"What Go is to philosophers and warriors, chess is to accountants and merchants"
If so, why is it not as popular as chess (outside Asia)? This could be examined at length but the fact that chess was used as one of the weapons of Cold War and its long history (Go has become popular in the West only in late 20th century) all should be considered. Yet, there might be some truth to Nicholai's (aka Trevanian, aka Whitaker) observation. The antagonistic nature of chess is much easier to grasp than the cold, crystalline-like beauty of Go's patterns.
As to your comment " I don't actually think humans really were bested by computers in chess", which is shared by others on this thread: The observations that computers play "ugly chess", the "thought" process is different, etc. stem from an romantic idealization of how the grandmasters are raised and train nowadays. I would very much suggest that you read the NYer article I linked (an another commentor summarized). The basic idea there is not that computers have learned to play an ugly version of brute force chess but humans (with the aid of their computerized tools) learned how to mechanically optimize their play, getting closer to computers.
"The antagonistic nature of chess is much easier to grasp than the cold, crystalline-like beauty of Go's patterns."
Sure, but are the long term structural patterns in Chess easier to grasp? I'm at a disadvantage here because I'm honestly not good enough at either game to really know.
I read that Bobby Fischer once snapped to a journalist who congratulated him on a well played chess match: "how would you know?" I don't know. My casual dabbling in chess and go gives me as much in common with Go or Chess masters as my BA in Math gives me with Euler. What I do isn't a weaker version of what they do, it isn't related at all.
Now, my 5 year old loves the antagonistic nature of chess, it's about taking the other guy's pieces. Kabam, got you! But c'mon, even I know that's not meaningful chess.
And these comparisons of Kasparov's genius to "accountants and merchants?" Kind or reminds me of that scene in "A Beautiful Mind" where Nash loses a go game and claims "the game is flawed." It's not flawed, you just don't get it.
Good points. The chess-go/accountant-philosopher comparison in Shibumi was placed in the larger context of materialistic West (US) vs. inner looking East (Japan). It may have been farfetched for this thread.
"What Go is to philosophers and warriors, chess is to accountants and merchants"
If so, why is it not as popular as chess (outside Asia)? This could be examined at length but the fact that chess was used as one of the weapons of Cold War and its long history (Go has become popular in the West only in late 20th century) all should be considered. Yet, there might be some truth to Nicholai's (aka Trevanian, aka Whitaker) observation. The antagonistic nature of chess is much easier to grasp than the cold, crystalline-like beauty of Go's patterns.
As to your comment " I don't actually think humans really were bested by computers in chess", which is shared by others on this thread: The observations that computers play "ugly chess", the "thought" process is different, etc. stem from an romantic idealization of how the grandmasters are raised and train nowadays. I would very much suggest that you read the NYer article I linked (an another commentor summarized). The basic idea there is not that computers have learned to play an ugly version of brute force chess but humans (with the aid of their computerized tools) learned how to mechanically optimize their play, getting closer to computers.