Slashdot Mirror
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.
I play chess, and I'm good at it, but I'm not a paranoid thrillseeker. I'll grant that chess does give me a feeling of being in a war of wits, and I enjoy seeing my opponent squirm when they fall into one of my traps, but it's not on a par of thrillingness with things like skiing, where you can get yourself hurt.
Chess is all about raising one's ego, and dominating the ego of the opponent.
Sure, the game is wrapped up fairly nicely in deep strategy and protocol, but when you get down to it, most people play because they like crushing the opposition.
Chess is really no different (on a pyschological level) from football. The goal is to intimidate, dominate, and force the other player into submission. Of course, that gives a fairly large 'rush', especially when the game is at a critical juncture.
I look at my school's chess team, and I see a bunch of kids who aren't (physically) the jock types, so how do they get the ego boost?
Chess. So next time some meathead makes fun of you for playing, just tell him it's like football =)
So in other words, it's almost, but not completely unlike real war...
Chess is really more of a complex and somewhat variable logic puzzle -- closer to a Rubik's cube (where you let someone else take a crack at every other turn) than to war of any sort.
So maybe the whole chess/war comparison which seems so popular in this thread overcredits one and sells the other short, eh?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
As a previous post reminded me, I fell in love with chess about 4th grade, and kept going strong until I suddenly realized in 7th grade that it was totally artifical - there was no "porting" its lessons to real life.
And that's when I gave up on Chess - when I realized that it was a completely constrained, artifical environment just like I was creating for myself in Real Life. The thing about chess is that its almost completely a game of recognizing previously-identified patterns of play, then countering them with a pre-selected strategy. Not until you get to beyond Grandmaster is there room for innovation. And even then, its constrained to a couple of moves in a 30-move match.
What I look for in my games nowdays is the element of outside interference - items not in the control of either player (or any player, in the case of MP games). That's where the real creativity and brilliance comes in - the capability and flexibility to cope with situations which could not be reasonably forseen (though adept planning will make coping much easier).
I wish we would have more games for kids in this manner - ones which not only met that "Creative Problem Solving" mantra, but also give their players a taste of what they'll need to really know: how to expect the unexpected (and unpredictable) and to cope with them.
Chess is fun, insofar as it teaches good pattern recognition and a disciplined mind. I would argue, though, that if you haven't move beyond it after a couple of years, you really are hurting yourself.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
In my personal experience, its more like boxing. In both chess and boxing, you have no place to hide and nobody to blame, except yourself. All moves by your opponent are done in plain view and its only your training and preparation that will see you through.
The two are obviously different in that one is 90% physcial, and the other is 100% mental, but the investment of the ego in both are quite similar.
Both chess and boxing are about setting up the opponent and taking them down. Chess in particular is quite cruel to the loser because there is no room for making excuses.
The comparison to Rubik's cube is a bit wrong since Rubik's has been solved. Chess has some definite patterns that are instantly recognizable, but it also deals in vague terms with space, time, lines that really can't be quantified but can be estimated.
But you're right, chess is not like war, except to those people reading about it in the papers every day...thing moves from place to place, destroys other thing...etc.
t
One of the things about chess is that to play it assuming that your opponent knows what you are doing. This means you have to make your pieces work together and that an attack will eventually from that. You can't merely attack in chess.
I'd imagine that playing 6 hours a day, assuming that your opponent knows everything you are doing would help to develop the paranoid parts of the brain.
t
Hmmm, another poster had a good quote (he should be modded up by the way), but I figured I'd throw my 2 cents in. These patterns that you're talking about DO have applications in the real world. Not as specific details but as abstract concepts. The srategies of chess, solid defense of you weaker pieces, backing up and protecting your resources, well thought out moves, attacking from multiple directions at once, these all map directly to just about any sort of competition you can imagine. The same way that "The Art of War" doesn't necessary provide lessons solely on military success, but for any type of competition.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
It doesn't have that satisfaction of dealing with other people, using them for your own means.
Ahhh yes, the satisfaction of using other people for your own means!
Nah chess is too lonely and quiet for me.
Keep using people for your own means and you'll tasting loneliness soon enough...
Actually, it would appear that the game consists of memorizing a bunch of strats and gambits, and using the right one at the right time. And that's the problem; against somebody who plays that way, the only counter is to play that way, only better.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Copyrighting your /. posts is both pathetic and infuriatingly nerdy. Please stop.
Although a form of paranoia and thrillseeking can be found in tournament chess players, I have also seen a different type of player: the ones who seek to make a thing of beauty happen during a game. I happen to be one of those players. Although my passion for quirky openings and strategies often caused me problems during tournaments (I often seek double-edge positions), I always hope to find THE move, the one leading to a superb combination, so pretty because of its subtlety. I don't often succeed, but that's what I wish to find in each of my tourney games; not to crush my opponent (I don't like easy victories), but to win a tight game because I saw one of those beautiful combinations.
:)
Some might say if I kept playing that way, I wouldn't ever become a good chess player. To them I reply I got my 'expert' title from my chess federation anyway and I did it while having fun
But I don't have the drive to become a master; it takes serious effort and time that I cannot afford. I'll always continue to play, but regular tourney play is not something I'll be doing anymore.
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum