get an practically instant global evaluation of the entire game if we missed something or not in our games. thank you for the programmers who worked hard to accomplish better chess engine but the whole tricks is trying not to depends on it too much like anything in life a good balance is better.

On year 2000 I was playing ICCF competitions and got the SIM title, at that time I remember only some electronic boards and no engines, when engines arrived I little by little decided to quit as I was predicting what was going to happen.... and in fact nowadays CC is really dead, at high level we see only a long series of "1/2" and I read about players waiting for opponent's death to get the full point... so not only CC is dead thanks to engines but also a sane rivalry spirit is dead. Now for me only OTB and some blitz online...

On year 2000 I was playing ICCF competitions and got the SIM title, at that time I remember only some electronic boards and no engines, when engines arrived I little by little decided to quit as I was predicting what was going to happen.... and in fact nowadays CC is really dead, at high level we see only a long series of "1/2" and I read about players waiting for opponent's death to get the full point... so not only CC is dead thanks to engines but also a sane rivalry spirit is dead. Now for me only OTB and some blitz online...