(Nick) wrote in
message . com...
"ian burton" wrote in message
news:lYgQb.16210$AA6.2594@fed1read03...
I have never understood the obsession of people to make chess "popular."
It's a game for two people that brings great joy to all who appreciate it.
Do I need to see it played in an stadium with tens of thousands of
spectators to enjoy it more? No.

I concur with your sentiments about chess (in spite of a troll's recent
vehement insistence in the RGCP thread, "Sportsmanship and pre-arranged
results", on his alleged close analogy between chess and American football
as sports today).

With regard to appealing to casual spectators in being able to appreciate
the games, one significant difference between chess and, say, American
football, is that a chess game, unlike a football game, lacks a scoreboard.

When some non-chess-playing spectators have approached me while I was playing
chess in some public places, there's been a rather common dialogue like this:

X: Who's winning?
I: It's unclear now.
X: What do you mean? Can't you tell who's winning?
I: Not yet, the game has hardly emerged from the book opening.
X: You mean to say that you know how to play chess, but you can't even
tell who's winning? Then you can't know too much about chess.
I: And how could you know that?
X: It's obvious. At a sports stadium, everyone always can know who's winning.
All you have to do is to look at the scoreboard. Doesn't chess have
something like that too?
I: Not quite like that.

Actually, in a global context, chess evidently never has been more popular
than it is today, given the recent awakening of interest in China and India.

Yes, I deeply sympathize with the greats at the top for not being able to
make a decent living from their art and their love. But I also realize the
same holds true for millions of musicians, painters, and similarly gifted
people around the globe. I don't think painters, to take one, are desperate
to have their works shown during the next Olympics.

What gives with so many chessplayers?

I suspect that many chess-players may seek some cultural validation that
their pursuit is worthwhile (apart from the personal enjoyment that it may
bring to them) by hoping for a wider recognition of its social status
(such as chess events on television) among the non-chess-playing public.
--Nick

"nowonmai" wrote in message
m...

Incidentally, draw by agreeement IS illegal in shogi,
but they have the same draw by repetition rule,
or something cloe enough.
Yet this kind of intentional repetition never occurs.
It's unthinkable to them.

All chess pieces except the pawns can retrace their steps: fewer of the
shogi pieces can retrace their steps, which drastically cuts the probability
of players who are making the best moves ending up in a repetition rut.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

Nick wrote:
X: It's obvious. At a sports stadium, everyone always can know who's
winning. All you have to do is to look at the scoreboard.

This kind of conversation is even more fun when talking about cricket.
You do have a scoreboard but it's still quite common not to be able to
tell who (if anyone) is winning. :-)


Dave.

--
David Richerby Technicolor Boss (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ middle manager but it's in realistic
colour!

David Richerby wrote in
message ...
Nick wrote:
(What follows was part of a dialogue. Please read my previous post.)

X: It's obvious. At a sports stadium, everyone always can know who's
winning. All you have to do is to look at the scoreboard.

This kind of conversation is even more fun when talking about cricket.
You do have a scoreboard but it's still quite common not to be able to
tell who (if anyone) is winning. :-)

Dear Dave,

Quite so, yet please let's not confuse the issue any more than it has to be. :-)

"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the
side that's in goes out and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in
until he's out. When they are all out the side that's out comes in and the
side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out. Sometimes
you get men still in and not out. When both sides have been in and out,
including the not outs, that's the end of the game. HOWZAT!"
--the Marylebone Cricket Club

"People who understand cricket form a worldwide magic circle, whose links
join them, not with the United Kingdom as a whole, but with England. For
this reason, a Tory ex-minister (attributed to Lord Tebbit) recently proposed
a 'Cricket Test' to weed out would-be immigrants."
--Norman Davies (The Isles: a History, p. 797)

If there has to be a 'Cricket Test' (which is not to say that I should approve
of it) 'to weed out would-be immigrants', then let's hope that it would not
have to take five days out of the applicants' lives.

'O, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,'
--Robert Browning

--Nick