Reading more about this match and Magnus in general, I learned of a measure termed "Nettlesomeness" which has been used to measure which players do the most to make their opponents to make mistakes. Magnus, with his highly creative style of play and unexpected moves, not surprisingly ranks the highest in this measure.
He seems to have this remarkable gift of making moves which aren't just strong, they get inside his opponent's head and cause them to either overthink/break down. I'm interested in the technical details behind this metric. Has anyone heard of it before?
Regardless, congrats Magnus. You are truly a generational talent, and I'm excited to see what your win will do for the game.
Congrats Magnus Carlsen! You finally unseated our beloved Vishwanathan Anand and made the beautiful game even more beautiful.
Allow me to go on a tangent to let me tell my personal story with chess. I began playing at age 7 when my elder brother borrowed a chess board from a friend. It was a nice break from the physical altercations between us(read mat fights). My maternal grand ma called it "Satan's Game". And my mother toed the line. Why? I don't know the exact reason, but I guess it was an amazing time sink. Or maybe they both had watched this Hindi movie by Satyajit Ray: The Chess Players(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076696/). When the game s between my brother and me became violent(You moved it when I was off to the toilet...) it was banned from our home. But we didn't give up. Our summers were spent playing chess in a nearby mango orchard or the graveyard a mile away. The chess board made out of paper with plastic pieces was the only "toy" we never broke. Those were the best days of my life. And it's still safe 20 years later. With every piece intact. What a game.
<blasphemy alert> Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.)
On another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety in world-class intellectual matches, similar to what exists in physical sports. Something like a "board game Olympics".
Edit: Thank you for all the useful replies! In reply to some of you, I am a complete beginner at Go. Maybe the word 'boring' was not carefully chosen. As a programmer, I should have known better - that things may seem boring (tiresome?) until you become more fluent with them. I should certainly give Go another shot...
Boring compared to chess? As a Go player I take this as an insult. Go is way more interesting, there are more fights, more complexity and you make a lot of tactical and strategic decisions in one game. Also you have a great handicap system, playing stronger players is no big problem. Did I mention that there are no remis and pro matches are often decided by 0,5 points which is really little.
I am ending my rant with a quote: "Rather than being the image of a single struggle as in chess, Go is much more like the panorama of an entire campaign, or complex theatre of war. And so it is more like modern warfare where strategic mass movements are the ultimate determinants of victory. … As in modern warfare, direct combat, without supporting tactics, rarely occurs. In fact, to engage too soon in direct combat frequently spells defeat." -- Oscar Korschelt
I agree there's a certain amount of hubris behind the endeavor. But I'm interested in the design of balanced games, and the ways in which some old games are not balanced or rigid.
Magic: the Gathering? It's a game of infinite possibilities and strategies and has a big meta game around it, too. Plus collectibles. Plus cool artwork. Plus good apps.
I think Hive is the best chess "alternative". It feels lighter, but plays deeply and is never boring. It has an interesting geometric component. And there are annual championships.
(Get the Hive Carbon edition, it's much nicer looking)
If you see many, many people getting obsessed with a game, and you think it's boring, it's usually a sign that you're not understanding something.
Go and no limit poker are getting massively popular. They are both like chess, but much less tactical and a lot more strategical games. In other words, computers can't beat the best players in these games yet.
For whatever reasons, the status of games is somewhat related to whether they are "solved" by programs. Chess, like backgammon and checkers, is really on its way down.
I love chess, and play it all the time, and same with many other games. But the allure goes down once it is solved.
maybe all games will be figured out by software... but at the moment, no limit and go seem extremely exciting in terms of their possibilities/strategies.
You should really give No Limit Hold'em or Pot Limit Omaha a try. Poker is a game of astounding complexity once you start taking it seriously and it's quite fun. Combine that with the ability to take a small bankroll, $100 or whatever you're comfortable using as seed money, and turn it into a roll sufficient for high stakes poker (with enough dedication and time) and it truly does become quite an amazing game to play.
I personally play heads-up poker. Unlike 9-handed poker, heads-up poker is constant action. It's more dependent on opponent profiling and maximizing expectation on the fly, using experience and statistics. A game of infinite variety.
Since April I've taken $200 and, playing online and live poker, have profited in the following ways:
+$6458 - online poker heads up matches
+$2900 - rakeback/bonuses from pokerstars
+$12500 - live tournaments and pot limit omaha cash
And that's merely playing recreationally, completely separate from my full time job. You can play a complex, fun game and make money doing it. Who wouldn't enjoy that?
If you’re looking specifically for an alternative to Go or chess then be sure to have a look at a list of the so-called abstract board games (Go and chess belong to this category too) on the BoardGameGeek: http://boardgamegeek.com/abstracts/browse/boardgame (sorted by popularity by default)
There are a few gems there that you might be interested in.
I'm not sure exactly what constitutes a viable "chess alternative," but if you're open to going beyond two player and investigating other styles of games, check out the top games on BGG (boardgamegeek.com). Many of these have a great deal of strategic depth and subtlety:
What board games have you played? In the last 10-15 years, the U.S. has experienced something of a German-style board game renaissance. Check out Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, Power Grid, Agricola, and many other less popular ones.
Kind of irrelevant, but board games seem like a great application of 3D printing. I wonder if there will be another surge in popularity when (if?) 3D printers become household items.
Have another go at Go. The handicap system is wonderful. It make two players of what ever standard have an equal match. There is a reason why Go is old and globally the uptake is far bigger than Chess - it combines very type of thinking. Strategic versus immediate tactical. Thinking globally versus locally. Chess appears too 1 dimensional now by comparison.
You can try Chinese chess (xiang qi) or Japanese chess (shogi). I particularly like shogi because it has the rule that you can reuse the pieces of your opponent you capture.
Both are a bit hard to learn though because the pieces are oriental characters.
Pretty unrelated but you can try online strategy games, personally I've played League of Legends for about two years and I still can't reach Diamond tier.
LoL does require some mechanical skill but once you get it down, it's 90% knowledge.
Another alternative is Magic The Gathering :) or HearthStone.
If you're looking for something close to chess, you might enjoy Xiangqi, or Chinese Chess. It has a similar layout, but with a few changes, e.g. rook-like pieces that capture not the closest piece, but the second-closest piece. Two on the same file creates all sort of weird possibilities.
Go is not boring, but what you see in the game evolves a lot with your level. I have stayed a couple of year at 5 kyu with monotonous games. Once I have improved to 3kyu, games were a lot more funny.
Off the top of my head, if you're looking for deep two-player strategy with zero chance element, besides Go there's Othello (Reversi), Hive, Checkers, and Khet. If you're willing to put up with some chance, Backgammon and Battle Line can be very satisfying. For more than two players, take a look at Puerto Rico (finite but negligible chance) and Diplomacy.
I'm super excited to see the impact this will have on our noble game. I think it could see a real surge in popularity in the years ahead. And at the age of 22, Magnus is only just getting started.
It will be interesting to see if Chess, or other boardgames for the matter, will benefit from streaming services as much as video games have.
I've seen the Chess-Network on twitch.tv break 1k viewers which is tiny compared to the 300k League of Lengends and Dota 2 tournaments but still a substantial amount regardless.
It's quite fun to see the media attention he has gotten here in Norway. For the last few weeks the sport segment of most news show spent as much time devoted to chess as football, which is not something i ever expected to see.
I'm not much a chess player myself but it still very satisfying seeing so much attention brought to a intellectual sport. I hope at least some of it will stick around.
I am Norwegian and fucking proud of it right now, due to Magnus Carlsen.
He comes from a Nation consisting of 5 mill. people, compared to Anand's billion people.
This is probably the greatest sports achievement our country will ever make, as there are really no comparable sports achievements in the world, not now, anyway.
IMHO: They should knight him the second he gets of the plane when he returns home. Because no other Norwegian has ever accomplished anything close to this, with regards to bring honour to our nation.
I'm always amused by how people tie their pride to things they have absolutely no control over. In case of sports, it's even worse. Most sport outcomes aren't repeatable. When "your" team/person wins it is very likely due to random mistakes others made or you were fortunate to avoid this time. They may very well loose if the game was repeated again. Would your pride wash away then? Even if sport events were repeatable, why you should take pride when you had almost no contribution to their success (may be except buying a ticket or offering your eyeballs for TV ads)? In US, its even worse, considering teams are not even "national", they are actually owned by random zillionairs. I was almost floored to see people spending spending significant portions of lives and money in to cheer leading what is essentially absolute random team where members are pretty much from anywhere, sometimes even opponent teams! Why anyone should be spending their precious Sundays and take monumental amount of pride when some random zillionair's team wins because of what are essentially random non-repeatable events? Sometimes I think sport fans are people who skipped any or all education on probability and statistics.
PS: Before you all get on my case let me tell you I do get the fact that sports does have display of skills value (same as skills of artist) that is worth paying for. I also get that professional sports is hard and money hungry adventure and without fans it won't exist. What I don't get is why is it a matter of pride?
This may sound "negative" but I would appreciate if you can think about this : by "proud", you merely mean "lucky". You can only be proud of things that you achieve personally. Unless you trained him or helped him somehow) you have absolutely no part in Magnus Carlsen's success.
Probably without realizing it, your ego is merely interested in these false associations (Magnus > Anand => Norway > India, and parents-who-gave-birth-to-me-think-they belongs-to Norway => I belongs-to Norway) because it can grab a free ride to better self-esteem without any personal effort. I believe there are false notions of separateness and identity involved here.
Nationalism is also spiritually detrimental because it prevents you from realizing that you are not who you think you are. How can you even ask the question, "Who am I?" if you are so comfortable with who you think you are?
Sorry for the lecture. I hope there is something useful here for you despite raining on your parade!
Have you ever seen India's medal tally in Olympics - your logic will fade once your find India near the end of the tally with 2 medals one silver and one bronze.
Vishwanathan Anand was not the rule but an exception.
To clarify: While theoretically the title of knight is attainable in Norway, it's not something that is practiced, and has not been for at least 150 years.
Were there such a title I'd be happy to see our government/King knight him, though.
I don't understand at all the point to these negative replies to this comment. Magnus Carlsen made Norwegians happy because he accomplished something of great honor to that country. Is this really that absurd?
You should be proud, Magnus is awesome!
I'm Brazilian, and I would trade one of our World Cups for a chess World Championship. Hell, I'd even trade two-for-one :)
After spending the last 18-months immersed in the professional StarCraft 2 scene, I can totally appreciate a lot of the meta-stuff around Chess now. I always enjoyed Chess, and was not too bad at it (compared to those around me, certainly nowhere near even an amateur-pro!), but for some reason SC2 "clicks" better for me (I think being addicted to Brood War while spending 6 months in South Korea probably has something to do with it).
The discussion of "mind games" {"nettlesomeness" here) is something that SC2 has an obsession with, and certainly can play a massive part in pro tournaments, and I'd never considered it applying to chess... but now that I think about it, everything in SC2's meta really came from Chess to begin with, only applied in real-time with 300+ actions per minute and hundreds of pieces with few illegal moves. And yet I struggle more with grokking the advanced strategies of Chess than I do for StarCraft!
Comparing a centuries old board game with completely balanced rules, to an infant video game that still has major balance problems (if you looked hard enough), is silly. Chess is as balanced as it gets.
This is actually a good example of why I'm not particularly interested in chess anymore-- a game that's that heavy on draws and where so many of the situations are adaptations of well-known positions simply isn't that thrilling. I really enjoyed chess when I was a kid, but the better I became and the more I learned about it the less I found it a compelling game.
I'm not a particularly good player, but the match was rather boring IMO, other than game 9, which Anand cut short with his blunder. I wonder if the dull first game, described by Anand as a "satisfactory draw with black pieces", set the tune for the remaining games.
Brilliant! Magnanimous. I am a Vishy fan, but this match was really one-sided when Vishy faltered at critical moments. Does it mean age matters? Will Vishy rebound? I hope so, but perhaps it's the sad reality that I acknowledge -- better player won and the problem with the chess world (the number 1 elo-rated player was not the WC for so long) got corrected.
Cool, it was held in Chennai, my home town. I remember some of my friends along with others (25 at a time) lining up to play Anand at the same time about 15 years ago. Anand was a Grand master at that time. Who else is from Chennai here at HN ?
[+] [-] kadabra9|12 years ago|reply
He seems to have this remarkable gift of making moves which aren't just strong, they get inside his opponent's head and cause them to either overthink/break down. I'm interested in the technical details behind this metric. Has anyone heard of it before?
Regardless, congrats Magnus. You are truly a generational talent, and I'm excited to see what your win will do for the game.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/net...
[+] [-] realrocker|12 years ago|reply
Allow me to go on a tangent to let me tell my personal story with chess. I began playing at age 7 when my elder brother borrowed a chess board from a friend. It was a nice break from the physical altercations between us(read mat fights). My maternal grand ma called it "Satan's Game". And my mother toed the line. Why? I don't know the exact reason, but I guess it was an amazing time sink. Or maybe they both had watched this Hindi movie by Satyajit Ray: The Chess Players(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076696/). When the game s between my brother and me became violent(You moved it when I was off to the toilet...) it was banned from our home. But we didn't give up. Our summers were spent playing chess in a nearby mango orchard or the graveyard a mile away. The chess board made out of paper with plastic pieces was the only "toy" we never broke. Those were the best days of my life. And it's still safe 20 years later. With every piece intact. What a game.
[+] [-] aaronetz|12 years ago|reply
Edit: Thank you for all the useful replies! In reply to some of you, I am a complete beginner at Go. Maybe the word 'boring' was not carefully chosen. As a programmer, I should have known better - that things may seem boring (tiresome?) until you become more fluent with them. I should certainly give Go another shot...
[+] [-] sergj|12 years ago|reply
I am ending my rant with a quote: "Rather than being the image of a single struggle as in chess, Go is much more like the panorama of an entire campaign, or complex theatre of war. And so it is more like modern warfare where strategic mass movements are the ultimate determinants of victory. … As in modern warfare, direct combat, without supporting tactics, rarely occurs. In fact, to engage too soon in direct combat frequently spells defeat." -- Oscar Korschelt
[+] [-] scott_s|12 years ago|reply
I agree there's a certain amount of hubris behind the endeavor. But I'm interested in the design of balanced games, and the ways in which some old games are not balanced or rigid.
[+] [-] cjbprime|12 years ago|reply
I'd give Go another try. If you're interested in watching anime, I found the series _Hikaru no Go_ pretty good motivation to keep learning.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmilloy|12 years ago|reply
(Get the Hive Carbon edition, it's much nicer looking)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hive_(game)
[+] [-] jrs99|12 years ago|reply
Go and no limit poker are getting massively popular. They are both like chess, but much less tactical and a lot more strategical games. In other words, computers can't beat the best players in these games yet.
For whatever reasons, the status of games is somewhat related to whether they are "solved" by programs. Chess, like backgammon and checkers, is really on its way down.
I love chess, and play it all the time, and same with many other games. But the allure goes down once it is solved.
maybe all games will be figured out by software... but at the moment, no limit and go seem extremely exciting in terms of their possibilities/strategies.
[+] [-] TylerE|12 years ago|reply
Backgammon is also very rich also, although there is a random element there which, depending on your preferences, is either a good or bad thing.
[+] [-] sganesh|12 years ago|reply
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/
[+] [-] flud43|12 years ago|reply
I personally play heads-up poker. Unlike 9-handed poker, heads-up poker is constant action. It's more dependent on opponent profiling and maximizing expectation on the fly, using experience and statistics. A game of infinite variety.
Since April I've taken $200 and, playing online and live poker, have profited in the following ways:
+$6458 - online poker heads up matches
+$2900 - rakeback/bonuses from pokerstars
+$12500 - live tournaments and pot limit omaha cash
And that's merely playing recreationally, completely separate from my full time job. You can play a complex, fun game and make money doing it. Who wouldn't enjoy that?
[+] [-] bionerd|12 years ago|reply
There are a few gems there that you might be interested in.
[+] [-] msluyter|12 years ago|reply
http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame
[+] [-] thenmar|12 years ago|reply
Kind of irrelevant, but board games seem like a great application of 3D printing. I wonder if there will be another surge in popularity when (if?) 3D printers become household items.
[+] [-] bmslieght|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] S4M|12 years ago|reply
Both are a bit hard to learn though because the pieces are oriental characters.
[+] [-] abvdasker|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gosukiwi|12 years ago|reply
Another alternative is Magic The Gathering :) or HearthStone.
[+] [-] pjungwir|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] username42|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmgregory|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedberg|12 years ago|reply
0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960
[+] [-] anuragramdasan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sethbannon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edias|12 years ago|reply
I've seen the Chess-Network on twitch.tv break 1k viewers which is tiny compared to the 300k League of Lengends and Dota 2 tournaments but still a substantial amount regardless.
[+] [-] booop|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aet|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattivc|12 years ago|reply
I'm not much a chess player myself but it still very satisfying seeing so much attention brought to a intellectual sport. I hope at least some of it will stick around.
[+] [-] McUsr|12 years ago|reply
He comes from a Nation consisting of 5 mill. people, compared to Anand's billion people.
This is probably the greatest sports achievement our country will ever make, as there are really no comparable sports achievements in the world, not now, anyway.
IMHO: They should knight him the second he gets of the plane when he returns home. Because no other Norwegian has ever accomplished anything close to this, with regards to bring honour to our nation.
Gratuler Magnus!
[+] [-] sytelus|12 years ago|reply
PS: Before you all get on my case let me tell you I do get the fact that sports does have display of skills value (same as skills of artist) that is worth paying for. I also get that professional sports is hard and money hungry adventure and without fans it won't exist. What I don't get is why is it a matter of pride?
[+] [-] vijucat|12 years ago|reply
Probably without realizing it, your ego is merely interested in these false associations (Magnus > Anand => Norway > India, and parents-who-gave-birth-to-me-think-they belongs-to Norway => I belongs-to Norway) because it can grab a free ride to better self-esteem without any personal effort. I believe there are false notions of separateness and identity involved here.
Nationalism is also spiritually detrimental because it prevents you from realizing that you are not who you think you are. How can you even ask the question, "Who am I?" if you are so comfortable with who you think you are?
Sorry for the lecture. I hope there is something useful here for you despite raining on your parade!
[+] [-] sremani|12 years ago|reply
Vishwanathan Anand was not the rule but an exception.
[+] [-] hrkristian|12 years ago|reply
Were there such a title I'd be happy to see our government/King knight him, though.
[+] [-] asdfologist|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanoli|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] girvo|12 years ago|reply
The discussion of "mind games" {"nettlesomeness" here) is something that SC2 has an obsession with, and certainly can play a massive part in pro tournaments, and I'd never considered it applying to chess... but now that I think about it, everything in SC2's meta really came from Chess to begin with, only applied in real-time with 300+ actions per minute and hundreds of pieces with few illegal moves. And yet I struggle more with grokking the advanced strategies of Chess than I do for StarCraft!
[+] [-] Segmentation|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ktd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdknsk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordanmessina|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KedarMhaswade|12 years ago|reply
Where do we go from here?
[+] [-] eneveu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rikacomet|12 years ago|reply
He took queen with queen, clearly, knowing it would be lost to king, and then again the pawn with knight. He had a knight, of all things!
[+] [-] gshakir|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xfax|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukekarrys|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fedvasu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wavesounds|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reidmain|12 years ago|reply