Re: [tlug] Chess is dead (OT)

[Raedwolf Summoner <rarooam@example.com>]

Bruno Raoult <braoult@example.com> wrote:
> >> I did not say all games are dead. Chess is, because it was really a
> >> focus for programmers for decades.
> 
> As any phone is better than you, if a player just goes to toilets for a few
> minutes at a crucial time (like tactical), and the game is over. This is where
> the game is dead: you don't know if the guy in front of you is playing himself..

I never play online because I have no idea if I am playing the person 
or a computer. Kind of like in the old days playing by mail: you didn't know
if the person was using a reference book. However, I don't see how anyone 
going to the toilet for a few minutes (unless it is _very_ early in the game) 
could get any help. In fact, if he needed help that early, it would not be likely
to do him any good.

In my office (euphemistically, 研究室 ["kenkyuushitsu" for those of you like me
who take the digest and so all the kanji come out as "???"]) I teach students to 
play chess. Most of them who have participated for a couple of years start to
have somewhat decent games against each other.

I am no longer teaching them with the assumption that they have had some 
experience with shogi. Shogi has gone the way of sumo for most Japanese 
youth. I used to play shogi with my sts on occasion. It has been so long that 
I no longer would offer any competition. Most of the sts have, however, had 
some experience with chess. Actually, a lot more of them than in the past.

Shogi is dead. Although, like Latin, there are still groups trying to resuscitate
the practice. OTOH, my Chinese students tell me that xiangqi is still extremely
popular in China. Chess also seems to me to be alive and well. If anything, the
ability to play a computer at simpler levels has encouraged the practice.