Chess on TV

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Scott Tortorice said:
You are the exception to my rule. :laugh:

I think a lot of chess players become dazzled by the "chrome" found in your average wargame. All the added realism serves to make chess pale in comparison. So, after having grown up playing chess, but not wargames, your first experience with a proper wargame must sort of be like "Wow, this is like chess but with all sorts of new complications and added realism." I think that is why chess players who move on to wargames become prejudiced against the Royal Game.

For me, as a wargamer first and then a chess player, I sort of went through the process in reverse. It was "Wow, chess is like wargaming, only without the thick manuals, multiple dice rolls, and hard-to-find opponents." ;)
I've always appreciated war games but for me it's very easy to seperate them from chess without disinterest setting in. Chess is balanced and unique. Wargames are not so balanced and luck may often play a role whereas in chess the only luck is an opponent blunder which isn't real luck.
 

Scott Tortorice

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What I *really* like about chess is:

1) The idea that chess not only simulates ancient/medieval warfare, but was actually played during those very same historical eras! Not many wargames can say that. Chess is truly ancient....

2) The ability to easily and perfectly record every game you play. Not only does this ability give chess players a memento of every game they play, and the ability to analyse it for improvement, but also allows a deep library of "historic games." I think, in this regard, chess is absolutely unique as I can think of no other boardgame that has precisely recorded games going back hundreds of years.
 

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Scott Tortorice said:
What I *really* like about chess is:

1) The idea that chess not only simulates ancient/medieval warfare, but was actually played during those very same historical eras! Not many wargames can say that. Chess is truly ancient....

2) The ability to easily and perfectly record every game you play. Not only does this ability give chess players a memento of every game they play, and the ability to analyse it for improvement, but also allows a deep library of "historic games." I think, in this regard, chess is absolutely unique as I can think of no other boardgame that has precisely recorded games going back hundreds of years.
I agree. Have you ever played Go?
 

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Great game! In some ways it's even better than chess. Chess you could compare to a battle whereas Go would be a war, or an entire front, with many smaller battles raging all over the board and each one affecting the over all scope.
 

RobZagnut

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>The idea that chess not only simulates ancient/medieval warfare

Do you truly believe this?
 

Scott Tortorice

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Not only do I believe it, but legendary wargame designer James Dunnigan believes it as well:

"Chess is one of the oldest surviving ancient wargames. Games similar to chess go back thousands of years. Chess is also one of the more accurate wargames for the period it covers (the pre-gunpowder period). Chess is a highly stylized game. It is always set up the same way, the playing pieces and the playing board are always the same. The board is quite simple. Each of the pieces has clearly defined capabilities and starting positions, much like soldiers in ancient warfare. Given that ancient armies were so unwieldy and communication so poor, it is easy to see why each player in chess is allowed to move only one piece per turn. Because the armies were so hard to control, the battles were generally fought on relatively flat, featureless ground. Then, as now, the organization of the army represented the contemporary social classes. Thus the similarity between chess pieces and the composition of ancient armies."

For the whole article, visit here.
 

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>It is always set up the same way, the playing pieces and the playing board are always the same. The board is quite simple. Each of the pieces has clearly defined capabilities and starting positions, much like soldiers in ancient warfare. Given that ancient armies were so unwieldy and communication so poor, it is easy to see why each player in chess is allowed to move only one piece per turn. Because the armies were so hard to control, the battles were generally fought on relatively flat, featureless ground.

He also just described Checkers.

My opinion of Dunnigan just went down a couple of notches.

I didn't know:

1) That every army set up the exact same way every battle.

2) That both sides set up the same way.

3) That in battle both sides have the same number of units. Seems like some might have more or less.

4) That both sides have the exact same quality of units and leaders. I would think that one side or another might have elite or conscript units, or much better leadership. Where's the quality versus quantity battles?

5) I didn't know only one unit moved at a time? I always thought it was groups of units. Their cohesion might go down, but they still moved in groups.

6) I didn't know that there were paratrooper units back then? A Knight can completely jump over a whole line of other units any number of times.

Chess is a game with pieces that do certain things. Nothing more, nothing less.
 

Scott Tortorice

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Again, let's take a look at this:

1) That every army set up the exact same way every battle.

Then, as now, there was doctrine that governed the deployment of an army. For example, early Roman legions often set-up in this fashion: three lines of soldiers with the hastati in the front, the principes forming the second row, and the triarii, rorarii and accensi in the rear. As time went on, this formation was tinkered with, but the point is: yes, ancient armies did tend to follow a standard deployment doctrine.

2) That both sides set up the same way.

See above. Also, if it makes you feel better, there is always Fischer Random Chess where the units do not set-up the same way. :D

3) That in battle both sides have the same number of units. Seems like some might have more or less.

I will happily play a game against you where you have a single pawn and king. ;) Regardless, while armies did vary in size, you could also count on most organized armies to travel with certain organic units. Whether you faced a Roman legion in Gaul or in Iberia, you could count on facing the same basic make-up.

4) That both sides have the exact same quality of units and leaders. I would think that one side or another might have elite or conscript units, or much better leadership. Where's the quality versus quantity battles?

Easy! That is where the quality of the players comes in! Chess mimics the decisive importance of leadership in the pre-gunpowder age.

5) I didn't know only one unit moved at a time? I always thought it was groups of units. Their cohesion might go down, but they still moved in groups.

And who says that a single pawn is a single infantry unit? Why can't it be a collection of cohorts? Why can't a knight be a collection of cavalry sections?

6) I didn't know that there were paratrooper units back then? A Knight can completely jump over a whole line of other units any number of times.

Hmm...guess you haven't heard that horses, can, in fact, jump. Or that the mobility of cavalry allows them to bypass obstacles that would stymie other types of units.

As you can probably tell, I played your game by answering these questions as if chess is a high-fidelity simulation of warfare. Of course, neither I, nor Mr. Dunnigan, has put forth such a proposition. Chess is an abstraction of ancient/medieval warfare. In this regard, chess performs remarkably well considering you don't need a PC to crunch a tremendous amount of combat calculations. Sure, Rome: Total War might be exponentially more realistic in simulating ancient warfare, but chess can give you the same ebb and flow of battle with just a board, 32 pieces, and two human minds.

Capablanca once remarked that "A recorded game of chess is a story in symbols, relating in cipher the struggle of two intellects; a story with a real plot, a beginning, a middle, and an end...[where] the fickleness of fortune is illustrated; the smiles of the prosperous, the struggles of adversity, the change that comes over the two; the plans suggested by one, spoiled by the tactics of the other - the lures, the wiles, the fierce onset, the final victory."

If that isn't a good summation of warfare, I don't know what is. :salute:

Fun debate! :thumup:
 
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