Pawn to the dark side

[Monadology]

Oh yeah, resources are definitely a major issue. As you point out, we're not anywhere close to having programs as strong as Stockfish that can run easily and quickly on basically any hardware (I think Lichess runs Stockfish in the user's browser, so the server itself isn't doing the analysis, but I'm not sure). Hopefully one day!

I think it might be possible to adjust for the greater degree openness of Go by tuning the problems so that it's somewhat generous about what counts as a good enough answer, and of course, if it does the analysis of any suggested move, this means that moves it didn't consider but which actually turn out to be good on analysis, will still be allowed as correct answers.

And even in Stockfish's case, it's not perfect. In losing positions, it tends to recommend very defensive moves that are likely to prolong the inevitable, rather than moves that complicate the position but are refutable. The latter are what you are likely to want to play against human opponents, since if you are losing significantly, your best hope is to start complications and try and outplay your opponent.

[daal]

On the two chess websites I've tried, lichess and chess.com, neither of them seems to have a system in place for reviewing the game afterwards online with your opponent. Am I missing something? If not, it seems a bit of a shame, as talking about the game afterwards has a lot of benefits. In general, online chess feels a bit more impersonal than online go (chess players apparently never say "hi," "thanks," or much of anything when playing online. I guess online chess opponents are a bit more expendable...

[dfan]

On the two chess websites I've tried, lichess and chess.com, neither of them seems to have a system in place for reviewing the game afterwards online with your opponent. Am I missing something?

I am almost certain that lichess doesn't; I don't know about chess.com.

ICC has this but it's kind of the KGS of chess servers (once the leader but hasn't kept up with the times) and also costs money.

I think one thing with chess is that mostly people play very fast games (by go standards) and don't want to spend more time reviewing than playing, especially when many of the mistakes are blunders you wouldn't make in a slow game. There also may be less of a review culture online because it's so easy for both players to go back to their corners and instantly get a computer analysis, so there's less point in "Did you consider this move?" "Yeah, but I thought you would have done this" "Oh, ha, I didn't even see that" sorts of conversations. Live postmorts after tournament games, on the other hand, are very common.

[Tami]

I've been playing online chess since 1994 (back in the days of AICS and EICS - American and Euro Internet Chess Servers, respectively).

It's a sad reflection of a common mindset among chess players that saying "thanks" is often seen as being shorthand for "thanks for the ratings points, sucker" when you win. And, given that 3 0 and 5 0 are popular time controls, nobody wants to spend a few precious seconds typing a greeting.

Still, there ARE many nice people to be found, too. A good way to make friends on chess.com is to compliment your opponent on a sweet move after they've beaten you. Also, you can make a kind comment on their bulletin board in their profile. Since posting abuse is a lot more common, you'll stand out for the right reasons if you say something kind!

I don't see why you can't love chess at the same time as loving go. I find both games enthralling. I've never been able to get into shogi or xiangqi (Chinese chess), but I'm sure they're terrific games as well.

chess.com is absolutely superb. If only a go server would appear that combined its many virtues: clean interface, easy customisation, ease of finding opponents of any level, news, chess TV, and instructional material for players of all levels of ability. If you want to play me there, I am "Gemella".

What do I like about chess: number one, the fact the pieces can move. The fluidity of the game can be incredibly exciting.

My tip for getting stronger at chess: study endgames, because that teaches you the unique properties of each piece.

Congratulations on taking up chess. It has been a lifelong friend to me, and you'll really enjoy meeting Tal, Nimzowitsch, Kasparov, Nezhmetdinov (THE fiercest attacking player ever) and all the others.

[Knotwilg]

What do I like about chess: number one, the fact the pieces can move. The fluidity of the game can be incredibly exciting.

I remember that when the game tended to become locked between two players who knew how to play positional chess, I lost interest. It's precisely the freedom and the resulting fluidity of Go that made me fall in love with it.

Then I learnt shogi and its reinvestment of captured pieces: a marvel!

[daal]

Well, I haven't played a go game in about a month and I haven't missed it. I have played quite a few chess games and although I won't make a final verdict, it turns out that there are a ton of things that I like more about playing chess than playing go.

First of all, I haven't once gotten angry with myself. This is a big deal for my personal well-being. When I play go, I regularly get furious at myself. I recently told this to a friend who was dumbfounded and asked: "why do you play it then?" I didn't really have a good answer. I said that I liked the fighting element, but that's only half true. I like the exhilaration during a fight, but I don't enjoy getting outfought. Usually the result of getting outfought is that I feel bad about myself, and who needs that?

I'm not sure why this hasn't happened yet with chess, but I have a few theories. One is that chess games are just shorter. This seems to have the effect that I don't feel so invested in the game. When I lose, I run the game through the computer, see what I did wrong and go on to the next one. This is what I think I ought to do when I lose a go game, but reviewing is so much more work, and more often than not, I can't figure out what I did wrong anyway. Another reason is that I'm still a beginner, and I am not faced with a wall that I can't overcome. Actually, I find that I am hardly interested in my chess rating. I just enjoy playing. Essentially, the way I have been going about chess is the way I ought to have been going about go: I review my games, do problems, don't care about my rating and I have fun.

Chess also feels less draining. Partially, this has to do with the shorter games. Concentrating and deciding what to do 40 times is less work than doing it 200 times. It also has to do with the smaller board. One doesn't need to try to figure out what "whole board thinking" is. In chess, whole board implications are readily apparent. In general, chess seems more straightforward. Pieces and their qualities are readily identifiable and I find it easier to see what is going on.

Apparently, my years of playing go have helped prepare me to play chess. When I tried playing chess as a kid, much of the game seemed a matter either of incomprehensible calculations or pure luck. Pieces disappeared. Checkmates happened. Now I see weaknesses where pressure can be applied, tactics to gain an advantage, momentum and drama. Go of course has all of these things as well, but it is also burdened with the demand for extraordinary patience and prolonged concentration. Neither of these are my strong suit. With chess, you don't necessarily need to be patient. If you want, you can start throwing your weight around practically from the get go. I've been mostly playing chess on chess.com's "rapid" setting, which is 15 mins each, so games last anywhere from a few minutes to about half an hour. This is fine for me. By the time my concentration lapses, the game is already over.

One last aspect that I want to mention, is that the two games have a different dynamic, stemming from the fact that in go the board gets fuller as the game progresses and with chess it is the other way around. This has the effect that while the games start similarly, often with set patterns, the endings are vastly different. Where a go game typically ends with trying to get another half a point here or there, a chess game becomes all the more exciting as a game progresses, with the pieces getting more room to move and the stakes getting higher. Go doesn't manage to offer anything as final and satisfying as a checkmate.

I hope you forgive me for writing a pro-chess post on a go forum, but most of you know where I'm coming from. It's not coincidence that my longest-lasting KGS nick is "agony." I'm sure I'll find my way back to go at some point, but for now I am quite happy that go has oddly enough offered me a stepping stone to a game that - at least for now - I really enjoy playing.

[dfan]

Welcome to the chess world! It is pretty fun too. I keep meaning to write a long article about the differences between go and chess at some point. You have hit on some of them (the difference between their endgame stages is a big one for sure).

I suspect that a lot of the reason for your lack of stress is the fact that you are a relative beginner in chess, so you are less invested in proving that you have justified the effort you have put into improvement. The bad news is that as you improve, your stress may increase...

I think playing 3-minute 9x9 games on GoQuest is a nice way to get that "I'm just playing for a few minutes to have fun, no pressure" feeling back in go.

By the way, this may sound pretty stupid, but one method of reducing game-playing stress that has worked really well for me is to force myself to smile as I play. It reminds me that I should be enjoying myself.

[EdLee]

I feel bad about myself,

It's not about Go. At all. It never was.

[daal]

I feel bad about myself,

It's not about Go. At all. It never was.

It might not be about go, but go is what brings it out. There are plenty of things I do that I don't do so well, and none of them make me feel as miserable as when I blunder away a go game. I may have some high expectations, but with other endeavors I am a lot more forgiving with myself. If you are implying (and if you are, I would prefer you said it) that my emotional reaction to failure at go is really about some other failure in my life, then what good is this substitute rage doing me? I think I'm better off without it.

[EdLee]

really about some other failure

Not necessarily failure, but something else. Something else is the real issue. If the root is uncovered, understood, and if feasible, "dealt with" (e.g. resolved), probably other nice things will emerge.

[Bill Spight]

I am glad that you are having a good time playing chess. More power to you!

Go . . . is also burdened with the demand for extraordinary patience and prolonged concentration. Neither of these are my strong suit. With chess, you don't necessarily need to be patient. If you want, you can start throwing your weight around practically from the get go. I've been mostly playing chess on chess.com's "rapid" setting, which is 15 mins each, so games last anywhere from a few minutes to about half an hour. This is fine for me. By the time my concentration lapses, the game is already over.

Bruce Wilcox used to advocate playing a game of go in 15 minutes. Personally speaking, not my cup of tea. That comes to less than 4 sec. per move, on average. That's quick, but not a killer pace. What do you think of his idea?

[jlt]

@daal: reasons for being angry after losing a go game may include

• Feeling that you wasted your time. You have invested (say) 4000 hours in go, but made mistakes that you could have avoided after (say) 400 hours of study and practice.
• "Midlife crisis", fear of intellectual decline.
• You think that, overall, you are smarter than average, so you can't accept to be just average in go.

I don't know if these reasons apply to you, since I only know you through this forum so my impressions may be totally wrong, but if they are not, then I don't see why the same frustrations will not appear later with more chess practice. Well, anyway, go or chess are leisure activities, so should be discontinued if they bring more pain than joy. Maybe you will want to come back to go later.

[daal]

Welcome to the chess world! It is pretty fun too. I keep meaning to write a long article about the differences between go and chess at some point.

Thanks! I think that would be an interesting read.

By the way, this may sound pretty stupid, but one method of reducing game-playing stress that has worked really well for me is to force myself to smile as I play. It reminds me that I should be enjoying myself.

It might work, but it seems that if you think you should be enjoying yourself, you probably aren't.

I am glad that you are having a good time playing chess. More power to you!

Thank you. Much appreciated!

Bruce Wilcox used to advocate playing a game of go in 15 minutes. Personally speaking, not my cup of tea. That comes to less than 4 sec. per move, on average. That's quick, but not a killer pace. What do you think of his idea?

About a year ago, I spent a few months only playing Canadian blitz - 1 + 25 moves/3 mins, which is not quite as fast, but still pretty fast, with games lasting typically about 20 mins or so. For a while I enjoyed it, but then I got tired of it. I did find the games less stressful and the losses less painful, but after a while, also less interesting, so I stopped.

I think I have always found go games to be stressful and the losses painful. I don't feel that way about chess, so it's not just a matter of me being a beginner. I think it might have to do with having the feeling of being or not being able to make sense of what is going on. I have long struggled with the fact that in most situations in a go game, it is extremely difficult to come up with a clear and correct justification for a move. One is stuck juggling principles whose priorities are undefined, reading out lines of play and then trying to determine based on juggling more principles whether the result is good or not. Aside from the first few moves, my feeling is that pretty much every move I make is sub-optimal. In the last chess game I played, Stockfish thought 40% of the time, I made the best move. Of the 31 moves I made, it considered 20 of them excellent. Either by sheer luck or by doing what makes sense to me as a beginner, I can apparently play a good chess move fairly often. If a go computer were able to comment in a similar fashion, my guess is that out of 200 moves, at most 5% would be the best, and perhaps 10 or 20 could be considered excellent. Apparently some chess principles are easier to grasp than go ones. Less stress.

@daal: reasons for being angry after losing a go game may include

• Feeling that you wasted your time. You have invested (say) 4000 hours in go, but made mistakes that you could have avoided after (say) 400 hours of study and practice.
• "Midlife crisis", fear of intellectual decline.
• You think that, overall, you are smarter than average, so you can't accept to be just average in go.

I don't know if these reasons apply to you, since I only know you through this forum so my impressions may be totally wrong, but if they are not, then I don't see why the same frustrations will not appear later with more chess practice. Well, anyway, go or chess are leisure activities, so should be discontinued if they bring more pain than joy. Maybe you will want to come back to go later.

Some interesting theories. I do get angry with myself when I make a move that I know better than to have made, but I don't think that the reason is that I feel that I have wasted time, but rather because I lost concentration, I was too impulsive, or I dropped the ball while juggling principles. In other words, I don't feel bad about having tried to learn how to play go, I feel bad that my personal qualities prevent me from being a better go player. As to fighting intellectual decline, I see go as more of a help than a hinderance. I am a bit conceited, so your last reason might have some merit. I find it fairly frustrating that after so many years of playing and studying, I still feel clueless so much of the time. I don't think this really applies to chess. What you are trying to accomplish is fairly clear. You want to get an advantage that puts you in a better position to checkmate your opponent. What are you trying to accomplish with a go move. Can you answer that in less than one book?

[Bill Spight]

What are you trying to accomplish with a go move. Can you answer that in less than one book?

Efficiency.

[jlt]

I find it fairly frustrating that after so many years of playing and studying, I still feel clueless so much of the time. I don't think this really applies to chess. What you are trying to accomplish is fairly clear. You want to get an advantage that puts you in a better position to checkmate your opponent. What are you trying to accomplish with a go move. Can you answer that in less than one book?

I have played too little chess to have an educated opinion, but my impression is that

• In both games, there are some definite goals: capture stones/capture pieces for instance.
• On the other hand, positional judgement is difficult, and probably more difficult in go than in chess since the board is larger, but I am not convinced that all chess moves can be explained in less than one book.

Personally I am a bit like you, especially during the opening or early midgame (of go), I don't always know where to play. I read the book "Get strong at the opening", but I was far from understanding all answers (and anyway, I guess that some answers would nowadays be considered as wrong by strong bots). On the other hand, in my games against kyu players of various levels, the outcome of the game is almost never determined by the opening or by fancy strategies, but by fighting/life and death skill, both opponents typically make several big mistakes during a game.