Re: Chess evolves...


"Quadibloc" <jsavard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:a20a45c2-709f-4852-95a1-3abbc48379e8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Oct 17, 3:11 pm, "Chess One" <OneCh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Is even the 'advantage' of the first move objectively proven? From
general
results we see that White wins more often, but is that, as Adorjan asks,
simply our expectation as White and Black? I challenge that the
initiative
you gain by the first move is not also a weakness - since in any opening,
who is really chosing the future of the game's progress, black or white.
Almost all openings are determined by Black, and that is black's
initiative!
And black will likely understand his game better than you, yours.

Chess hasn't been solved. However, from experience with other games
that have been solved, it is reasonable to believe that it will turn
out to be either a draw when played rationally, or a win for White.

Here at least is something for everyone to argue about - the first of all
with unsolved games, is to even decide the basis of the decision. Why do we
say 'reasonable' to think? What are we reasoning on?

Why not posit that black will win? After all, White must create the first
weakness ;)

In some solved games it is the second play who forces the result.

Since the former is more likely, you may be right that there is no
'real' advantage to White in chess.

The trouble is that we already have 2 subjects here, one of which is theory,
and the other is a set of terms we use to describe playing chess.

For example, what is an advantage which is also not a disadvantage? If White
has the initiative for 12 moves, does that mean at move 13 it then passes to
black, since the cost of maintaining that initiative cannot be supported
without giving up material?

Chess theory has hovered around this topic since the hyper-moderns; for
White to achieve the big center and maintain the initiative means that
eventually his position becomes rigid, and its fixed nature can then be
stressed when White needs to change from 'attacking' space to defending the
gained space.

But the idea that maybe Black has the advantage, and it's all in our
minds is one I reject.

That is not exactly Adorjan's proposal - he says we are programmed by all
chess culture to consider White's 'advantage', and to literally take White's
perspective.

All normal chess diagrams seat you behind the White pieces, no? White at the
bottom, and Black at the top. Adorjan says that Black's position and chances
are simply less appreciated and studied by players than is White's since
White is told that he has the initiative and the advantage at the start of
the game - and he should preserve it, or - as some correspondent wrote here
recently, a strong player too - chess become uncreative for him because he
could /not/ preserve it!

While we may think the same as Adorjan, of differ with him, what we can't do
is argue very much about it, since very few of us give Black equal
attention - and therefore we are only saying what we 'think' is true, not
what is the result of our experience.

It is not as if the chess opening was something that was poorly
understood. What White potentially has is one more developed piece
than Black for the entire beginning period of the game, which is an
advantage in power that can be used to limit Black's options and
development. Many Black opening strategies involve *sacrificing a
Pawn* to rectify this imbalance, and clearly a Pawn, as material, is
objectively valuable.

Chess is a sequential game played over time - and what White has is an
/initial/ advantage which may not be sustainable after so many moves, and in
fact, by excercising the initiative fully, may result in gained space at the
expense of security - (either black or white can gambit to seize the
initiative beyond the sustained period of advantage) - where a
counter-attack is /inevitable/ and which then grants Black the initiative
for 'x' moves.

In Chess, the players take turn. Each player reveals his move as the
result of making it, and the other player's next move is made with
this knowledge. So throughout the game, both players know all previous
moves; but when it is Black's turn, an extra one of those previous
moves was White's.

But, as I said, White may have no 'real' advantage, because Chess may
be a draw once it is fully solved.

'Solved' is an undefined term. In discussion here 6 months ago the subject
of Finite and Infinite Games arose - which is chess? 'Theoretically' chess
is a finite game, but has some features of infinite games - but the very
term 'finite' is an odd one to use if (a) the knowledge to solve the game
cannot be acquired in a person's 'finite' life-time, and (b) such knowledge
if solved otherwise cannot be transferred.

In these cases it makes no difference if the game is 'solved' on people's
actual play [quite apart from 'solved' being able to be verified].

When the theory of something is at such great distance from the practice of
something, then whatever theory says will not little or no effect on
practice.

Since Gallileo we know that the Sun does not go around the earth, but even
astro-physicists say every morning, 'the sun rose'. Objectively we know the
Earth's rotation successively presents the stationary Sun [in relation ot
the Earth], and yet what is subjective is also true, and that the Sun does
not just 'apparently' rise, it actually does. While astrophysics needs
Heliocentric theory, we do not stand on the Sun which is an impossibility,
but on the Earth so we take the only perspective that is actually possible
for us - and that is not the theoretical one of heliocentric reason, which
for almost all practical extent has not the slightest relevance to any human
being's ordinary life!

Steinitz changed Chess from a game where, because positional play was
poorly understood, games were unpredictable, to one where competent
players can have greater control. This is why there are so many draws
nowadays.

Back in the chess world we are still confused because of such [true]
statements as the one you make CONFLICT with 'White has the initiative
THEREFORE White has the advantage.' How can there be advantage aif there are
so many draws? Is it true that White wins more often because while white has
the initiative first, black does not play well and to anticipate the
initiative black will have in 'x' moves?

Better to say that the initiative passes back and forth between the players,
and the player withOUT the initiative has a CURRENT DISadvantage?


Maybe there is truth in the accusation that people wanting to change
Chess are motivated by envy of stronger players, but not quite in the
way it sounds - not in a way that discredits the effort.

Let's suppose Chess was changed somehow, perhaps by making it an
enormously more complicated game that no mind could really grasp.

Let's say it already is this way, even for the strongest players [after all,
it is not solved!] But let's also stop saying that since not suppose that
the people who want to make chess more complex have that as a motive. Once
again, its simply not true that any master player or above has exhausted the
game's potential. There may be other motive for changing games, but not this
one, and the issue then is not changing chess, but the player's need to do
somthing other than play chess.

One consequence of this would be that computer chess players would lag
behind the best human players, the way they do in Go.

Another would be that if a mere duffer like myself - never mind a
player like Mats Winther with a rating of over 2100 - were to play a
100-game match versus Anand, although he would decisively defeat me, I
would actually do better than a draw in one game - by sheer luck, yet
without introducing dice or cards to the game. The game is just so
complicated that combinations just pop out of nowhere.

How would this be a good thing?

For one thing, people learning the game would get more positive
reinforcement.

People play chess because they want to fight! ;)
Winning or losing comes second.

These hypotheticals are really nothing that will ever happen. Mats will not
play Anand 100 games, and you will not play Mats 100 games. Similarly, your
estimate of your chances are also wrong - since you can only use ELO to
determine likely results against a POOL of players sufficiently large and
varied in rating to your own.

Match-chess is not nearly this predictable. Perhaps the most evident example
o f this was Fischer's approach to the W CH - those huge results were so
statistically weird based on his rating : opponents rating.

If you want to encourage newcomers, play chess absolutely normally so that
the game is unchanged, but handicap the time for each player.

For another, competition between the top players would be more
exciting, as there would be lots of wins and losses, but few draws.

If the game isn't intellectually demanding enough, though, that won't
help, because it won't be important and respected; people won't pay
attention to its competitive play. So I insist that Chess remain
something to be taken seriously, even if it is changed to become more
exciting.

And the role of memorized opening knowledge in Chess does badly need
to be diminished.

Or better understood! It is only our expectation of what should happen,
which then fails to happen, which causes dissapointment - perhaps these
expectations are false, or insufficiently understood?

For example, against your opening
1. e4 d4 or c4 I open
1. ...Nc6.
Now, without hitting the books, do you know how to proceed for even half a
dozen moves?

Chess already seems sufficiently complex and rich in possibilities that it
does not need to be changed any more than we need to stop saying, 'Look! The
Sun rises.'

What is necessary in chess is an evolution of our sense of its prospects,
not an abandoned classicism which is hardly examined by all players, and not
exhaustible by any players. It is merely unfortunate that people argue 'for
others' about a need to change chess - whether the others are spectators, or
very strong players, or newcomers. Quite what they think is missing and
which motivates them to want to change the game is a path less travelled in
these conversations.

Cordially, Phil Innes


John Savard


.

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