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How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

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Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#51

Post by Steko »

xenophanes wrote: post #50
Steko wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are abrasive and ignorant but I'll slog through some points... "The task he recommended as a quick break just happens to be one of the hardest games around, and a game that is despite appearances, all about going really really fast." It didn't "just happen to be" anything. The whole point is an exercise that frees up your brain up from whatever else it was doing. The whole point is that it's hard and you are forc…

Why are you so eager to take a subject you know very little about and try to correct people who are much more familiar with it? In the context of competent players, you specifically said that plenty of people play 5min bughouse. This is false and results in lengthy sitting. I don't think you're getting that the way they are playing wrong is completely different than not being Kasparov. Learning to play like Kasparov…

"a subject you know very little about "

Quit pretending that you know anything about me or that you're the only person that knows anything about bughouse. I've been playing bughouse longer then you've apparently lacked basic social skills.

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#52

Post by xenophanes »

Steko wrote: post #51
xenophanes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so eager to take a subject you know very little about and try to correct people who are much more familiar with it? In the context of competent players, you specifically said that plenty of people play 5min bughouse. This is false and results in lengthy sitting. I don't think you're getting that the way they are playing wrong is completely different than not being Kasparov. Learning to play like Kasparov…

"a subject you know very little about " Quit pretending that you know anything about me or that you're the only person that knows anything about bughouse. I've been playing bughouse longer then you've apparently lacked basic social skills.

I went to the early bug gatherings at Ajedrez's house, played ~10,000 games, have taught chess, know a bunch of GMs and top bug players, etc etc

So basically you think you have enough status you should beat someone on the internet, and you're arguing because you don't realize you're completely outmatched?

You also haven't addressed any of my actual points, e.g. that 5min bug = 3+ min of sitting, and this can be learned in very short order.

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#53

Post by CountHackulus »

Wow, haven't played this since the CS lounge 7 years ago. We used to play all sorts of chess variations just to see how they'd work out. One of the most fun for us was reverse chess. First person with 0 pieces wins, and if you can take a piece you must. Some surprisingly complex strategies in that, at first you think that losing at chess is easy, but then you realize that losing at chess is only easy if the other player wants you to lose.

I guess it helped that the only game we could play was chess, as our tabletop was painted with a chessboard and there were 2 sets of free pieces.

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#54

Post by xenophanes »

sethbannon wrote: post #48
xenophanes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI you're wrong. Standard play in bughouse is neither hyper aggresive for white nor hyper defensive for black. Building piece sacrifices into your white opening is a normally a sign of a new player. The most standard opens in bughouse are e4/e5 and d4/d5 now. In the past, standard was e4/d4 vs e6 setups with black either playing d6, d5, or bringing our 2 knights and a bishop next. This turned out to be overly defens…

What sources are you drawing on for your Bughouse theory?

The best players (who are on FICS).

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#55

Post by nhangen »

xenophanes wrote: post #33
Isofarro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about being super-competitive at bughouse, it's about getting the mind in a working state to quickly go into the zone. Bughouse to the non-serious chess player is random enough to be zany and enjoyable whether you win or lose. It doesn't need to have a super-competitive streak to be useful as a tool for getting the mind up to speed. Spending a few minutes thinking about a concrete problem is sufficient. I…

You don't understand. If they ever stop to think about how to play well, they will soon discover they can win by playing worse moves faster. Just a little basic strategy with the clocks will trump a lot of play skill on the board. The only way it can stay the way it is now is if they never think about it much. Which is dumb. Imagine candyland or monopoly was played with clocks and whoever moves faster won. That would…

I read through your entire chain of comments and can't fathom why you've gone to such great lengths to tell other people how to spend their break time. If it works, and they like it, what's the problem?

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#56

Post by xenophanes »

nhangen wrote: post #55
xenophanes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand. If they ever stop to think about how to play well, they will soon discover they can win by playing worse moves faster. Just a little basic strategy with the clocks will trump a lot of play skill on the board. The only way it can stay the way it is now is if they never think about it much. Which is dumb. Imagine candyland or monopoly was played with clocks and whoever moves faster won. That would…

I read through your entire chain of comments and can't fathom why you've gone to such great lengths to tell other people how to spend their break time. If it works, and they like it, what's the problem?

Some people like to analyze games and game rules/systems and see how they work. That's reason enough. You can use reason and logic to figure things out about them. It's the same sort of activity which is popular on HN.

Also they already tried to change the rules by raising the time control to make it slower but you don't think it's interesting that that actually doesn't work in the presence of a tiny bit of strategy? With all other chess variants it does work.

I'm amazed that you came away thinking I care about those particular people. If someone posted about a security hole on a website, and explained it in great length and explained why it does matter because the moment someone competent comes along it will be exploited ... you would not think that was a personal discussion to do with the particular people who made the insecure website.

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#57

Post by xenophanes »

dbecker wrote: post #45
xenophanes wrote: post #26

This is a bad game unless you are EXTREMELY good at bughouse. The people in the article are not good. They are newbies. (You can tell because they play 5 minute bughouse and they play slowly. No good players play 5 minute bughouse because it's a waste of time. 2 minute is standard. If you play with more, you literally end up sitting around waiting for time to get low, for minutes, because that is often to the advanta…

I've played a fair amount of bughouse. You are right about the point about bughouse strategy. Stipulated. These guys are enjoying themselves. They feel rejuvenated for work after playing it for a few minutes. Why impose your priorities on them and claim "it's a terrible game" and suggest they need a "solution." It'd be like Lebron James telling you not to play H-O-R-S-E because it won't help you become competitive wi…

I'm not imposing anything on anyone. Rulesets have a logic of their own.

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#58

Post by ThePawnBreak »

dbecker wrote: post #45
xenophanes wrote: post #26

This is a bad game unless you are EXTREMELY good at bughouse. The people in the article are not good. They are newbies. (You can tell because they play 5 minute bughouse and they play slowly. No good players play 5 minute bughouse because it's a waste of time. 2 minute is standard. If you play with more, you literally end up sitting around waiting for time to get low, for minutes, because that is often to the advanta…

I've played a fair amount of bughouse. You are right about the point about bughouse strategy. Stipulated. These guys are enjoying themselves. They feel rejuvenated for work after playing it for a few minutes. Why impose your priorities on them and claim "it's a terrible game" and suggest they need a "solution." It'd be like Lebron James telling you not to play H-O-R-S-E because it won't help you become competitive wi…

I think it's because when one of them figures out he can win almost every game by simply moving very fast, the game won't be enjoyable any more. And that is bound to happen sooner or later.

Re: How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse

#59

Post by chromic »

jrockway wrote: post #47
Tangurena wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bughouse lets you have experts and novices playing without the novices getting totally stomped. Because you can always move a piece, or place a piece that your team-mate captured, you have a lot more options. This also makes it far more fun for lesser skilled players than regular chess.

But the people who are good at Bughouse here have all said you have to move in 0.5 seconds or it's not even worth playing. I can play chess quickly, but not that quickly.

Play with a time increment per move. I play casually at work with 2 minutes on the clock and 5 seconds per move.
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