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invictusa 
Forum Warrior
Joined: 16 Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 488 |
 Topic: World Chess Championship
Posted: 26 May 2012 at 15:44 |
Is anyone following it?
Some years ago it would have demanded much more attention.
As a man who would like to think of himself as one who makes chess an important part of his life; on a whim I looked upon the world chess championship on wikipedia and realized that it was
going on right now.
What does it say about the world society where such an important game becomes something forgotten?
Or does it have more to do with the cannibalizing of the game by those who wish to put a brand name on it?
It is remarkably tight thus far.
If you are interested in the progress of the championship this series of youtube synapses are excellent if you can decipher the thick UK accent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pu8B2Dfc8Y&list=PL5EF3A7ECEB3CC893&feature=plcp
Edited by invictusa - 26 May 2012 at 15:45
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...and miles to go before I sleep.
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Rill
Postmaster General
Player Council - Geographer
Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Location: California
Status: Offline
Points: 6903 |
Posted: 26 May 2012 at 20:06 |
Not to be a party pooper, but I would find it odd if lots of people were focusing on a few people moving little rocks around on a board. (Yes, this includes Go.) I mean, even if Illy eventually is recognized as the amazing game requiring superior intellectual abilities that it obviously is, I wouldn't expect people to follow it avidly. I mean, in perspective, seems like the G8 summit is more significant.
But then I don't understand sports either.
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DeMeisz
New Poster
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Location: Finland
Status: Offline
Points: 17 |
Posted: 28 May 2012 at 14:49 |
Yes it is weird that there is such a lack of media attention for some years now.
The world champions used to be big names before. Fischer, Kasparov etc.
I'm not a good player myself, but I surely admire those great champions.
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Rill
Postmaster General
Player Council - Geographer
Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Location: California
Status: Offline
Points: 6903 |
Posted: 28 May 2012 at 15:56 |
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The chess championships used to be tied in to Cold War politics, with Russian masters competing against Western players. No more Cold War = a lot less interest. We also no longer care about ping pong. Hope this is not going too much into politics for the forum; remove the post if it is.
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dunnoob
Postmaster
Joined: 10 Dec 2011
Location: Elijal
Status: Offline
Points: 800 |
Posted: 29 May 2012 at 05:58 |
 Rill wrote:
No more Cold War = a lot less interest. We also no longer care about ping pong. |
It's an idea, but there were chess champions before the cold war. My loss of interest is old age (= lost hope to stay remotely good) plus computer chess (= can't beat simple chess programs).
In my part of the
"real" world ping pong is still popular. Bridge never really made it here, that can't be a missing cold war collateral damage. Maybe online games not limited to Illy finished off the traditional strategy games. /me recalls Civ as a board game...
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Pach
New Poster
Joined: 19 Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 25 |
Posted: 29 May 2012 at 11:33 |
I play bridge tournaments regularly. I used to play in chess tournaments when I was a kid. I have seen how the interest in both games has waxed and waned over the years in both India and the US.
My take on this is that games with a long learning period are on a gradual decline. This is a reflection of the times we live in - too many things that youngsters can do, so they look for instant gratification. Games like poker, which you can learn quite quickly and play well even without calculating the probabilities (the psychological component is often more important than the math component), are on the rise.
I believe that we can arrest this decline, by teaching such games or "mind sports" as they are promoted these days, to kids at a young enough age that they master the learning curve and realize how much fun those games are, before they get sucked into instant-gratification games like *shudder* first person shooters. But then, you need sponsorship, and to get sponsorship the game should look exciting, and watching an expert playing a brilliant move in chess or bridge doesn't look exciting or make any sense to someone who doesn't know the game. So it's kind of a vicious cycle with no easy solution.
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Avion
Wordsmith
Joined: 09 May 2012
Location: Meilla
Status: Offline
Points: 111 |
Posted: 29 May 2012 at 17:32 |
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Chess probably takes more mental effort and more time to play than people can come up with (or want to come up with).
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geofrey
Postmaster General
Joined: 31 May 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 1013 |
Posted: 29 May 2012 at 18:05 |
In use to be a bigger deal because to get 2 people to play chess you'd have to get them in the same room, and convince them to sit down and play chess. Before the information age (the internet) this required translators, temporary visas, transportation cost, and very large amount of overhead time(DAYS!) for what could be a 10 minute game.
So it use to be a huge deal when the American Chess Master faced off against the Chess Master from Russia, Germany, or Austria.
Now anyone with a computer and an internet connection can play chess with anyone else. It is not rare to play chess with someone in another country. And you could be playing a chess master every time you launch microsoft chess.
This doesn't make it less exciting, only more common. Which only shows most people got excited about the rarity of the event, not the actual game.
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LordBliss
Greenhorn
Joined: 16 Oct 2011
Location: US
Status: Offline
Points: 65 |
Posted: 30 May 2012 at 05:17 |
there is an overall decline in anything that doesn't involve the display of large breasts.
people don't care about chess. people don't read the Bible anymore. heck, they don't read anything anymore.
we grow dumber by the minute; we celebrate ignorance. see, e.g., paris hilton, kim kardashian.
if you want people to care about the world chess championship, you better get kate upton to dance around the board and figure a way to hold it on top of a smartphone (one of the most ironically named objects of all time).
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