posted
Well, this is more of a question for OSC. Are you good at chess? Are you USCF rated? Do you play online? You mentioned chess a few times in some of your books, and named Ender that because of endgame; was it just a product of the Fischer boom?
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posted
Yeah, I am mostly curious cause I am really into it; been playing for 3 years now and I am officially 1623 USCF at the moment (online rating is like 2000) but my USCF strength is more like 1800ish.
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posted
Maybe we could organize a simul against him, that way you would feel more confident.
Seriously now, I doubt he has the time to dedicate himself to chess. And if this is true, then I bet JonHecht can score some nice victories against him. On the other hand, don't ever play Scrabble with him. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Chess requires patience - and memorization.
I enjoyed chess at the age when most people discover it and play it; I even read a book of opening moves and endgame strategies. It gave me an approach to the game that I enjoyed.
Then I played a guy who had memorized some clever opening moves that could checkmate inexperienced players rather quickly. I caught on after one game and stymied the move and beat him, but I realized by then that chess masters were not just masters of immediate play, but masters of the lore of the game, knowing hundreds of opening strategies and situations.
So I had the same reaction I've had to high-level Scrabble playing, where people have memorized all the legal two and three letter words and all the rare-letter words: what's the point?
I know Scrabble and Chess and not comparable games, but in this way they are: I love them when I'm playing, but hate them when it's work.
So with Scrabble, I play with an open dictionary. anybody can look anything up. That wipes out all the advantages of memorizing lists. It's just about the manipulation of words - THAT'S the game I love. In fact, I can't resist helping the other person think of cool combinations because I love the way it looks when the board gets tight. Winning is nice, but the PLAY of it is what I love.
That's how I felt about chess - I loved the PLAY of it, the game, the fun. But when I found people who were competitive with me, they were invariably way too serious about it. It wasn't play to them, it was war. Now, we're talking about me as a kid - I wasn't brilliant at chess by any standard. But I already knew that I only enjoyed the game at my low level; I didn't want to spend the time and work it would take to become competitive at higher levels.
The way I enjoy games is to play them at the building and discovery level. That's why I retooled Civ II to minimize war and maximize discovery, settlement, and development. That's the way I played with toys as a kid - I loved building with American Bricks (yes, I was actually PRE-LEGO!) and blocks, creating huge train layouts or battle scenes with the Airfix HO-scale soldiers I saved my allowance to buy. When I played Risk, I transformed it into a game of strategy and negotiation rather than constant warfare.
That's the long answer. The short answer is: I play chess well enough to beat the average 12-year-old. I'm happy with that and never tried to do better.
As to whether you can play Scrabble with me - you can if you play open book, with no challenges. Otherwise, it's not fun and I don't play.
Trivial Pursuit, now - I have fun with that. Though I'm NOT playing with Ken Jennings any time soon, even though he keeps calling me and begging me to play.
OK, he doesn't, but it made me sound really cool there for a minute, didn't it?
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
By the way, have you thought of correspondence chess? It (usually) allows you to use databases & books, and that means fewer mistakes especially in the opening. No more falling for traps since someone else must have fallen for them before you.
I've only started playing correspondence chess last year - on Dag's site -, but I find it more entertaining than the quick normal games I managed to play now and then on the net. It has allowed me to try new things without the fear that I'd run into a variant of a variant of a variant of an opening I've never played before. Main lines are main lines for a reason, and even though they might be quite deep (even 20 moves of theory is not unheard of) they can still provide interesting games so people tend to divert from them later than in over the board games.
Of course, if you let them, correspondence games can be very time consuming. I played a game against Dag's dad in which analysis for the last moves took me 5-6 hours for each. And in the middle-game we could have spent even more time - as both of us missed very promising continuations at different points. But don't let that scare you away.
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Also, if you really don't want to get into all that opening theory, there is "Random Chess" or "Fischerrandom" or "Chess960". Fischerrandom is chess with a random initial position of the pieces on the 1st (8th) rank. I admit I've never played it, but I think it can be a really interesting try. And you definitely need to think more instead of memorizing. What could you memorize?!
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Definitely not. While there are several very strong players on the site who have done lots of study, there are several others who have not. (Me, for example. )
I find it difficult to find competitive play, too. If you pick a person at random who knows how the pieces move, I'll likely beat them. But most serious players will consistently beat me. I've met only a couple of people who are basically even with me.
(Corwin, check out the current game between my dad and me. Very interesting position.)
quote:Also, if you really don't want to get into all that opening theory, there is "Random Chess" or "Fischerrandom" or "Chess960". Fischerrandom is chess with a random initial position of the pieces on the 1st (8th) rank. I admit I've never played it, but I think it can be a really interesting try. And you definitely need to think more instead of memorizing. What could you memorize?!
I've thought of adding this to the game. Alas, not time to program now that I'm not a shiftless layabout.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I tried playing my insanely brilliant husband at chess last night. He completely destroyed me in about five moves. It was totally embarrassing. I used to think I was a fairly good player, too. Posts: 6 | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: OK, now I'm all paranoid.
quote:Originally posted by LibbieM: I tried playing my insanely brilliant husband at chess last night. He completely destroyed me in about five moves. It was totally embarrassing. I used to think I was a fairly good player, too.
Ouch, 5 moves is tough. I remember being beaten (at chess ) by my father with variations of the same ol' lines over and over again. But that's how I learned. And now... Anyway, if you play again ask him where you're going wrong. Maybe write down the moves so that you can go over them after that.
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Here's the deal: Usually, I can look at a board and decide which side I'd rather be playing.
When I play my dad - or you, for that matter - it's usually not the side I'm playing.
This time, I can't decide which side I'd rather be playing. Which means I'm either getting a bit better or a lot worse. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The problem is that he WON'T TELL ME. He loves to tease me by beating me at games and then not helping me.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Libbie, you should start taking secret lessons, and keep making the same mistakes when playing against him until you can beat him. Then wham! Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Hey OSC, are you registered on any online Scrabble playing sites? Me and a few others from Hatrack play on the Internet Scrabble Club. Reading your approach to the game was like reading my own. However loathe I am to tear you away from you writing ( ) I would love to play you if you ever can't sleep and are in the mood for a match. I'm Dakoit on there.
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posted
World without Legos ... we had rocks. You pile up rocks. You knock over the pile. You hit your brother with a rock. He makes loud noises. Very funny. Stick a rock up your nose. Ha ha ha.
All the suggestions you folks make about chess sound like work to me. And an online Scrabble site? I tried an online backgammon site once. As soon as it was clear I was winning, my opponent dropped out. How fun was that.
When I play games that aren't like golf (i.e., you against the course), I prefer to have a live opponent in the room with me. Playing Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit or even chess with anonymous strangers isn't fun. I like games like that to be social. It's only fun to play TP, for instance, with the Baughans, who are evenly matched with Kristine and me, so we both sit there agonizing over an answer - that's FUN. Because it's also sociable.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Okay... Best Trivial Pursuit game EVER... And the only one I've ever won... I was laid up at Duke University Medical Center, my good friend and her now husband were visiting me (because I was on vacation visiting them when I almost ended up having my foot cut off). Probably some of the best laughs we've had and they weren't even forced, given the circumstances that's saying something. I think they let me win but they still swear they didn't.
I agree - better in person. It makes for more game than competition.
*suddenly realizes - does it matter what i post since it was right after orson scott card's post? who's gonna really 'see' mine... ; )*
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posted
Well, Mr. Card, if ever you're around Tallahassee and want a good game of Scrabble, look me up.
I turned to online play after getting frustrated with my mom talking on the phone and watching TV while playing. Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I like online Scrabble, but only with people I already know. And only at games.com, where there's not only a built in chat function, but hecklers can come in and chat too.
I always save some virtual peanuts to lob at the folks in the peanut gallery.
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posted
I think you mentioned in the intro to Ender's Game that you changed out chess for Risk at some point. But that you were using custom rules for it? Care to share some specifics?
I still play Risk regularly but we mostly use the standard rules... I somehow imagine that your rules lessens the element of luck that's required to win the standard game.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: All the suggestions you folks make about chess sound like work to me.
Well, to each his own. I guess I *like* to work for chess! I remember looking at my early games only a year after I played them and laughing at them. It really didn't take much for me to enjoy playing a lot more than before, but it's true that it can take years and years just to achieve a decent level. This of course doesn't mean you can't enjoy playing no matter the level if you have someone close to your own strength to play with.
And there lies the problem. In real life I don't know that many people who can hold their own on a regular basis against me. At least not among the friends who are still in the same city as me. So we either play and I win because of serious mistakes from my adversary, or they don't even want to play anymore just knowing how much time I dedicate to chess. And going to a club is pretty much out of the question since it wouldn't really fit in my timetable.
That's why I turned to internet chess. It's certainly less exciting than playing in person, but since I play chess to play chess, not to socialize, I'm ok with this.
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The most fun I've had with chess was when I was playing against a friend in Rouen. We started a little match that was supposed to last until one of us reached 15 points and we played the games during my first and second year at the university. It ended 12-10 in his favor in the official match games (we also played unofficial ones ). Toward the end we'd sometimes play 3.5-4 hour games, and I must tell you that a game like that requires more concentration than a 4 hour exam. But they were totally worth it. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Yeah, Dag, that was the problem. It was just a one move mistake (Rxe4). You had another move that maintained equality. I don't know what to say... Maybe you should try a more methodical way of analysis: after searching for variants, forget all that and see if there's any check, capture, threat that you missed, however crazy it may seem. This has helped me avoid a few blunders in long over the board games - where you actually have time to think and play chess instead of following patterns and moving pieces like in blitz.
RunningBear: As I've said I play mostly (only...) correspondence chess right now, either on Dag's site: princeclan.org, or on gameknot.com. I used to play normal games on yahoo, but most of the players there favor fast time controls (less than 10 min) and I'm not very fond of those.
Ecthalion: Try some openings in which you exchange a knight or even both and in which you connect the rooks early on (rapid piece development and early castling). If you really do know how to use rooks properly, you might even want to look into lines with early bishop+knight vs rook+pawn exchanges. When/if I have the time I'll try to give you some ideas. And if you want to test them, don't be afraid to come to Dag's site and challenge me there and say what opening you want to play.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:I know Scrabble and Chess and not comparable games, but in this way they are: I love them when I'm playing, but hate them when it's work.
So with Scrabble, I play with an open dictionary. anybody can look anything up. That wipes out all the advantages of memorizing lists. It's just about the manipulation of words - THAT'S the game I love. In fact, I can't resist helping the other person think of cool combinations because I love the way it looks when the board gets tight. Winning is nice, but the PLAY of it is what I love.
That's how I felt about chess - I loved the PLAY of it, the game, the fun. But when I found people who were competitive with me, they were invariably way too serious about it. It wasn't play to them, it was war. Now, we're talking about me as a kid - I wasn't brilliant at chess by any standard. But I already knew that I only enjoyed the game at my low level; I didn't want to spend the time and work it would take to become competitive at higher levels.
I am shameless.
But I DID write a comic and a blog about this very topic.
posted
Ah, the eternal problem of whether you should or should not beat your girlfriend at the game you're playing.
I don't have a problem with sports, I can go down a level so that others enjoy it too. No point in dribbling everybody at basketball and scoring all points yourself. It's just not fun, and if I play for fun I won't do it. If I'm in a championship of some kind then all bets are off.
On the other hand I can't lose at chess on purpose. I've blundered against weaker opponents and have been asked if I did it on purpose. Nope, no way. If I see a way to force a win, I'll take it, girlfriend or not. It's... different than a physical sport. With chess I'd rather teach others how to play, help them see their mistakes and their strong points than play worse on purpose. It's about honesty for me. I can agree to not use some advantage in sports, but I can't agree to not use my mind correctly, or worse, to ignore what my mind sees. Who'd even want to win against me like that?! I know I wouldn't.
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Anyway, if you play again ask him where you're going wrong. Maybe write down the moves so that you can go over them after that.
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