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Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

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Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#101

Post by gosukiwi »

aaronetz wrote: post #24

Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.) On another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety i…

Pretty unrelated but you can try online strategy games, personally I've played League of Legends for about two years and I still can't reach Diamond tier. LoL does require some mechanical skill but once you get it down, it's 90% knowledge.

Another alternative is Magic The Gathering :) or HearthStone.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#102

Post by schoen »

jmgregory wrote: post #52
aaronetz wrote: post #24

Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.) On another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety i…

Off the top of my head, if you're looking for deep two-player strategy with zero chance element, besides Go there's Othello (Reversi), Hive, Checkers, and Khet. If you're willing to put up with some chance, Backgammon and Battle Line can be very satisfying. For more than two players, take a look at Puerto Rico (finite but negligible chance) and Diplomacy.

Quoridor is a great abstract strategy game that doesn't seem to have beecome very widely known.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoridor

A lot of the subtlety comes in because of the rule that you can never completely obstruct the opponent's path to the goal, but you can try to make it as convoluted as possible. Hence people try to multiply the opponent's options (so that they can be closed off at the last minute) and limit their own options (so that the opponent isn't allowed to block their unique path to the goal).

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#103

Post by pdknsk »

I'm not a particularly good player, but the match was rather boring IMO, other than game 9, which Anand cut short with his blunder. I wonder if the dull first game, described by Anand as a "satisfactory draw with black pieces", set the tune for the remaining games.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#104

Post by phaus »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54
aaronetz wrote: post #24

Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.) On another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety i…

Magic: the Gathering? It's a game of infinite possibilities and strategies and has a big meta game around it, too. Plus collectibles. Plus cool artwork. Plus good apps.

In some ways, the internet ruined games like MTG. I still like to play, but the widespread availability of tournament decklists stifles creativity.

There are still formats where you see a wide variety of decks, but T2 play normally involves picking one of maybe 5 or 6 viable options.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#105

Post by phaus »

abvdasker wrote: post #43
aaronetz wrote: post #24

Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.) On another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety i…

David Foster Wallace wrote (I'm paraphrasing here) that "tennis is a combination of chess and boxing". Maybe try that.

Sounds like he thinks very highly of tennis. Most people like to think that the things they like are better than the things everyone else likes.

The truth is, any skill-based game can be extremely intense at the highest levels of play.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#106

Post by RBerenguel »

Yovel wrote: post #78
jballanc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but just wanted to add that if you find Go boring, I suggest you pick up a good Go book or two. The really good Go writers can construct an entire war narrative from a game of Go, all the while giving you deeper insight into the strategy and tactics at play in the game. To be honest, compared to Go writing, I find much writing about Chess to be very boring and analytical (though I'm sure that has as much to…

Do you have any good Go book suggestions?

You can lurk the go subreddit /r/baduk (baduk is the Korean name for go, helpful for web searches now Google killed the term) and Sensei's Library: http://senseis.xmp.net/ a wiki for and from go players.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#107

Post by RBerenguel »

phaus wrote: post #99
jrs99 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you see many, many people getting obsessed with a game, and you think it's boring, it's usually a sign that you're not understanding something. Go and no limit poker are getting massively popular. They are both like chess, but much less tactical and a lot more strategical games. In other words, computers can't beat the best players in these games yet. For whatever reasons, the status of games is somewhat related t…

>If you see many, many people getting obsessed with a game, and you think it's boring, it's usually a sign that you're not understanding something. I love chess, but this type of thinking is flawed. Using this logic, the Twilight movies are misunderstood masterpieces, Justin Beiber is the millennials' Mozart, and WWE style wrestling should be in the Olympics alongside the decathlon.

I think it's the "game" wording that is wrong. I don't know what would suit better, but finding chess, shogi, go, xiangqi as boring would just mean you don't understand something. I was originally a chess player, but found the depth of go much more inspiring, once I "learnt the language."

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#108

Post by RBerenguel »

GFischer wrote: post #91
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic: the Gathering? It's a game of infinite possibilities and strategies and has a big meta game around it, too. Plus collectibles. Plus cool artwork. Plus good apps.

(not the op) I love Magic: the Gathering and played on and off for 18 years now. It has two big downsides, the main one for me is that it's extremely expensive (a brand new console + collection of titles is equivalent in price to owning a couple of top tier decks). The other one is that it's seen as uncool or childish or nerdish. I'd rather not mention it in workplaces anymore. That said, yeah, building decks playing…

/The other one is that it's seen as uncool or childish or nerdish. I'd rather not mention it in workplaces anymore./

Not like Go, don't you think? (I do, been playing go for 10 years already)

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#109

Post by emidln »

phaus wrote: post #104
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic: the Gathering? It's a game of infinite possibilities and strategies and has a big meta game around it, too. Plus collectibles. Plus cool artwork. Plus good apps.

In some ways, the internet ruined games like MTG. I still like to play, but the widespread availability of tournament decklists stifles creativity. There are still formats where you see a wide variety of decks, but T2 play normally involves picking one of maybe 5 or 6 viable options.

The netdeck argument is probably for a different site, but I strongly believe that MTG as a tournament format benefits enormously from widely available top-performing decklists, video and text coverage, and articles on deck strategy as well game tactics with particular decks or deck archetypes.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#110

Post by Joona »

jere wrote: post #97
cjbprime wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already something very similar to a "board game Olympics", it's called the Mind Sports Olympiad: http://www.boardability.com/games.php I'd give Go another try. If you're interested in watching anime, I found the series _Hikaru no Go_ pretty good motivation to keep learning.

Agreed. I'm not even a big anime fan and Hikaru no Go really kept up my motivation when I was first starting. It's hard to believe how exciting they made Go look, when it's actually just two people quietly placing stones on a board for hours. Here's a trailer if you don't believe me: http://youtu.be/XpV4ZWh4NkQ

I agree, Hikaru no Go is amazing. I have not seen the anime, but instead read the manga (which is actually longer).
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