Talk:Chess/Archive 2

message: I think there should be a section about how players are rated and how a player becomes a master, international master, and a grandmaster. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.107.72.22 (talk • contribs) 6 July 2006.
:Indeed that's a good idea. Unfortunately I do not know enough of the subject myself. Anyone up to it? --ZeroOne 22:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ratings 

message: Cleanup done.  See User:Samboy/Chess_zapped to see what information I removed from the article when cleaning it up. Samboy 13:33, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup done 

message: The user Roylee, which up until recently was using ips (see This IP's contributions), keeps on trying to put in his POV that Chess originated in China, not India, and that there is real evidence for this.  Here are two edits where he tried inserting this POV:   
The first time, I got rid of all of this information when I was doing a general cleanup of the article.  The second time, I just reverted the change.
To be fair, the second edit was not nearly as strong of a POV as the first edit.  That said, I feel that Wikipedia is not a soapbox (see item 3) and we don't need to humour non-mainstream theories about the origins of Chess on a featured article.  Historians have been saying Chess came from India for a long time now; people from China have been trying to argue that it really came from China for a long time now but the evidence doesn't point that way.
I'm going to put this up over at Wikipedia:Requests for comment to see if we can get some consensus.  Samboy 13:32, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like I'm not the only one who doesn't agree with Roylee.  See Talk:Origins_of_chess. Samboy 11:22, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Getting rid of POV 

message: I think you were bit too keen there, Samboy - some of the removed stuff is quite interesting! Do you mind if I put a few bits back? Dan100 21:09, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
::Go ahead.  I certainly hope I'm not coming off as a contentous editor who is trying to own this page!  The only reason I reverted the bit about Chess' history is because I really don't think you can say that Chess started in China.  Samboy 21:11, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks good.  I actually didn't like removing the section on Arimaa, but felt I had to clean things up.  So, yeah, it's nice to have that section back again. Samboy 02:42, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Clean up?

message: *I think that every possible theory should be included, or we break NPOV standards.  --Ryan! | Talk 13:25, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
:You're right. Then, we've got Ches v/s šâh (shah), let's discuss this and interchange ideas! --Neigel von Teighen 18:17, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin of chess

message: I see that we have a revert war going on over whether the following paragraph should be included in the Computer Chess section of this article:
The computer's speed advantage and the timing of the games to never give the human equal processing time make the outcomes moot should the computer win. The highly publicised computer-human games are publicity stunts by the hardware manufacturers.
The vote is this:  Should the above paragraph be included in the article.  The four possible answers are: Yes, No, Abstain, and Other (it should be included, but in a different form).  So, let the voting begin.
Yes
No
# Far too much POV Samboy 23:47, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote 

message: Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when a few references have been added to the article. - Taxman 18:54, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
: There are thousands of books on chess, it is impossible to list them all. Still I added a few books, which contain enough information to verify content of this article (and many other chess-related articles). Andreas Kaufmann 18:20, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for references 

message: Chess in this article seems to be defined uniquely in the header as the modern, european chess (64 squares, 8 pawns, 2 rooks etc...). Wouldn't it be more appropriate to define first chess in a general way since many variants of chess have different rules and configurations? I would define chess as a strategic bord game where two armies are confronted and the goal is to take the King of the enemy. Then, it can be explained that the word chess taken alone is mostly used to denote the european, modern game, and if one wants to denote a variant, one says chenese chess, nordic chess, thai chess etc.   --Philipum 11:52, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, now I understood when I clicked the link Chess (disambiguation). But why not explain that directly in the article itself instead of forcing people to find this link? --Philipum 12:00, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What do we mean by CHESS? 

message: I think it would be nice to have a weekly(or longer) chess collaboration to expand bio's, openings, books and other chess related things. Thoughts?Falphin 19:26, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion

message: From what I understand, rukh is actually Persian for "chariot". It only happens to sound like the Arabic for roc.  — Gwalla | Talk 00:35, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rukh

message: What started out as a couple of brief references to names of pieces in other languages and their rough translations back to English is growing into a monster.  How many languages are there worldwide, anyway?  In this modern age, chess is known and played (at least, secondarily) everywhere.
To make this section complete, we would need to consult with people who are fluent in every language in the world to include this huge volume of trivial information (which would dwarf the rest of the article).  But why?  To the contrary, I think we should delete what we already have.  It is trivial pursuit at best.  --BadSanta
:Note that these alternative names are given in English, not their native equivalent.  The purpose is to show the difference in chess traditions.  Languages from regions without a long chess tradition would be pointless to include, unless some special name were thought up for them to use because of some interesting social situation.  In most languages, the pieces will have the same name (translated or loaned) as the culture that introduced chess to them. PRB 11:35, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This has no place in the chess article, but the content could be moved to its own article. Also the information would be better presented in table form.--65.92.19.246 16:48, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:   Names Of The Pieces In Every Language 

message: The following in the intro is technically inaccurate: "Note that checkmate renders the capture of the king unnecessary since it is a foregone conclusion and the game ends at that time."  The king may legally be checkmated by a piece which is "pinned" against its own king and thus cannot legally move (to make the capture of the opposing king); such a condition is nonetheless a legal checkmate.  (It is illegal for a player to move such that his/her king is attacked; there is no such self-initiated "checkmate" option in chess; any such move is simply illegal (and this is the source of most stalemate results).)  Suggest the entire sentence be deleted.
:I'm not sure how this is possible. If a piece is pinned, then it could be captured. It would seem a piece cannot be giving mate if it can be captured by any piece other than the king. Is there some kind of unusual case I'm missing here? Can you give an example? - furrykef (Talk at me) 02:00, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, a pinned piece cannot be captured if the piece attacking _it_ is also pinned.  Example: Black Qd8 Bf8 Pd7 Ke7 Pf7 Rc5, White: Qe5 Kf5 Bb4, black to move.  Black is checkmated by the white queen even though the white queen cannot capture the black king, because the black rook cannot capture the white queen because it is pinned by the white bishop. --207.69.139.12 00:21, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm still not sure what makes it erroneous. Let's say a white, pinned queen is giving checkmate. So what? The white queen may be pinned, but it will still capture the black king before black would capture the white king on the next move. It is therefore still a "foregone conclusion" that black's king will be captured. - furrykef (Talk at me) 03:03, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that's simply wrong.  There's no "forgone conclusion" in chess.  The game ends instantly at checkmate, and it has nothing to do with capturing the king on the next move.  The person who pointed out being under attack and being subject to capture not being the same thing in chess is correct for exactly the reason given: pieces pinned against the king can't move. Quale 02:51, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not wrong, it's exactly the reason why the game ends at checkmate. The reason the game ends in checkmate is because the opposing king would be captured. The reason you cannot put yourself in check is your own king would be captured. If we remove these rules -- that checkmate ends the game automatically and you cannot put yourself in check -- and state that the game ends when the enemy king is captured, then any situation that is checkmate in standard chess would still be a victory for that side, just one move later. The rule that "you cannot put yourself in check" would not even need to be applied here because, again, the opposing king is captured first, which ends the game. I conjecture that this is the way chess was actually played originally, and checkmate was invented to avoid the embarrassment of having your king actually being captured. Again, it's only conjecture that it was actually played like this, but whether or not it was, it is the reason that checkmate exists: because the capture of the enemy king is a foregone conclusion. Or, here's another way of putting it: the "you cannot put yourself in check" rule is designed assuming that it is impossible to put yourself in check and capture the enemy king in the same move, which in standard chess is true. If the game did not end at checkmate, but did end with the capture of the king, this assumption would no longer be true and so the rule makes less sense. - furrykef (Talk at me) 05:05, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foregone Conclusion? 

message: In preparing to read the main article, I made a few minor changes.  There was one point where the grammar was a little awkward and I changed it.  Also, I clarified some points in the opening of the article:
* for the benefit of those that know nothing about the subject, I pointed out that white is the player that always goes first
* in the article text where it used unicode to display pieces, I also picked up the pieces from the standard chess image set for drawing chessboards on Wikipedia and inserted those inline into the article, because for some users (such as myself) the unicode shows up as ? while the images should show if their browser supports PNG images
* I changed the text to state that checkmate is the state where the user is in check and cannot make any move that removes them from that state.  This, I think makes the concept of what checkmate is - as opposed to mere check - much clearer.  Rather than explaining the ways to get out of check (block the checking piece, if one; capture the checking piece, if one; move the king, if the other two options are either undesirable, unavailable, or if the king is in check from more than one piece then the king has to be moved).  This may be something we want to add to the main article or to a secondary article on how to play.  
I hope you get a chance to hear my reading of the article and let me know what you think.  Paul Robinson 21:56, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes for the reading

message: Hmm...this is a quite a nice article but IMHO it needs some work. Perhaps it has degraded somewhat since gaining FA status. Here's what I think should be done. I hope to make some/all of these changes in the coming weeks. 
*Remove most of those long lists of links at the bottom of the article. should we be linking to Chess-related deaths or Chess symbols in Unicode from this broad article]?
*Write a brief section titled "Gameplay" with a main article link to Rules of Chess
*Write a strategy section with a main article link to Chess strategy and tactics
*Link to the chess category instead of some of the long internal link lists
*Write small sections for some of the following; Chess variants, Chess in the arts and literature (public perception), chess problems, Top players etc.
Basically I think this article is short. We should summarize most important points. This article only mentions openings in the see also section. Paralleling sections in Go (board game) would be a good place to start. This link is Broken 04:18, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I did some reorganizations of the article. I think we need to add some more text to "World champions" section. Any volunteers? Andreas Kaufmann 21:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fix up

message: I created a stub for a new article at tablebase.  I've been too lazy to go back and fill in the tablebase generation algorithm.  -- Myria 06:01, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tablebase 

message: Wikipedia says a "sport consists of a physical activity or skill carried out with a recreational purpose". I assume physical is applicable to both activity or skill.
Similarly, a Google definition search yields many definitions for sport, all of which, would exclude chess.
- syndicate t 22:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: the olympics www.ishipress.com/olympic.htm say it is a sport. Broken S 03:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Disputed then. Either way there is an inconsistency between the defintions of sport and chess. One must be wrong.  - syndicate t 16:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I think that Chess should be classified as a game or a past-time, really. There are championships and competitions, but it's hardly a sport. You hardly run about or zoom down the Chess board. ;) --Cyvros 00:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chess is not a sport 

message: What does this sentence mean at the end of the Game Play variations section?  It doesn't make any sense to me, but that might not be an indication that it needs to be changed:
:When playing at faster time controls computers become relatively more powerful to humans.
It says that, when there is less time to think, computers will do better against you.Tommstein 03:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: With less time to consider each move, humans do not do as well against computers.
Lsommerer 04:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "do as well" is more vague than "relatively stronger" in my view. As well as what?  The computers? Than at slower time controls? I see no problems with the original, but maybe for people who don't already know it is confusing. Broken S 04:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't already know that, but the sentence seems simple to me.Tommstein 04:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this need editing? 

message: Covered are all the 2-player games. There is (was) an Indian 4-player variant... Also, I've read it may have originated as a divination tool, based on a battle between yin & yang. And, tho I don't see where it'd go, what about mention of famous players/Grandmasters who didn't play computers? There's been professional play for a century, & players make a living at it. (I've even read an SF story, title I don't recall, of a past Grandmaster/pro refusing to "see the future" for fear of compromising their livings...). Comment?  Trekphiler 19:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see chess variants, 4-player indian variant is called Chaturaji. Andreas Kaufmann 04:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Variants 

message: In the second paragraph under the heading "Strategy And Tactics", reference to the value of the various pieces is made.  However this description of their values is, in my opinion, a little unclear as it does not point out that these values are theoretical only and have absolutely no relation to actual gameplay (certainly they are not used for any tie-break situation or other legal mechanic) other than in theory and as an aid to tactics.
The way it is expressed right now it does point out that these values vary depending on the source but it doesn't say WHY this is so.  I can't help feeling that to a complete and total novice it would be like reading a text on soccer that says something like "sometimes a goal is worth 2 points and sometimes just one depending on the book".  It would make absolutely no sense.
-Stenun, 18/12/05
:It is supposed to be a breift overview. We go into more detail at chess piece point values the article that we link to in that section. Broken S 16:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Value of the pieces 

message: The link to the game with the first double rook sacrifice goes to Thomas Bowdler#Chess. There is, however, no such section in the Thomas Bowdler article. In fact, the entire notation of the game has been removed from that article and replaced with an obscure external link. I would appreciate to see this game shown on Wikipedia, preferably in its own article. Sir48 00:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Internal link problem

message: The text in the introduction overlaps with the image on the right. Somebody who knows how, fix it please. 70.111.251.203 03:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro text 

message: "earliest written mention of game 500 BC"
"first written reference to a player 230AD"
"derivative of chinese game, which existed 100-200BC"
"earliest excavated pieces 3000BC"
The 3000BC date seems way out compared to the rest. Should this be 300BC perhaps?
---
"The oldest known chess pieces have been found in excavations of Moen jo Daro in Sindh dated to 3000 BC, during which time the Persians inhabited the area."
I agree, it sounds fishy. Either way, Sindh was not inhabited by Persians, not c. 300BC, definitely not c. 3000BC. --SohanDsouza 14:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This was either a joke or information from some unreliable sources. I removed this now. Without reference to reliable source it can't stay in the article. Andreas Kaufmann 11:07, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistake? Date of first chess pieces incorrect? 

message: How about a section in the article on the game complexity of chess besides a mere mention of the shannon number? 128.6.175.59 21:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What information do you intend in putting in such a section. I don't have any information on the game complexity of Chess besides the Shannon's number. Fetofs Hello! 01:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Game complexity 

message: Did any one here ever played these before?! They sound reasonable to me so as to be included in the chess variants section. But the paragraph gets deleted by apparently professional chess players whenever they come across it! (they say it is unsourced or referenced nonsense and then delete it!!) However, I found those links in a quick googling:
VodkaChess, and chess-a-hol. so PLEASE do not delete the paragraph without talking first, here, I guess. Thank you, __ Maysara 19:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: they aren't popular enough to be included. More famous variants have been removed for being too trivial. BrokenSegue 19:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

text: *Hi -- but what makes popularity the particular criterion by which the representation of information is selectable? __ Maysara 14:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

text: It's not even a variant.  There is no gameplay impact whatsoever.  It's just something fun to do while playing chess.  To qualify as a variant, there has to be some kind of different in rules, pieces, or setup, etc. SubSeven 20:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

text: *Hello there, SubSeven -- Well, I certainly disagree; the whole idea about this is precisely to produce a "gameplay impact", namely, and quite interestingly, drunkenness! Please notice that no one said that they were variants of chess, they are only an "alternative ways to play chess". I must ask you to be aware that if you personally have no interest in such ways or consider them lowly, this still does not mean that they should not be mentioned here as actual things that some people still like to do - especially that the properties of those specific ways, are quite particularly interesting, as the game itself, in its most original and traditional form, requires consentration and the soberness of the mind-state and intellectual activity. You say "just something fun to do", but please let me remind you that, a lot more people generally play chess precisely because they consider it to be "just something fun to do", thus, no contradiction or inconsistency in adding to the already fun, just some more fun! Furthermore, I cant see how you are unable to distinguish the difference in all rules, pieces, and certainly the setup; when you add to the rules more rules, this certainly and sufficiently applies a difference in the game (in fact, most variants I know either "add or remove" a set or rules, as simple as that). That now a piece resembles not only its properties and characteristics of motion and value, but also a definite amount of Vodka or Alcohol, is indeed a big difference - a funny difference, yes, it may be, but that's totally beside the point. Now the "setup" is already entirely different as well, especially if we put on top of all that, the gradually increasing drunkenness of the players, one match after the other, and the nature of their play and game, whose aim is still, somehow, to checkmate! Yet, after all that, again let me remind you that no one claimed that Vodka chess and Chess-a-hol were "qualified" as variants of chess - they have been mentioned in the "alternative ways to play chess" section, until they have been deleted recently by someone who resentfully accused them and thus their players, along with the editor who contributed with the information about them here, with the, quite nonsensical expression, "nonsense". But to qualify as an "editor" for a supposedly encyclopedia, is more difficult than to qualify as a chess variant and as he who defines chess variants! The earlier has to control himself - the later, his opponent! Thank you, __ Maysara 14:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The references suggested above (VodkaChess and chess-a-hol) are lousy.  Neither of those sites has anything at all to do with chess, which is the topic of this article.  They make a stronger case to mention vodka chess in the vodka article, so go take it there if it's that important to you.  Even if better refs were provided my opinion is that "vodka chess" is too trivial and unimportant to be mentioned in this article.  Nearly every human activity in the Western world has been turned into a drinking game, but prominently noting that in hundreds of articles is not encyclopedic in my view.  In fact this is already more than adequately covered at Drinking game#Conversion of other games and doesn't warrant any mention here.  68.190.92.147 04:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vodka chess and chess-a-hol! 

message: ::Many Computer chess programme and playing the game give rating. Now it is time for FIDE to create a programme easily available to all for ELO rating. Reader of this discussion are requested to do the needful for the same vkvora 18:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  chess and ELO rating with Computer Programme 

message: Failed on quality: too many external links, no inline refs and with that very few references, and too many lists in-article. Chuck(척뉴넘) 02:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Version 0.5 Nomination 

message: I remember reading in several books about this story about the history of chess. The story goes something like this:
A king asked one of his subjects to invent a game for him. The subject agreed, but only on one condition. The subject provided the king with a 64-square chessboard, and asked the King to put 1 grain on the first square, 2 grains on the 2nd square, 4 grains on the 3rd, 8 on the 4th, and so on. The King agreed, but it turned out that he would have to pay billions of grains!
I can't remember the exact details, so I will find a book and get the exact details, then add the story and cite the book.
Do you think the story should be included? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 01:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The way I remember it, some mathmetician did a job for the king, the king asked him what reward he wanted, and that was it.  Should it be included, with the exact details?  I tend to think no.  Bubba73 (talk), 01:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not actually chess, is it? Doovinator 04:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I vote against including the story.  It is almost certainly not historical.  It's a mathematics lesson, not a fact about the creation of chess.  --Fritzlein 18:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Chess - Should I add this story? 

message: Oh no, I have beggin to play at chess at 3 years! Lorenzo Alali from fr Wikipedia
:Capablanca and Karpov apparently started playing at the age of 4. They became world champions. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 06:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we just write "varies" and stop arguing about it? Or how about we remove it from the template? BrokenSegue 13:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Age range 6 and up" 

message: Only 7 hours? What about correspondence chess? 165.230.132.122 19:08, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Playing Time 

message: I think this article needs a section devoted to game teoretic aspects of the game (game complexity, solvability, existence and computability of a winning strategy, etc...).--Pokipsy76 13:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Game theoritic aspects 

message: Chess should be merged with Queen (chess), King (chess), Rook (chess), Bishop (chess), Pawn (chess), and Knight (chess). GangstaEB~(penguin logs) 17:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with a merge.  Bubba73 (talk), 18:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging 

message: We should specify the age range (instead of saying any). Like Go (board game) and backgammon, they have already specified it is about 5+. Does anyone know what number we should fill?--Wai Wai (talk) 21:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Age range = any" needs change 

message: The article doesn't mention how X-Men is related to Chess. It is necessary to list how chess is related to listed entries, otherwire listing them is futile, IMHO.--Anupamsr 00:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This section needs a major rework. Instead of a long list as now, a decriptive text is needed, something like "Go in popular culture" section in Go article. It is also not needed to list all films with chess theme, there is already category Films about chess for this purpose. Andreas Kaufmann 18:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Chess references in Literature/Art

message: Given that Chess is a proper noun, shouldn't it be capitalised? At what point does a game become popular enough to not be capitalised? Should I call Monopoly "monopoly" now? Rickyp 11:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Chess is not a proper noun as I understand it, and thus should only be capitalised if it appears at the start of a sentence. --Guinnog 11:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: Today I extended the Position disambiguation, mainly by writing the Position (team sports) stub. Because I recall "position" at chess vaguely, I added "position (chess)" as one disambiguent, without having much to say or finding anywhere to point. Feel free to help, perhaps by deleting it from the list. --P64 01:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I have tidied to avoid the red-link (and piping). TerriersFan 02:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Position (chess) 

message: no. the computer will NEVER match a human if the human has infinite memory and time. the only adavantage that causes deep blue to pwn kasparov is speed. other than that computer ill lose.
:If a computer and a human both had infinite memory and time, both could play perfectly, and either white would always win, or they would always tie. (This is assuming that both can figure out ways to use some of their infinite memory and time to do rock-solid error correction. The computer might actually have an edge here, since they are much better at doing anything systematically.) DanielCristofani 07:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Computer Chess 

message: computer think much differantly than us. they do NOT think hm.....this position is good. no. computer finds all possable move, after that, and after. then each posison is given a value, based on material plus  position.
:"given a value"--that value is basically an estimate of how "good" the position is. Compared with the estimate a human would make, it is mechanical and un-subtle; also, if the position looks "good", the computer cannot actually be happy about it. However, the computer's score can take into account things like control of the center, passed pawns, having both bishops, etc., which are some of the same things a human would look at if assessing the position consciously. DanielCristofani 08:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, if a human had all the powers of a computer and a human, then s/he could beat a computer. Also, if a computer had all the powers of a computer and a human then it could beat a human. And? DanielCristofani 08:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: These numbers are probably not directly comparable. Kasparov is probably thinking about two initial moves per second, plus many separate branching lines of play that could follow from each of them. It is hard to compare how many moves each is considering, because while a computer considers all these moves separately and explicitly, the human thought process is much less tidy and measurable. DanielCristofani 08:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah. The computer and the human grandmaster, with very different strengths and weaknesses, nonetheless have a very comparable level of skill at the present. DanielCristofani 08:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't believe any of this. It sounds like it is all made up to me, and there is no evidence to anything that is stated. This whole article is opinion and not fact, and i would like the facts so i can start playing chess with my friends. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.120.99 (talk • contribs) 17 October 2006
--
One small comment:  It may be true that a human can eventually universally outassess a computer through pattern recognition, but there exist counterexamples today in chess where that is not the case.  Specifically, in certain endgames with 5 or 6 pieces, a tablebase shows the sequence of winning moves for the superior side, many of which are unique, but the moves appear completely contradictory to most other principles and would not have a chance of being chosen by a grandmaster (this was covered in Chess Life maybe 4 or 5 months ago).  Now perhaps these examples are either extraordinarily rare so that there are few enough that their solution could reasonably be committed to memory, or have some unifying theme which upon further study could be understood.  But the point is human's understanding of chess is not universally superior to a computer's.  For the most part, perhaps yes.  But not completely ... at least yet.  Baccyak4H 13:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Computer Chess II 

message: The article asserts chess to be derived from chaturanga, but even the etymology site cited says that spanish and persian words derived from chaturanga, but not chess. Chess is certainly derived from shah, from shah mat cf:
af:Skaak
az:Şahmat
bs:Šah
bg:Шахмат
ca:Escacs
cs:Šachy
da:Skak
de:Schach
el:Σκάκι
eo:Ŝako
eu:Xake
fr:Jeu d'échecs
hr:Šah
io:Shak-ludo
ia:Chacos
is:Skák
it:Scacchi
la:Scacci
lv:Šahs
lb:Schach
lt:Šachmatai
jbo:caxmati
hu:Sakk
mk:Шах
nl:Schaken
no:Sjakk
nn:Sjakk
pl:Szachy
ro:Şah (joc)
ru:Шахматы
sq:Shahu
scn:Scacchi
sk:Šach (hra)
sl:Šah
sr:Шах
sh:Šah
fi:Shakki
sv:Schack
tt:Shаhmat
vi:Cờ vua
tr:Satranç
uk:Шахи
We should trust chess scholars/historians not a random etymology site.
--Ioshus(talk) 15:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  shah 

message: The article says "The game described in this article is sometimes known as FIDE Chess, Western Chess or International Chess to distinguish it from other variants."
Really?  In my experience, Western Chess has limited usage, but I've never seen "International Chess" and I think "FIDE Chess" is a particularly unlikely term.  Do we have a reference that shows these are actually used, or is this original research? 165.189.91.148 18:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  FIDE Chess?