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Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

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Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#121
post #15
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJNESXsRkY

My god those comments. Even chess streams are not safe it seems.

Youtube comment section is one of the few places that aptly helps define the meaning of the phrase "darkest corner of internet". Some of the commenters there seem to have been gifted with the brains of an amoeba.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#122

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.

The discussion around Carlsen has led me to instinctively make comparisons to Starcraft professional play.

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/How_to_Improve

If you listen to commentators discussing matches, they can explain why certain decisions are gutsy, what the history of each player is (so-and-so is amazing at Medivac drops, so you expect that going into a game with him; so-and-so prefers the late game, so you'll never see him build proxy pylons), and the long-term ramifications of certain events (it doesn't seem like a big deal to lose 5 workers, just like a pawn sacrifice doesn't seem huge, but at the pro level of play, you'd better get something of equal or greater worth out of that; it doesn't seem like a big deal to know when Zerg builds their first extractor, but scouting that timing can tell you a lot about build order).

> LoL does require some mechanical skill but once you get it down, it's 90% knowledge.

At a certain point, LoL is about having teammates who you've worked with enough to anticipate and account for. There's a world of difference between baiting the carry and hoping your jungler will respond to your ping, and baiting the carry because you know there's three seconds until your jungler's dash is off cooldown.

Personally, I get the shakes when I PvP in LoL so what decent mechanical skill I have kinda fractures. :( I miss watching LoL streams, actually; they stopped working for me.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#123

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…

Since bridge was mentioned, how about majong? I could play either of them for hours on end.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#124

Reading more about this match and Magnus in general, I learned of a measure termed "Nettlesomeness" which has been used to measure which players do the most to make their opponents to make mistakes. Magnus, with his highly creative style of play and unexpected moves, not surprisingly ranks the highest in this measure. He seems to have this remarkable gift of making moves which aren't just strong, they get inside his…

If Magnus is making strong yet unexepected moves relative to his opponents - doesn't that mean he simply has a higher degree of mastery at the game?

Well, "unexpectedness" isn't just a failure to anticipate by weaker players. A non-optimal move could be intentionally made with the intention to be unexpected, in order to play mind games with the opponent. Unexpectedness could be a factor in what makes a move strong, not just an after-the-fact observation.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#125
post #89
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is much more depth than your're giving it credit for - you can work on developing your own conventions, and there are many advanced play techniques - ever heard of a mandatory false card?

>Ever heard of a mandatory false card Nope, what is it? Nothing shows up in my Google searches other than plain old "false cards", which are fairly obvious. I don't remember bothering to name such a thing.

Basically the idea is that you assume you have, say, QT doubleton in a suit, dummy has J9x, and declarer is presumed to have the rest of the significant cards in the suit - perhaps the suit opened.

Declarer leads the A, parter plays low, dummy plays low. Do you discard the Q or the T?

Since you have to discard a non-small card declarer will know you have either a singleton, or QT doubleton, because with any other holding you'd play something else. If you have T singleton, there is nothing declarer can do about it except lead small to dummy's J at trick 2. However, if you can convince declarer you have Q singleton, the right play is to hook the 9 in dummy. Thus, playing the Q at trick 1 is a mandatory false card - discarding the ten will never gain, discarding the Q puts declarer on a genuine guess.

At very high levels, this gets further randomized because declarer will pickup on the Q likely being a MFC, and thus work to otherwise resolve the guess and get it right (e.g. play other suits and using deductive reasoning from that. - so at very high levels the winning strategy is actually to make the MFC most - but NOT ALL - the time, at random.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#126
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you sure about that? the king could have moved back up, but in front.. moved from right side to left side between those two lines, without moving in front of the queen line.

If Anand played the king to the eighth rank instead of to h6, Carlsen would have kept checking on the seventh and eighth ranks, with a draw by perpetual check.

Just to make sure I am absolutely clear, I am talking about 61...Kh6, which enabled Carlsen to play 62.Qb6+ forcing the queen trade.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#127
post #92

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…

You should really give No Limit Hold'em or Pot Limit Omaha a try. Poker is a game of astounding complexity once you start taking it seriously and it's quite fun. Combine that with the ability to take a small bankroll, $100 or whatever you're comfortable using as seed money, and turn it into a roll sufficient for high stakes poker (with enough dedication and time) and it truly does become quite an amazing game to play…

I used to be a professional poker player, and although I agree that especially in the beginning -- while you're quickly evolving -- it's a lot of fun, after a while you do it for the money.

It's very different from MTG, where me and my friends would play for the thrill of it, spending whatever little money we had to play.

The easy test here is: would you play a poker tournament just for fun, if there was nothing at stake? Few people actually do it. The thrill in both cases actually is (or becomes) the money made/lost.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#130
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since computers play chess (better than humans) by looking at moves and ranking them as advantageous or disadvantageous, I would think it would be relatively straightforward to use a computer to decide whether a move is a mistake or not.

It would be able to tell if the move was a mistake if playing against a computer . A move that would be bad against a computer opponent might throw a human opponent off balance through surprise, or take the game into a type of board state which was unfamiliar and disorienting to the opponent.

From the James T. Kirk school of chess.
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