
Chess Is the Killer App - acheron
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-13/world-chess-championship-2018-is-made-for-the-internet
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StevePerkins
> _It is noteworthy that China, one of the two most important countries in the
> world, has decided to invest heavily in chess. This year Chinese teams won
> both the men’s and women’s divisions at the Chess Olympiad, a first._

I'm somewhat surprised that chess still has a "men's" and "women's" division.
Isn't that anachronistic for a "sport" that has virtually no physical
component at all? I don't really understand the ELO system by which players
are compared, but I believe that one's score is in relation to the competition
they have previously faced. Are top females' lower scores not simply self-
perpetuated due to not playing the top males?

~~~
dmurray
Most tournaments, including the "men's" Olympiad, correctly called the "Open",
are open to both genders.

The top women are far worse than the top men (the top two are currently ranked
#99 and #350). Discussing why is a sensitive matter: depending on which
studies you believe it's either because women are naturally different from men
or because the patriarchy keeps them down.

~~~
StevePerkins
I would assume that to be due to a smaller selection pool. That is, fewer
females play chess, and so fewer climb into the elite ranks. The same reason
why American football players disproportionately come from the south, where
the sport is more culturally prevalent, and hockey players disproportionately
come from the north.

~~~
biophysboy
In Germany, the ratio is about 16:1 ([https://m.phys.org/news/2009-01-men-
higher-women-chess-biolo...](https://m.phys.org/news/2009-01-men-higher-women-
chess-biological.html)). But even with these odds, the chance of picking 20
men in a row is quite small, about 20%.

So that leaves us with the more controversial answers. I havent done any
research, so I couldnt tell you which it is, bias or genetics. If I had to
guess, I would say genetics. I mean, its a game about spatial patterns.

But I dont know why people still consider chess to be a good measure of
general intelligence. Its not. The newest bot learned how to be better than
our centuries of chess knowledge in about 30 mins, but the robot isnt at all
intelligent in any general sense.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> If I had to guess, I would say genetics. I mean, its a game about spatial
patterns.

What do "spatial patterns" have to do with genetics, in this context?

Anyway, judging from your comment you probably haven't heard of Judit Polgár:

 _Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster. She is
generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time.[1] In
1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4
months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record
previously held by former World Champion Bobby Fischer.

Polgár was born on 23 July 1976 in Budapest, to a Hungarian Jewish family.[10]
Polgár and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master
Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father
László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional
achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age.[11]
"Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klára
educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist
subject.[12] László also taught his three daughters the international language
Esperanto. They received resistance from Hungarian authorities as home-
schooling was not a "socialist" approach. They also received criticism at the
time from some western commentators for depriving the sisters of a normal
childhood.

Traditionally, chess had been a male-dominated activity, and women were often
seen as weaker players, thus advancing the idea of a Women's World
Champion.[13] However, from the beginning, László was against the idea that
his daughters had to participate in female-only events. "Women are able to
achieve results similar, in fields of intellectual activities, to that of
men," he wrote. "Chess is a form of intellectual activity, so this applies to
chess. Accordingly, we reject any kind of discrimination in this respect."[14]
This put the Polgárs in conflict with the Hungarian Chess Federation of the
day, whose policy was for women to play in women-only tournaments. Polgár's
older sister, Susan, first fought the bureaucracy by playing in men's
tournaments and refusing to play in women's tournaments. Susan Polgár, when
she was a 15-year-old International Master, said in 1985 that it was due to
this conflict that she had not been awarded the Grandmaster title despite
having made the norm eleven times.[15]_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r)

So, of three women that were purposefully trained from an early age to play
chess, two became grandmasters and the other an International Master. Either
genetics has nothing to do with it, or the Polgárs are a very special family,
genetically speaking. Which is the most likely?

~~~
biophysboy
I hadn’t heard of her! This shifts my view.

My comment was solely based off of the metastudies you see around spatial
reasoning. Since I’m not very aware of the details (e.g. cultural effects), I
stressed that it was a guess.

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cellis
The best chess channel I have found is agadmator. Amazing manner of explaining
chess and very entertaining. Here's a video about Alpha Zero vs. StockFish:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb3_eRNoH_w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb3_eRNoH_w)

~~~
andy_adams
I spend far too much time watching chess, so I’ll chime in here with a couple
of channels/people that really show how chess can be entertainment.

Daniel King (PowerPlayChess) is a Grand Master who does commentary on most
major chess events. His explanations are deep, interesting, and colored with
historical background:

[https://youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess](https://youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess)

And if you want your mind blown, watch Andrew Tang (penguingm1) play blindfold
15 second games:

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=6ygQMw4rBHg](https://youtube.com/watch?v=6ygQMw4rBHg)

Sorry for sending you down those rabbit holes!

~~~
erikig
Hackernews comments and YouTube were build for just these types of rabbit
holes

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threatofrain
Magnus Carlsen commentating over 1-minute chess tournament mentioned in
article.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32A79jhXQgs&t=450](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32A79jhXQgs&t=450)

~~~
galfarragem
It's nice to see that Lichess is here to stay. If somebody from Lichess is
reading: a big thank you.

------
known
Chess saves people from alcohol in India
[http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170511-the-indian-
village-...](http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170511-the-indian-village-
addicted-to-chess)

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lostgame
Chess is the only game my partner seems to play on her phone. We also play it
together in person.

I love the pacing, the strategy, the conversations, the intellectual nature of
it.

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maceurt
Chess is a game where everybody can play it almost anywhere, and there is no
physical advantage one has over another. There also is a huge amount of stuff
that is possible to learn about the game to become better at it, so there is
no real limit to how much you can learn about the game. The only thing that I
dislike about chess is the people who play it. The culture around many chess
circle's seems very pretentious and snotty to me.

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psb
My kids think I'm weird for watching chess but it is a perfect background show
to have on - baseball is the other sport that works fairly well. There are
also some really fantastic commentators (Peter Svidler and Jan Gustaffson are
my favorites). Finally most of the top players are also almost absurdly humble
and friendly

~~~
lawn
Snooker, let's plays and esports in general fill this niche for me very well.
I previously got very into Go which also worked well so I can absolutely see
chess serving you well.

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gpvos
Back in the 1980s and '90s when the internet wasn't generally available and
Teletext ruled Europe, the pages on which you could follow live chess
championship games were quite popular.

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galfarragem
I really like chess 'permanency' and to know that the time 'wasted' mastering
it will not be lost. Chess is relevant now and it will be during my lifetime.

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Shorel
Does this mean the interest in Go/Weiqi is going down?

~~~
timbit42
Not in my home.

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pjmlp
Any recommendations for good chess apps on Android?

~~~
Buttons840
Lichess is impressive. The tech behind it has been talked about before on HN.
It has an app and a webpage.

~~~
pjmlp
Thanks!

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lee101
Checkout [https://bigmultiplayerchess.com](https://bigmultiplayerchess.com)!
its a multiplayer chess deathmatch variant (for free)

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nuclx
Just redesign it so that there is always a winner. The draws really bore the
sh*t out of me.

~~~
mrob
You might like Arimaa. It's playable on a chessboard and has no draws. I find
it more fun than chess, mostly because at my low level of chess play, the game
is mostly decided by blunders. In Arimaa, it's harder to evaluate who's
winning, and it's harder to make big gains or losses in a single turn. It
feels like you need more long term planning to win, which makes winning more
satisfying IMO.

~~~
arunix
Some background: Arimaa was created to be difficult for computers to win at,
but this was no longer the case as of 2015.

I also found it fun to play.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa#Arimaa_Challenge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa#Arimaa_Challenge)

