The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
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The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
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Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#2I dunno, I feel like "the end of golden era of American chess" is pretty unfair to the amazing things Sinquefield has going on in St. Louis right now, as well as all of the "new" online resources that continue to pop up, and the general penetration chess seems to be achieving in scholastic formats today.
This article seems focused on a handful of luminaries, but I'd argue that a "golden era" of a thing is defined by it's blossoming into popularity and a new kind of explosive growth that thing hasn't previously seen, which (and maybe it's because I didn't grow up with Fischer) feels more like what's happening now.
I don't know if chess is more popular now than it's ever been in America (having read Pawn Sacrifice, I believe Fischer made chess fairly mainstream in America for a time), but it feels like more people are playing chess than ever before in the US, and that strikes me as more of a hallmark of a "golden era" than what this article refers to it as.
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#3Well clearly the new chess Masters are no longer players but programmers. That doesn't make the game uninteresting though.
A few months ago, one would have thought that we had the best algorithm and that progress would only be slowly incremental for now on... until the approach adopted to best humans at the game of go got applied to chess. Now you have these programs like LeelaChess able to best Stockfish (a program that had been improved over the last fifteen years) after a few months of training. There's definitely a lot more to discover in this game.
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#4Well clearly the new chess Masters are no longer players but programmers. That doesn't make the game uninteresting though. A few months ago, one would have thought that we had the best algorithm and that progress would only be slowly incremental for now on... until the approach adopted to best humans at the game of go got applied to chess. Now you have these programs like LeelaChess able to best Stockfish (a program…
> a lot more to discover
That is how I understand it as well. Blue Gene used heuristics such as rook = 5 and knight = 3 and there must be many more complex heuristics or direct approaches that you can use once your machine learning methods get enough computing power.
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#5I dunno, I feel like "the end of golden era of American chess" is pretty unfair to the amazing things Sinquefield has going on in St. Louis right now, as well as all of the "new" online resources that continue to pop up, and the general penetration chess seems to be achieving in scholastic formats today. This article seems focused on a handful of luminaries, but I'd argue that a "golden era" of a thing is defined by…
In a way you can compare it to the "Golden Age" of science fiction, which cemented the genre in our culture, but you can judge its classics on their own merits while also considering them in light of the new works produced in the decades after.
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#6Well clearly the new chess Masters are no longer players but programmers. That doesn't make the game uninteresting though. A few months ago, one would have thought that we had the best algorithm and that progress would only be slowly incremental for now on... until the approach adopted to best humans at the game of go got applied to chess. Now you have these programs like LeelaChess able to best Stockfish (a program…
I don't know if programmers are the new game masters. As far as I know, bots are not allowed in most, if not all, chess competitions. It's not like we stopped doing the 100m dash after the intention of the bicycle or the car. Those are just other racing categories.
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#7There's one interesting change I've noticed in chess and in a number of other fields where we seem to be gradually are losing that je ne sais pas we once had. This [1] is a film from 1925, "Chess Fever". For one bit of unspoken context, the smirking gentleman from the beginning (and the one that makes a few recurring appearances) is Jose Raul Capablanca - a person often considered the most naturally talented player ever and who was reigning world champ when this movie was released. Aside from the humor of the movie, I think there's something much more telling. The movie emphasizes chess as a game for adults, that kids can play.
That was published just following the advent of the USSR which would go on to become the world's powerhouse of chess for many decades, arguably continuing to this day. It seems in the west we've gradually started to reverse that adult-based focus for many things, chess among them: it's a game for kids, that adults can play. We've spent an immense amount of energy, and money, getting chess in schools but I'm not sure we've seen anything like a proportional gain in outcome for it.
For instance this [2] is the home page for the US Chess Federation. They chose of all possible pictures, for their lead image, one of an under 10 year old girl playing, and the strong bias towards scholastic/youth chess is present throughout. The only reason I mention this is because I imagine like many when I was a kid I was reached an age (still a kid) where I was gradually repelled by things I perceived as 'kid things' and drawn to things I perceived as 'adult things.' In my case coding was something I perceived as an adult thing, and that attraction ended up playing a monumental role in shaping my life. I'm quite curious if things would have been different had my school been actively attempting to get kids involved in coding.
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#8Former chess prodigy here. I had the honor of training with Pal Benko in the early 90s when I represented Team USA in the world youth championships. I remember Benko being a real class act, which I can’t say about many of the chess personalities I’ve met over the years. You could tell he was absolutely, passionately in love with chess. In that sense he represented something pure which maybe we’ve lost in this new era.
That said, let’s be clear. The golden era of American chess, and chess in general, is happening now and only getting better. I give credit to to open-source projects like LiChess and Lc0, tournaments like LiChess Titled where mere mortals get a chance to challenge Magnus, and the rise of chess streaming as a thing.
Heck, I’ll concede that the golden era of classical chess is over. But it’s been over for a while, pretty much since computers advanced opening theory and took all the wins out of classical. RIP classical chess. But for those willing to think on their feet, the golden era of blitz and bullet is here :-)
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#9Well clearly the new chess Masters are no longer players but programmers. That doesn't make the game uninteresting though. A few months ago, one would have thought that we had the best algorithm and that progress would only be slowly incremental for now on... until the approach adopted to best humans at the game of go got applied to chess. Now you have these programs like LeelaChess able to best Stockfish (a program…
> a lot more to discover That is how I understand it as well. Blue Gene used heuristics such as rook = 5 and knight = 3 and there must be many more complex heuristics or direct approaches that you can use once your machine learning methods get enough computing power.
Yes, still it is astounding how far you can get with relatively simple heuristics and a well pruned search tree.
One interesting heuristic, which falls right out of "von Försters Imperative" is: Prefer moves that maximize the number of choices you have in the future, and minimize those of your opponent.
Re: The End of the Golden Era of American Chess
#10Former chess prodigy here. I had the honor of training with Pal Benko in the early 90s when I represented Team USA in the world youth championships. I remember Benko being a real class act, which I can’t say about many of the chess personalities I’ve met over the years. You could tell he was absolutely, passionately in love with chess. In that sense he represented something pure which maybe we’ve lost in this new era…
How has computer chess changed how humans play humans? (I.e. when you take the computer out of thr equation).