@kindaspongey said in #23:
> "... To play chess competitively, you need to develop an opening repertoire. ..." - Learn to Play Chess Like a Boss (2019) by GM Patrick Wolff
That is where the social layer of the game has gotten stuck into. Nobody seems to realize that the knowledge is getting bloated to the point that the layer is taking an increasing amount of the competition cognitive style. on the side of memory before understanding. And I can tell that for some, (not just in chess), it is easier to store knowledge in memory, than to understand how many bits of that knowledge could be coming from the same underlying "physics" (sorry , that is my alma mater of conceptualisation of the external world).
So bloated game of knowledge specializations. That bloat makes it increasingly fastidious game to perform in. There will always be champions on top of that. sure. Just it would need more parenting from younger age eventually, so the whole universe of the child will become a chessboard, so that they can actually learn the physics before the bloat.
Fortunately, I can use lichess features, that won't have me need to perform in that of knowledge, and keep playing/studying the chess where it matter to me. Going selfish, if I was not before.
Could it be that it was not as bloated during their times, for the illustrious source of the quotes above? (Lasker?).
I think it is fine that the knowledge game of chess layer or variant exist. But, I would find it more aesthetically pleasing if there were some equal information categories still. And increasing time pressure, might be one way, but it seems to me to be a dead end on the skill of reasoning, and perhaps too many behavioral strategies related to time take over.
I believe in open book variants. Like the lichess game variant (it is there just not rated), "from position". Such position could be anywhere on the playable known opening tree, and at the end of that knowledge, one would have playable equal informatino game continuing from there. or maybe do like in correspondance, the closest thing to an equal informatin game. We can even use the bloat, as it has been offloaded for us all in the opening explorer. so, people of my coginitve style, can have the real game of reasoning skill to the max from begginning to end of games. The ancestral game spirit, maybe. I like to think so.
There memory without memorisation can happen, without having to get stuck into repertoire speicialization strategies. I say get stuck, but I do recognize that there might be an art or a game in that type of chess too (the current only competitive chess type). It is a pity that other correspondence chess use engine too, because then what game is it. not one of comeptition anymore. It is a pity that modern techonology is not used, with imagination, to create new categories ackowledging that the game is evovling, and that new niches of social compeition could be enjoyed by different cognitice style populations. I know, my father was one, never learn the name of any opening, and a lover of chess nonetheless.. The atlas versus the physics.
Astronomy versus Astrophysics. Anatomy vs Physiology. Speciation tree versus ecosystems. .... Dictionary before communication. the list can go on.. I got another one: Accounting versus Mathematics.
Naming each cloud we can name, versus predicting any could shape evolution with time and data grid of pressure data to help, if ambitious about scope of predictions.
of course, if keeping accumulating data, and keeping the only type of competitive chess to have that game of knowledge layer follow, memorization method of memory involvment not familiarity method of memory wlll keep increasing in proportion and ratchet population pruning of the other cognitive style. and if the chess playing population including amateurs keep increasing, there is still only room for one at the top of the pyramid, and so there will always be the rare life dedicated to that, to let us thing chess is still a worthy game. One can prune an increasing population with plenty artifical tests of selective nature and get a unique specimen. This funnel can keep producing the few that would make us think the game keeps being the same in essence, while the populatoin dynamics, if we had the trait structure of it, would not be of stationary nature, but would keep having the memory before understanding strategy-able type of cognitive style perform increasing better.
I admit that is one population dynamics model out of my imagination. I just can't help but think that way. An extension of static reasoning, applied to dynamical population level questions. We can keep skimming on that, by tunnel vision of 1D ELO rating, and keep thinking Lasker game of chess (social competition included) is the same now... but that would be voluntary blindfold.
Culture inertia. lack of imagination at a large scale. (within measure, this is still "just" a game, but so well packaged it might be a microcosm to study).