Chess (Re: "Advanced" use of virtual worlds? (Re: [MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs))

[James Edward Gray II]

I realized that this is slightly off topic and for that I apologize.

On Wednesday, January 30, 2002, at 02:03 AM, Ola Fosheim
Gr=F8stad=20 <olag at ifi.uio.no> wrote:

> (You seem to assume the chess is an advanced game, which is pretty
> much a cultural idea. It actually is a pretty rigid and limited
> pattern matching game)

I'm a tournament chess player rated slightly about average (in the
US),

I teach beginning chess in my community and I've just generally been
involved with the game in some capacity for almost 15 years now.
For the record, I don't consider the above statements about chess to
be accurate.

I think the fact the chess is an "advanced game" is pretty secure.
You have people devoting their lives to the study of chess and still
losing games.  Unlike most games, there is no luck factor involved
here, it's a true contest of skill against skill.  If you sit down
across the board with a player who has considerably more skill, it's
quite likely you'll lose hundreds of games straight to them.  Chess
is most definitely and "advanced game", and it may even be the most
advanced game.

As for chess being a "pretty rigid and limited pattern matching
game", I think we can safely rule that out as well.  There have been
more books written about chess than any other single topic.  If all
these authors are just trying to get the patterns of the game across
to us, their doing a pretty bad job of it.  Also, if chess were as
simple as pattern matching, computers would probably be capable of
the perfect game, don't you think?  I assure you they're not capable
of such a thing and the skill they do achieve comes from the
impressive amount of calculations they can quickly make.  While
pattern matching is a part of chess, it is by no means something we
can reduce the entire game to.  I good chess player draws on many
other areas, including creativity which is pretty much a fundamental
opposite to pattern matching.

Again, sorry for sliding off course here.  I promise to be quiet
now.

James

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