How did Chess become THE intellectual game, at least in the western world...

How did Chess become THE intellectual game, at least in the western world? It often seems to be the first thing that comes to mind in the popular consciousness if you want to portray someone as either a nerd or an intellectual competitive person; they'll inevitably be good chessplayers.

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Lenin.
He believed that it was "gymnastics for the brain", based on the same outdated ideas that I have learned Latin in school.
They believed that there is some kind of "universal intelligence" (don't know how to say this in English, tho) and that this can be trained by learning Latin grammar or playing chess, but modern psychologists all have shown that if you teach a child how to play chess the child will simply become good at chess.
And if you learn how to speak latin you'll simply become good at latin but it doesn't give you some sort of "universal intelligence" you then can also use to, say, build cars or whatever.

this.

blame the commies.

before them chess was just some obscure board game from India that only poo-in-the-loos played.

Considering some of Diderot's remarks about the game in the 18th century, forgive me if I'm a little skeptical about this theory.

Many 18th century philosophers made remarks about a great many things.

But chess only became so popular due to the way the Soviet Union pushed it. It was HUGELY popular (and still is) in the region of the former soviet union, which is also the reason why like 9 out of 10 of the most famous and successful chess players all come from former soviet countries.

This mentality is not because of Gommunisum.

Lenin's way of thinking was simply what was taught in Western public education at the time; that 'universal intelligence' (or just intelligence in general) was acquired by reading the classics and having an understanding of their messages; and encompassed things like learning latin; and basically anything that encouraged deductive, rationalist reasoning (as opposed to theocratic reasoning). Chess was - and is - still a hallmark of this sort of highly thoughtful, predictive reasoning that was useful for strategic thinking. If you were good at it, you were good at planning and thinking and things to do with it. It's part of why it was considered a game of Kings and generals, and inasmuch is similar to the Japanese Go.

The reason he believed these things were desirable is because public education was designed with the intellectual ideals of the Enlightenment. To be smart meant you were good at these new ideas. If you weren't, you were not-smart.

>This mentality is not because of Gommunisum.
>Lenin's way of thinking was simply what was taught in Western public education at the time; that 'universal intelligence' (or just intelligence in general) was acquired by reading the classics

Well yes, that's why I said that this is the reason why I learned Latin (I'm Swiss) in school and how our teachers justified teaching us Latin. And Lenin and the early Communists had that thing with Chess and began to heavily push it, especially after the war.

Not at all true as far as 9 out of 10 of the greatest being Eastern European.
Here are the greatest players of all time:
1. Bobby Fischer (USA)
2. Garry Kasparov(USSR - Armenia)
3. Jose Capablanca (Cuba)
4. Magnus Carlsen (Norway)
5. Alexander Alekhine(France/Russia)
6. Paul Morphy (USA)
7. Anatoly Karpov (Russia)
8. Emanuel Lasker (Germany)
9. Viswanathan Anand (India)
10. Adolf Anderssen (Germany)

Except again, these things seem to predate communism.

Hell, while the historicity isn't entirely certain, there's some evidence to suggest that the term "grandmaster" as a formal chess title originated with Tsar Nicholas to the top 5 placers at the St Petersburg tournament in 1914.

And if the Leninistic thinking is that "if we make people play chess we'll make them smart", then you necessarily already have a link forged between general intelligence and chessplaying skill.

Kasparov would have gutted Fischer. Hell, 1978 Karpov was better than Fischer.

And come on, Anderssen? Really? The guy had a combinative talent, but Steinitz smashed him at his own game, and any of that next generation, the Tarrasches and the Pillsburies and the Nimzovitches of the world were way, way better. You really want to argue he was better than say, Smyslov? Or Botvinnik? Where the hell is Tal on this list? Tal did more to change how chess was played than Fischer did.

That's not a contradiction to what I said, because as long as the Soviet Union pushed it and heavily promoted it, they held the title of world chess champion for almost 50 years straight with the only exception being Bobby Fischer.

Computer analysis says you're wrong. No doubt Kasparov had the greatest chess career of all time, however Fischer at his absolute peak would have likely beaten Kasparov. When analyzing players year by year, based on how much their moves match the move of the strongest computer program, it is revealed that Fischer 1968-1972 was the greatest stretch anyone has ever had in chess.

I'm also looking at how good they are for their time and situation. Kasparov had the Soviet chess machine behind him from the age of seven. Fischer had nothing until he was 13 years old, and even then it was only the mentorship of Jack Lombardy. You look at the challenges Fischer overcame and no doubt Fischer wouldn't have given up a loss ever if he had all of the advantages of Kasparov. Kasparov had 20 years of top quality play to analyze and further opening theory and he still wasn't as good as Fischer at his peak as shown by Rybka computer analysis.

Yeah Anderssen would get killed by Tal-Botvinnik and probably any top 50 player today, but looking at how good he was compared to his contemporaries and the contributions he made to chess, if he was around today he would still be very good. Anderssen probably not a good choice for who would win straight up all else forgotten, but I was biased because I wanted to show that chess wasn't completely dominated by Russians.

Really, 1978 Karpov was better than Fischer? Than why wouldn't he agree to Ficher's 9-9 title retention clause? If he was better wouldn't he be confident enough to go 10-8 against him?

Finally Petrosian and Spassky both had equal records against Kasparov, yet Fischer wrecked them, an analysis of shared opponents falls in Fischer's favor as well.

Personally I think more of the historical precedence for chess being a "SMRT" person's game over the Russians pushing it. My reasoning for this is that these games would have existed and continued to exist in the absence of a driving force (as they did for when the Soviet Union wasn't around).

Chess became THE intellectual game because of the Soviet-West split, yes.

Chess became the INTELLECTUAL game because of its deemed value as a measure of the linear thinking required for strategy and management; and the subsequent 'lol so smart' attitude taken towards these values by enlightenment philosophers, who viewed rational and deductive reasoning as the dog's bollocks.

>Computer analysis says you're wrong. No doubt Kasparov had the greatest chess career of all time, however Fischer at his absolute peak would have likely beaten Kasparov. When analyzing players year by year, based on how much their moves match the move of the strongest computer program, it is revealed that Fischer 1968-1972 was the greatest stretch anyone has ever had in chess.

You're either being intellectually dishonest or just very stupid, because if you want to measure strength by computeranalysis and deiviation from what computer play would be, you'd put Capablanca at #1, and Kramnik at #2, and I see the latter didn't even make your list at all.

>I'm also looking at how good they are for their time and situation. Kasparov had the Soviet chess machine behind him from the age of seven. Fischer had nothing until he was 13 years old, and even then it was only the mentorship of Jack Lombardy. You look at the challenges Fischer overcame and no doubt Fischer wouldn't have given up a loss ever if he had all of the advantages of Kasparov. Kasparov had 20 years of top quality play to analyze and further opening theory and he still wasn't as good as Fischer at his peak as shown by Rybka computer analysis.

Except that's wrong.


en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-

>Yeah Anderssen would get killed by Tal-Botvinnik and probably any top 50 player today, but looking at how good he was compared to his contemporaries and the contributions he made to chess

He wasn't really that good. Zukertort beat him 33-26. Bird has a positive score against him of 5-4. Paulsen 23-18, and these guys are nobodies if you're not an ultra chess nerd. And what contributions did he make? That ridiculous a3 opening?

>, but I was biased because I wanted to show that chess wasn't completely dominated by Russians.

Then show actually good non-Russian players. Pillsbury, Rubenstein, Larsen, Rechevsky, not a meme player like Anderssen.

Chess has been a favorite pastime of European nobility since the middle ages. Before that it was vastly played on Muslim and Indian courts, where it originated.

Since 18th and 19th century it became more popularized and pretty much started defining itself as a sport of sort, with a competitive role included. First real tournaments started in 19th century.

>intellectual

Anyone can learn to play chess with at least some efficiency, you don't need to be a fucking genius to understand it. Chess is more about logic than raw intelligence, if anything,

Because Fischer was a lunatic and someone who already forfeited a match, and was enormously disruptive on his last match doesn't get to set the terms of the next one?

Petrosian never played Kasparov past him being the age of 20, well before most players come into their full chess strength. If we only count pre-20 Fischer games, we can also draw the conclusion that he's not that good.

And look at Spassky vs Kasparov's record as well. a win in 81 and 83, and losses once Kasparov comes into his full strength. If we only count games that Fischer played under the age of 20, he's got one game. A loss.

I just want to tack something on, by the way, about the method used to Rybka analyze games: It was simply done as a number and amplitude of deviations from what the computer recommends, without looking at opposing play or result.

This biases the test in favor of WCs who prefer simpler positions, because there will be fewer errors of any sort made in them. Someone who guides games into more complex positions, like a Botvinnik, Tal, or Spassky, is going to have more errors, but they're also going to provoke more errors in their opponent, which is very plausibly a good strategy. That doesn't necessarily mean they play better, even if the computer agrees with their moves more.


Also, in regards to the match, I made a mistake, you were referring to the 1975 match, not 1978. I am far less certain Karpov would have prevailed then, but he wasn't the one rejecting a lot of Fischer's proposals.

chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54487

>Anderssen

while we're on the subject, can somebody recommend me a chess book

> modern psychologists all have shown that if you teach a child how to play chess the child will simply become good at chess.

But there are another cognitive features that are necessary to be good at chess, like strategical and logical features. Put two people who never played chess and see how they play against each other. The most 'intelligent' will surelly wins.
A better question is if these prior features or abilities can be improoved by training or not.

You.

You're not very clever.

Zurich 1953 by Bronstein is great if you're interested but an amateur player.

I have no idea why. It's like a baby's version of Go.

...

Checkers was much preferred to chess until it was solved IIRC.
I wonder what game will overtake chess when it in turn is solved?

pokemon showdown

bill gates preferred monopoly and sneered at all the chesshit commies playing open source

Bill Gates is a Bridge player. I've never heard him mention Monopoly.

Is what I was about to say.

Then I got the reference, like the slow witted fellow I am.

>Gates has always been a ultra competitive. As a child he obsessed with board games like Monopoly.

he would fanatically play monopoly until climaxing on the total destruction of his friends/family

even as a father, he would ruthlessly play to win against his spawn

easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-bill-gates/

I can't believe I am even getting in an argument about this!! :-)

bridgebum.com/bill_gates.php

Monopoly is pretty easy to game if you're lucky enough. Surefire safe way to win is to buy the railways and the light blue slum areas, and then just totally inundate the oriental avenue spaces with houses and hotels

>The most 'intelligent' will surelly wins.
It's a simplistic view. Being better at chess doesn't necessarily translate into being specially good at math or pattern matching, for instance. One psy actually raised his children to be chess geniuses. They aren't really that special outside chess.

ffs user

have you not even heard of Alekhin?
he was Russian, hated the commies and was champion of the fucking world

It's useful for teaching a person to be decisive when played with a ~10 second turn timer.

It also means that relative normies like me become very competitive with lesser chess nerds.

That timer is also a fun way to differentiate between who should be drawing up strategy, and who should be making the calls on the field and actually try to put ideas into practice.

It's a fun game, I want to grow old and play with fellow seniors in a sunny part

Who is up for a game? 5/2 time controls sound good?

lichess.org/snvG74HB

>Checkers was much preferred to chess until it was solved IIRC.
Maybe by 4 year olds.

what does it mean to "solve" checkers or chess?

Since the games contain no randomness, it's possible to come up with a totally optimal set of moves, upon which there can be no improvement.

Checkers is solved, it's now known that there is an optimal set of moves that will always at least draw, and if both players play perfectly, every game will be a draw. Chess isn't, but it is theoretically solveable, also likely to a draw, but it's not definitively proven.

Contrast that with a game like say, Backgammon, where there are random elements and even with the best possible play, it's still possible to lose.

>Contrast that with a game like say, Backgammon, where there are random elements and even with the best possible play, it's still possible to lose.
Yeah dice games are shit, I agree.

Since there is still a limited number of possible dice rolls, it's possible to solve backgammon, though it may be a pretty intensive calculation, since there is no such thing as a weak solution in the case of backgammon.

You pretty much have to go straight to the strong solution, and see what is the likelihood of victory on each move. Dice rolls do not per se have anything to do with the game being solvable. They do mean that a weak solution is more difficult to come by, and thus pretty much *almost* require the strong solution for meaningful analysis.

Do not get me wrong. I do see what you were going after. It's just that in my autism, I had to correct this minor detail.

"Solving a game" is pretty much just meant figuring out the optimal move for each move in the game, though this quite a simplified version of what it actually means.

You can have a "weak" solution, where you only know the optimal moves in a case where the game has been played from the beginning, and know which side wins in case both play optimally - Or, you can have a strong solution, where you can determine the outcomes of all positions, even if any number of non-optimal moves are played.

When most people talk about solving games like chess or checkers, they pretty much use the word "solve" interchangeably to refer to both the strong and weak solutions. Figuring out the strong solution is simply a case of having massive computational power, while the weak solutions usually utilize some "crafty" methods to filter out moves. For example, I highly doubt that chess will simply EVER have the strong solution calculated. I am even skeptical of people being able to figure out a weak solution to chess, even with quantum computers.

Randomness isn't the only thing that can change a game like that. Limited information is another.

Kriegspiele, for example, couldn't be reduced to an optimal moveset.

And in my autism I think I need to qualify my statement here:

with
>Dice rolls do not per se have anything to do with the game being solvable

I mean purely in the theoretical sense. In a pragmatic sense, this is very important detail, and may very well stop people from calculating the solution.