Musings on chess and life

[simont]

I don't play chess. That is, I know how to play, but I'm really pretty bad at it and don't like it much, so I hardly ever try.

Part of this is because I find it difficult to do the planning-for-all-eventualities kind of strategic thinking. It just seems to be a blind spot in my intellect. I'm an engineer type, who will do a competent job if given plenty of resources and a good safety margin; strategy in a fair fight is more a question of squeezing every last bit of juice out of the limited resources you've got, and that's not my forte.

But also, chess specifically annoys me in one particular way, and that's the uniform vulnerability of the pieces. I'm much happier playing games like Starcraft, in which the more powerful units are generally better armoured as well as better armed, so although a high-value unit can still be mobbed by enough small pieces, it's not usually possible for (say) a single marine to take out a battlecruiser. But in chess, the powerful pieces can be captured exactly as easily as the feeble ones, and this paradoxically makes the feeble ones more scary due to the concept of piece exchanges; a knight protected by another knight, for example, has little to fear from the lightning strike of the opponent's queen (if he wants to swap his queen for one of my knights that's fine by me) but is likely to run like hell from a slowly advancing pawn (his pawn for my knight is much more in his favour). It irks me that the powerful pieces are so circumscribed by this sort of consideration that it's very hard to actually use them for anything worthwhile. My intuition as to how battle games ought to work is much more in the Starcraft mould than the chess mould, and as such I've always felt this feature of chess to be counterintuitive and somewhat artificial.

It occurred to me recently, though, that in fact the chess model can apply worryingly well to less military aspects of life, because some vulnerability models aren't as linear as they are in battle. Suppose, for example, that you believe yourself to be good at doing something because you've never failed to do it yet, but that a lot of what makes you good at it is precisely the confidence that comes from a 100% track record. Suddenly your vulnerability is increased in proportion to your success so far: if you fail just once, you know your confidence will be badly shaken and you're likely to start failing a lot more in future. So although you have this theoretical great strength, in practice you often don't want to have to risk using it.

This annoys me just as much in real life as it does in chess. Except that in chess you can always say ‘oh, this is a stupid game, I can't be bothered’ and walk away from the board.

Comments

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

Harold II and Richard I were both killed by arrows from common archers.

Contemporary aircraft carriers have to be used very carefully and escorted into battle by a flotilla of destroyers and frigates, because they're powerful but a very high value target that can't adequately defend themselves from guided missiles.

...of course, you could just play Go, where every piece is equal before it is placed on the board.

[simont]

of course, you could just play Go

Indeed, this is my usual solution to my dislike of chess :-)

[simont]

And to answer the rest:

It did occur to me when I was writing my rant that the chess model might apply rather better in low-tech battles, when the high-value units were kings rather than tanks. Though kings are rather a special case anyway, since they don't exactly have high destructive power to go with their high value and vulnerability.

As for aircraft carriers, well, yes; even in Starcraft you get some units whose direct defensive capability is low because they have some other use. Science vessels spring to mind, as do Dark Archons and Zerg Queens. But they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

[joshdavis]

The problem with *Craft/Age of * /Command and Conquer style RTS games is that to some extent, strategy gives way to mob warfare. "homever has the largest number of grunts to send into battle and who has the biggest production might just be the wiener.

[simont]

True, although the way you get superior production in the first place is by applying strategy to get more resource expansions than your opponent; send forces to a mineral area too late and the opponent will already be entrenched, but send them too early and they won't be able to hold on to the region when they get there.

[joshdavis]

I always have/had trouble with that aspect of it, so I make up for it by hiding single units all over the place in the endgame so my opponent gives up. :)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Chess is asymmetric warfare, then? I wonder how you could modify it to model the covert aspects of terrorism against modern civilizations.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Every time you take a bishop, twenty pawns pop up at other points on the board.

[oneplusme.livejournal.com]

Also, you concentrate your attacks on the pieces of the guy three boards over, then act surprised when this doesn't seem to result in victory.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Um. That's why I always lose at chess...I get distracted by the other guys and forget which board is mine.
Aaagh! I'm a Republican and I never knew!

[simont]

One of each player's pawns is a suicide bomber, and the other player doesn't know which until it's too late?

[pm215]

Reminds me of a novel I read which in passing mentioned a kind of board game where when you picked up a piece it might suddenly turn out to belong to the other player, in which case it would give you a nasty bite on the thumb...

moving away on the tangent...

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Is it scary that I remember that scene as from one of the Lone Wolf novels-of-the-gamebooks series? Is it scarier that I remember it as about book 7?

[joshdavis]

Some how, this reminds me of Jumani

Depends on the chess game- and the war...

[tombee.livejournal.com]

Interesting subject.

Chess (I'd describe myself as a reasonable player) has similarities in a lot of ways with World War One. The opening moves are usually about gaining space and development and can be carefully planned out in advance (vis AJP Taylor's history that WW1 was imposed on the statesman of Europe by railway timetables). Once battle lines are effectively decided, it is a vital importance to be able to move forces rapidly from front to front; breakthroughs can be decisive but extremely costly. And of course, no-one gives a damn how many pawns die, so long as Field Marshall Haig's drinks cabinet moves 6 inches closer to Berlin.

In this context, pawns = infantrymen and the pieces are more akin to field artillery, railways, air/ tank support and the like: they are vulnerable, but mobile and crucially can provide support from distance.

on the other hand, some games of chess are nothing like this :). As are some aspects of WW1, which was (initially) a multiplayer game.

The difference between Starcraft and real wars is that, in Starcraft, you don't need to make up an excuse for the benefit of your own hard drive components before killing foreigners to get at their scarce resources.

Does anyone else feel guilty when destroying game stuff?