tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011690536420808420.post607723956697495080..comments2024-02-20T07:50:13.558+01:00Comments on Chess960 (FRC): Another AnalogyMark Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10101044127493771263noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011690536420808420.post-27615802088942301802012-08-05T11:33:46.982+02:002012-08-05T11:33:46.982+02:00Love all the analogies for Chess960! Here is anoth...Love all the analogies for Chess960! Here is another analogy and this one has really struck home with me.<br /><br />Traditional chess is very much like case law or "common" law in the legal tradition. Progress in common law is based on the principal of precedent and over time more and more cases build up and more and more lawyers and resources and databases are needed to keep the common law consistent with precedent.....<br /><br />Here in my country, we started in a common law tradition but gradually over time we moved more and more to statute law.<br /><br />Chess960 is very much like statute law! In statute law precedent is still important, but principals are derived that override common law. Traditional chess precedent is in many ways "overridden" by the need for overarching rules and this is what statute law tries to find.<br /><br />Statute law becomes necessary because at some point common law is so bloated that it becomes ineffective at dealing with the big picture issues facing the nation such as as environmental stresses, food security etc etc.<br /><br />We chess players are actually a bunch of little lawyers! <br /><br />Chess960 blends the statute law tradition with the common law tradition of the past, to create a new chess that is resilient to change, that preserves the old tradition but is able to lift itself out of the burden of hundreds of years of chess precedent based knowledge that can now all comfortably sit on a cheap mobile phone.<br /><br />Again, we traditional chess players have become little lawyers. We argue with each other over the facts of "precedent" that we try to memorize and apply over and over again, but miss the point that in the process we are killing the game we love, with the sheer burden of all that precedent.<br /><br />Can you not see the face of Hikaru Nakamura in the post match interviews at the recent Biel tournament? Hikaru is sick and tired of playing the same openings over and over again and wants to get creative and really show his talents, but because he is loyal to the game he loves, he persists with the endless drudgery of having to keep up to date with the little "chess law" tradition of precedent as it emerges case by case, tournament by tournament.<br /><br />Why do we do this to ourselves? We are creative beings aren't we? But at the same time if you want to be a boxer and fight hand to fist you can still do that with Chess960.<br /><br />Everything that is in traditional chess is retained in Chess960.<br /><br />CheersHarryOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15971894954907592580noreply@blogger.com