This is wild. Chess feels old-school and boring to me. Don't understand how it's competing with modern sources of entertainment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P349BdHUxlc&t=0s
There's too much that's simply memorisation over skills, deep lines leading you down well traversed paths.
Creativity and ingenuity suffer.
The only real option* if you want interesting games is to make intentionally bad moves so that theory falls apart, and that's only an option against weaker players.
You can play with the more restricted time controls - but that only mixes things up by forcing mistakes, not by introducing well considered novel moves.
* There's always Fischer random.
https://thechessworld.com/articles/openings/5-chess-openings...
There's probably a limit as to how bad a move you want to make: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Opening
You're probably better of going with dubious openings, rather than actively bad: https://lichess.org/study/FzX9K6ff.
And yet, game 2 of the world championship there was a novelty on move 4.
Creativity and ingenuity suffer.
The only real option if you want interesting games is to make intentionally bad moves so that theory falls apart, and that's only an option against weaker players.
Did you watch the world championship this year? It did not at all fit your narrative. The games were very exciting. The players were out of prep early and often. There were a lot of chances being taken, blunders, and mistakes. All this from 2800-level players.
I think people may soon realize that computers can be used for more than just preparing deep lines on well-trodden ground. They can also be used to find the shortest path off the beaten track and into a jungle of a midgame where you and your opponent can just play some chess. I love it!
OK, so fucking up accidentally can also make for an interesting game, but that hardly shatters my "narrative".
Also, a lot of those engine lines would’ve just made a draw, something a human player would never do when they’re playing with the white pieces in a need-to-win game.
Until you become extremely proficient, you have basically no room to use novel strategies. You will lose to people with better execution on established strategies. And so you don’t do anything but grind execution and it’s pretty boring.
Chess isn’t quite this bad, but I find it pretty boring after a while.
I would argue that you can get to approaching 1500 ELO without really knowing any theory at all, and just focusing on what "feels" like appropriate control of the board & game dynamics... and again, the vast majority of casual players will likely never move beyond that. But it's still fun, especially when they're able to challenge friends between classes to 3 or 5 minute matches.
That may not hold if it’s an established form of social competition where you can earn prestige by being good at it within your local peer group. It would be nice to see more intellectual challenges take that role among young people.
Memorisation is not at all important for learning to play chess. It won't make you better at the game. Training your pattern recognition, your positional/endgame/opening understanding will.
Until you're around 1500 real life ELO(which takes years for most people), all you have to do is play the game and enjoy it, analyse it with the opponent or other friends from the club. No memorisation required.
A lot of times, Memorization isn't even needed. People develop mental shortcuts for calculation in positional, endgame, and middle game sections.
Things like forcing doubled pawns on the C/F files (depending on your color), calculating whether you can promote before the king can catch up (that triangle strategy). Lucena and a few others.
With a solid opening repertoire that's chosen to force certain openings/sublines you can limit the study needed significantly (and shoot to the moon rating wise).
Point is memorisation is pointless. The way to study an opening is to understand the ideas, possible endgames, tactical and various structures that can arise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_chess
I almost never play chess, but when I play chess I usually play this variant, because it's faster and people don't have any tactics memorised. I'm not even sure if it's possible to memorise in the same manner as regular chess.
Your moves are all about controlling your opponents influence and responses while developing your pieces before situating for a breakthrough or attack.
Interesting games only really happen with decently skilled opponents who know the theory as well as you. The game often only starts getting interesting after move 16+.
Dubious moves and openings are a surefire way to lose.
Basically, it's all there. Chess is born anew for the 21st century.
Where are the doomers who said chess was over after being solved by AI?
- Short time format makes for intense, fast paced games
- Starting a game only takes a few taps, and you can be done in a few minutes
- ELO ratings give you a number to obsess over improving, and online matching puts you against even opponents
- Instant post-game analysis
- Large amount of Twitch/Youtube content make it more fun to learn and follow the community
Your point is moot because only 1% of people play at a high-level, thus chess is at least more interesting than what 99% of CSGO players will experience in terms of strategy. Their ability to react and aim in real-time isn't a consideration either, nor is their access to a pretty decent computer and internet connection to be able to compete effectively.
You don't need to be Global Elite in CS to have a team that attempts site takes/retakes/rotations and tries to use util effectively. You'll never have GE reactions/aim, but you'll also never be an IM/FM in chess no matter how much you grind. CS is still fun even as a silver/low gold nova pleb because the midgame has effectively unlimited variety (just like chess), and 10 independent players as opposed to 2 leads to much more diverse gameplay. CS also has the advantage of there not being draws (aside from in Valve's matchmaking), something which plagues chess all the way to the super grandmaster level.
The kids these days are drowning in novelties of the sort that were scarce to me as a child. It stands to reason they wouldn't be as easily impressed or fooled by such things.
Like you trying to make everything else sound inferior, plus fluff. It is not true, once you scratch reputation out of chess, you get mundane drills and memorization of situations.
Sometimes I play bullet games for hours straight because it’s very easy to just play one more 2 minute game.
Things have gotten much easier now, you can get endless stream of free puzzles that are as fun as any puzzle game and adapt to your skill level... I'm still not that interested in actually playing but it's really the ultimate single player game for phones, always slightly challenging and takes as little or as much time as you want.
It’s really nice having that sort of depth vs a video game with a set path and story that you follow, or slicing random fruits with your finger.
And the accessibility has obviously gotten insanely good as has been pointed out before in the thread.