World Fischer Random Championship

[Ovyron]

You would know if you tried it.

Do you play chess? What is your favorite part of a game of chess? Well, what if I told you crazyhouse was like that THE WHOLE GAME? Well, at least once a capture has happened. It's something very unique that I haven't seen in any other game (including video games and sports), that can't be described with words, but if you play crazyhouse long enough to beat some 1800 rated player, you will know what I'm talking about, and why crazyhouse is a god tier FUN game.

Like, winning in chess can be fun, but that's about it, and people spend their time studying to win more to have more fun, so it ends being a game where most of the time you spend frustrated trying to win, or studying for your next game, only for those small moments of fun when you win. Crazyhouse is fun all along, and you'll have more fun playing than studying it.

But perhaps that's its downfall, people want to try it "seriously", people want that if they win a tournament, it means something. People would want crazyhouse chess to have books written for it where they can learn how to improve. ZH by its very nature is a casual game. It's about excitement and adrenaline.

If Crazyhouse ever succeeds it'll probably be held up by a very different crowd from the one engaging with chess. Maybe the best thing to do is selling the game as something completely different, do away with the chess pieces and board and use different names and everything, if its fun elements are highlighted it could be a blast for kids to play, and they'll grow up to fill the blanks.

[jp]

So are you saying the pleasure of variants is that they are just casual fun, and no one takes them seriously, and no one plays them really well?

[Ovyron]

Not in the "serious" level of chess. It's hard anyway due to the skill gap being huge, if you're already a top level crazyhouse player, it's going to be hard to find someone to be your sparring. But on individual games people are taking the game as seriously as anything.

I had discussions about it with Larry Kaufman, where he was saying serious crazyhouse games haven't happened, because most of them had 3 0 time control, and he claims serious time controls are much slower, so 3 0 can't be taken "seriously" by any standard.

It's like bullet chess (1 0 chess), you can study chess, solve puzzles, hire a trainer, analyze your games when they're over, buy chess books, watch videos about the openings you play, but when it comes to it, bullet games will be mostly about intuition and time management (and in online chess, premove mastery.) Would you say bullet chess is casual or it's taken seriously? People will take it as seriously as they can given the circumstances, but people playing bullet chess are not doing it for the same reason as people playing at slower time control.

I have mostly no idea about other variants. Are people playing Atomic Chess seriously? What about Loser's chess? Can you even tell apart the people playing for fun apart from the ones playing "seriously?"

I can say that the second most apt game to be taken seriously is FRC, so it's no wonder people that already take chess seriously would support moving to it. Crazyhouse would need a different group of people that play for fun.

[jp]

Would you say bullet chess is casual or it's taken seriously?

Casual to the verge of silliness.

[Ovyron]

Now go ask the winner of the Monthly Bullet Arena, who spent 3 hours of their life playing bullet chess non-stop against the strongest players in the server if they took the tourney seriously or casually.

Chances are they took the entire three hours of the tourney more seriously than your average GM takes seriously a 10 minute game.

[jp]

The question is why they take it "too" seriously, when it is so frivolous by nature.

[lkaufman]

So Wesley So becomes the World champion by an incredible score of 13.5 to 2.5 over Magnus Carlsen. It seems that MC went berserk once he fell behind trying to win at all costs, but this is quite unnecessary with FRC. There is no danger of the opponent reaching an easy draw by opening preparation. If he can just play stronger moves than his opponent, he will win enough FRC games to come from behind. I think that "fear of the draw" from experience with normal chess caused MC to play unsoundly and lose so badly. But perhaps Wesley would have won anyway, his play was superb.

[Ovyron]

I wonder if Wesley So could perform like this at chess if he improved his repertoire, I doubt the positions in FRC were so alien that he couldn't put someone else in a similar situation. Otherwise, FRC could be much more different from chess than we think.

[menniepals]

Wesley So is very strong in this type of chess

[Modern Times]

So Wesley So becomes the World champion by an incredible score of 13.5 to 2.5 over Magnus Carlsen..

That is incredible !