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Chess Players 'Are Paranoid Thrillseekers'
Tardigrade submitted a brief little article that claims that chess players are paranoid thrillseekers. It's a fairly amusing little piece and definitely
makes me wish that my high-school chess club would have got into epic
battles with the groups that were capable of stretching us into pretzel
shapes, if only for the thrill. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Chess players are paranoid because they are chess players, not vice versa. Five years of swirlys and locker room beatings in high school while a member of the Chess Club usually causes that.
That demonstrating intelligence and creativity in proximity to Football (american) players is tempting death and mutilation.
Has Marvin been playing too much chess?
since chess is a game of sex
We are thrillseekers, but we're not paranoid ! This must be some Go player conspiracy !
chess is all about testosterone, arousal (Article).
[Transcription of 1-900-CHESSXX.]
"...Dial 512 to accept these charges and continue"
[Beat. Beep-boop-bop.]
[Ring. Ring.]
<deep husky voice> "Hi there. I'm Edith."
<heavy breathing. audible swallow.>"...I'm Paul."
E. Mmmmm, Paul. I like that name. Wasn't Morphy's first name Paul.
P. Oh YES.
E. Tell me...how long have you played chess?
P. S-since I was eleven.
E. Want to tell me about your first time.
P. W-well, I don't know. It was with my father. He didn't play all that well. I started beating him not long after that.
E. Want to hear about my first time?
P. Oh yeah, tell me about your first time, Edith. How old were you?
E. My first time was at the tender age of fourteen.
P. Really?
E. Yessss. Before then, I hardly knew the names of the pieces.
P. How well do you play now?
E. Oh, better than you, probably.
P, excited. Really?
E. Yes, I'm a genius you know. Want to hear about my first time?
P. Yes, tell me about it.
E. My sister's friend was over. He was a Geek. Are you a geek, Paul?
P. Yes, yes, I am.
E. I love geeks. They excite me. My sister's friend was the first geek I met. He introduced me to Linux. He also taught me chess.
P. You use Linux?
E. Well, technically it's not Linux, I use my own kernel.
P. You kernel-hack?
E. I guess you could call it that...
P. What do you mean?
E. Well I don't bother with Torvaldis's source-tree.
P. Oh, Edith. Tell me what you do.
E. I mess with kernel directly.
P. mmmm.
E. Oh, it gets very messy. Straight assembly. Pur hex.
P. Oh-ooh. Tell me about your sister's friend.
E. He taught me chess. By the end of the first hour I was seeing three, four moves ahead of him. By the time I was seventeen, four years ago, I was placing in the nationals.
P. Oh, man. Are you really that good?
E. Want to try me?
P. <inhales deeply> e2?
E. e3 Paul.
[rest censored]
My boss is a chess player. He likes to win, but the thrill of winning is second only to the thrill of completely unnerving his opponent. I would never play chess with him, mainly because he is a poor winner and a poor loser. I think that this kind of attitude is pretty common in the chess world. Just look at the famous people who were good at it, like Bobby Fischer. You couldn't ask for a bigger Grade A asshole than him.
The middle mind speaks!
So does this imply that Deep Blue, and other chess computers, are destined to live with serious social problems?
No data, no cry
Is that a queen in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
You can get hurt through playing a game of chess. But you've got to be ridiculously out of shape to do so.
Forget that censored BS, the "e3" sh*t the AC's trying to pass off. Here's the rest of the REAL transcript, no softcore Van't Kruijs opening crap either!
E. Want to try me?
P. <inhales deeply> white or black?
E. What do you like, Paul? I'm better than you, remember.
P. I'll be white then. Go on the defensive, bitch.
E. Yeah, or what are you going to do?
(Next are in rapid succession)
P. E4.
E. E5.
P. NF3 Edith.
E. NC6, Paul.
P. Bb5.
E. a6.
P. Ba4
E. What?
P. I said Ba4.
E. <slight laugh> that's been refuted, Paul.
P. mmm, you know that?
E. Yeah, it's called --
P. Don't tell me what it's called. Don't play games with me. Just make your goddamned move.
E. All right. Nf6
P. Why didn't you follow me?
E. With b-pawn?
P. Yeah.
E. I told you that's been refuted.
P. Don't tell me that stuff any more.
E. Want to play in silence?
P. Yes. Let me think.
E. All right Paul. I love a thinking man.
P. Look, I'm castling, okay?
E. Okay, (without thinking) knight takes e4.
P. Aren't you even going to think about it?
E. No, Paul, I told you, it's been refuted.
P. You memorized the opening?
E. Of course. I'm a genius, you know.
P. mmmm.(shudders)...I don't believe you! You're using a computer!
E. No, Paul. It's all squishyware.
P. Squishyware.
E. Oh yes. Neurons and synapses.
P. Let's forget this game.
E. (gently) I understand. Want to start over?
P. No, Edith. I don't care about chess now. Tell me about your brain.
E. Well it's not all that different from anyone's you know...
P. Yes it is, (mockingly) you're a genius, you said so yourself.
E. Oh, anyone can learn a bunch of moves. We're on a level, you know, you and I. I can tell.
P. Really?
E. Yes. We could code together.
P. (really excited again. Heavy breathing). What would we code?
E. How about a chess program...?
P. (heart beating) I have some ideas.
E. What kind of ideas, Paul?
P. For, for reducing the redundancy in the look-ahead tree.
E. I understand you. Oh, I would love to do that with you.
P. Tell me how you'd do it.
E. We'd start off slow, maybe tweaking the branch-analysis with some of Pishtof's new "iron theories".
P. You read Pishtof?
E. Theory is very important, you know.
P. I read theory. I love Pishtof. I use him.
E. We could read Pishtof together.
P. Oh.mmmm.
E. Would you like that Paul? It would just be the two of us, a chess board in front of us...
P. mmmm, tell me more...
E. Pishtof's "Fifty-Seven Iron Rules" open on our laps.
P. mmmm.
E. We could set up each example position, just lean our heads together and stare, until...
P. until we grok.
E. oh YES, Paul, until we grok.
P. (heavy breathing, swallows again) And then what?
E. Then we could go to the terminal.
P. mmmm.
E. open up vi.
P. You use vi?
E. Of course.
P. Oh Edith.
E. we'd start off with some high-level functions.
P. mmmm.
E. a little pre/post commenting.
P. I thought that was out of fashion?
E. I still do it.
P. Oh, but I do too! I've never met anyone who thought that was a good idea.
E. I don't know if it's a good idea. Something about it just seems so...elegant to me.
P. oh, edith! Elegant! (heavy, heavy breathing)
E. We could use eight-bit pointers for internal reference in the lookup tree.
P. ohhh, but there aren't any...
E. We could make our own.
P. Assembly?
E. Bare metal.
P. ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
E. mmmmmm, I knew you'd like it.
P. thank you edith.
E. thank you paul. call again, soon. It's so lonely without any real hackers here.
P. I will, edith. I will.
(Bill: $48.53, and worth every penny.)
what do they think about Bughouse players? :)
Vizzini: So it is down to you, and it is down to me.. if you wish her dead, bu all means keep moving forward.
Man in black: Let me explain...
Vizzini: There's nothing to explain. You're trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.
Man in black: But if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.
Vizzini: I'm afraid so. I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
Man in black: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way: Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Man in black: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons!
Man in black: really! In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits.
Vizzini: For the pricness? To the death? I accept!
You're right... in fact, they would make a fine pair for a new biathlon sport in the Olympics... the two competitors box for 9 rounds, then sit down for a chess match. I know I'd watch.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
KDE rules! Chess rules likewise.
;-)
Yes, except Chess uses all the memory to remember openings and strategies.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
... resturant had a checkered tablecloth - he took 2 hours to pass the salt.
All women want is honesty, if you can fake that, you're in.