tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post6126509464325572648..comments2023-11-02T05:09:39.083-07:00Comments on kino fist: the seduction of chessUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-86402314198849496702007-02-20T13:43:00.000-08:002007-02-20T13:43:00.000-08:00D&G's ideas on the difference between Go and Chess...D&G's ideas on the difference between Go and Chess simply do not appreciate what happens in endgames - especially rook endgames: zugzwang is what needs to be considered. <BR/><BR/>check out: 2nd diagram on page 5 here<BR/><BR/>http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman02.pdf<BR/><BR/>After first move of white's - black loses because a move must be made. Make white move again and the win is not there. A defensive formation is destroyed because a move must be made. And this is a simple problem.<BR/><BR/>The capture and loss of pieces in chess transforms the game - it does not necessarily simplify as pieces reduce. Instead the relations between pieces alter (particularly time: you cannot lose a tempo with a knight as you can with a bishop).<BR/>This is what top-level Shogi players struggle with when trying their hand at chess. Most good chess writers emphasise the need to treat the endgame as a separate game with a different skill-set.<BR/><BR/>Philosophers (D&G in particular) tend to assume that cultural activities are passively awaiting their insights - certainly not the case in chess. I suggest you read David Bronstein - perhaps the most respected advocate of chess as art (instead of war) - and unfortunately recently deceased. <BR/><BR/>The major factor that altered the ontology of chess is information technology and AI - not the cold war, though when carloads of Ex-Soviets began plundering the Western professional circuit post-1989 the game in Britain changed.wu lokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07904864273702737462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-57214219077326173672007-02-19T16:24:00.000-08:002007-02-19T16:24:00.000-08:00ejh:"In what way is Go fluid that chess is not? In...ejh:<BR/><BR/>"In what way is Go fluid that chess is not? In what way does chess possess structure but Go does not?"<BR/><BR/>D&G:<BR/><BR/>"Go pieces... [have] no intrinsic properties, but only situational ones... chess pieces entertain biunique relations with one another, and with the adversary's pieces: their functioning is structural. On the other hand, a Go piece has only a milieu of exteriority, or extrinsic relations with nebulas or constellations, according to which it fulfils functions of insertion or situation, such as bordering, encircling, shattering. All by itself, a Go piece can destroy an entire constellation synchronically; a chess piece cannot (or can do so diachronically only).<BR/>Chess is indeed a war, but an institutionalised, regulated, coded war, with a front, a rear, battles. But what is proper to Go is war without battle lines, with neither confrontation nor retreat, without battles even: pure strategy, while chess is a semiology."pilgrimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11784692398471495798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-39664576836141962842007-02-15T19:18:00.000-08:002007-02-15T19:18:00.000-08:00For a Cold War as Chess theme, I'm surprised no me...For a Cold War as Chess theme, I'm surprised no mention of the musical... <I>Chess</I>.<BR/><BR/>But then, my tastes are far more bougeoise than theoretical.Ahistoricalityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04004964192885891003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-81856710301595479382007-02-15T15:05:00.000-08:002007-02-15T15:05:00.000-08:00Of all the points I might want to make, the last o...Of all the points I might want to make, the last one Owen notes would be the main one: the thematic parallel between <I>Casablanca</I> and Capablanca in <I>Chess Fever</I> is the missing five minutes and what may or may not have happened.ithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-88282612208087505562007-02-15T11:35:00.000-08:002007-02-15T11:35:00.000-08:00I don't want to get bogged down too much on what s...I don't want to get bogged down too much on what seems to be for some people their own little version of Sokal's Intellectual Impostures, only with even less point; just an aside that the Casablanca/Capablanca point with ref to Chess Fever has to do with the unshown scene where Capablanca teaches the heroine the joys of chess, much as Casablanca hinges on the unseen moment where Bergman and Bogart may or may not be having sex, rather than any Morleyesque smartarsery. OK?owen hatherleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943115307136493045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-57539274155509892472007-02-15T08:58:00.000-08:002007-02-15T08:58:00.000-08:00And really, that's your endlessly reiterated entir...<I>And really, that's your endlessly reiterated entire point, isn't it? That you know best</I><BR/><BR/>No: that I know a fair bit about it and that I have the knowledge and experience to back up my opinions. This means I don't have to scream "elitism" at other people, or manufacture their opinions for them, as you have done in your posting.<BR/><BR/><I>when you post terse comments drawing analogies between Clarke's comments about science/magic and chess, you are setting yourself up for accusations of elitism.</I><BR/><BR/>No I'm not: <I>I'm investigating the way in which people view chess</I>. In which they relate to chess: how it differs from (say) how people view football or novel-writing or carpentry.<BR/><BR/>And to be honest I don't really care about accusations of elitism, except insofar as they always serve to obscure and cripple a proper discussion.ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-53132957999555430392007-02-15T08:46:00.000-08:002007-02-15T08:46:00.000-08:00"I tend to think this provides me with rather more..."I tend to think this provides me with rather more understanding of the subject"<BR/><BR/>Yes, you do rather, don't you? And really, that's your endlessly reiterated entire point, isn't it? That you know best. What chess is, what chess players think.<BR/><BR/>"We would like to increase our audience, and to make more people interested in chess. Did you know that, or think about it?" <BR/><BR/>Who, really, is "we" Justin? And, according to you, what is it to be interested in chess? Because it seems to me, that as you see it, there are right, and wrong ways to be interested. There is your way. And then there is any other way. And furthermore, before being certified to think about chess, and certainly before being certified to talk about it, it is necessary that the correct view, apparently endorsed by everyone who plays (though, oddly, not by me, or indeed, anybody else I have ever spoken to on the subject, including, upon one occasion, two different grandmasters) about the enigmatic "nature of the game" are first of all accepted, since otherwise, one can't really be a chess player, can one now? <BR/><BR/>It is arrogance of a breathtaking degree really, and leaves me in doubt whatsoever as to what a marvellous advertisment for chess you must be.Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14033501265373725519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-70177029438269861312007-02-15T08:39:00.000-08:002007-02-15T08:39:00.000-08:00Now if the defence is that this is all right, that...<I>Now if the defence is that this is all right, that "hyperbole" is a reasonable approach to the discussion of cultural phenomena, I have to say that I don't agree.</I><BR/><BR/>Ermm, you are aware that this piece is an article to accompany a screening of a film called <I>Chess Fever</I> aren't you?<BR/><BR/><I>Thirdly, on the "rarefied atmosphere of chess clubs" and so on. Now I should observe that "rarefied atmosphere" is a cliché and cliches usually indicate that those who use them are dealing with a stereotype rather than a reality. I don't know of any club with a "rarefied" atmosphere</I><BR/><BR/>'Rarefied' - selective. Chess clubs are full of people with a more than average interest in chess. What is your problem?<BR/><BR/><I>I've given much of my time to providing (and discussing) chess for people who are not regular players. Very elitist! How much time have you given?</I><BR/><BR/>Absolutely none; so what? I'm not setting myself up as a spokesperson for chess in this discussion. I'm very sorry, but when you post terse comments drawing analogies between Clarke's comments about science/magic and chess, you are setting yourself up for accusations of elitism.<BR/><BR/><I>Many chessplayers and chess writers actually spend a good deal of time discussing how the public in general view chess and communicating with said public on the subject: this is because we would like to increase our audience and to make more people interested in chess. Did you know that, or think about it?</I><BR/><BR/>Yes and yes. Of course, I had no idea that you did such things until you actually mentioned it (why would I have?). I found your comments upon why children do or do not continue to play chess quite interesting and am happy to bow to your superior knowledge in that area. Perhaps you could continue in that vein rather than with all the pointless sniping?johneffayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10188565082989108143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-79962459244822280892007-02-15T08:06:00.000-08:002007-02-15T08:06:00.000-08:00this place is getting too hostile and detailed.I d...<I>this place is getting too hostile and detailed.</I><BR/><BR/>I don't mean to be overly hostile, but see no problem with details.<BR/><BR/><I>But I do just want to say that Battlechess is not so successful - the last time it was produced was 1994.</I><BR/><BR/>It was very successful during the seven or eight years it was marketed for, and was hosted on just about every platform available (and in those days there were a lot of platforms). I have no doubt the novelty wore off after a while, but it would be interesting to see what the comparative sales figures were for it and other chess programmes are. I've had a quick trawl round the Net, but can't seem to find them.johneffayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10188565082989108143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-49771840390372413962007-02-15T07:50:00.000-08:002007-02-15T07:50:00.000-08:00Well, it's hard to pick out any coherent argument ...Well, it's hard to pick out any coherent argument in between the epithets. The accusations of "elitism" are water off a duck's back, I'm afraid: they're empty. It's the case that people with experience and knowledge of a field tend to understand more about that field than people who do not: if you don't have that knowledge you're liable to be shown up by somebody who does.<BR/><BR/>This doesn't matter so much: what matters is if you decide the knowledge and experience aren't important, that you can make any sort of exaggerated and unsupportable assertion you like and then cry "eltism" when you're challenged. I don't have a lot of time for this.<BR/><BR/><I>It's becoming glaringly apparent that what superior chess players do not understand is how chess is perceived outside the rarefied atmosphere of chess clubs; which is obviously the subject of IT's piece. Apparently they also have no concept of hyperbole.</I><BR/><BR/>Now, let's have a look at this passage. Firstly, the final sentence is plainly untrue on a straightforward reading, since a large objection I have made to the piece is that it is full of exaggerated statements. Now if the defence is that this is all right, that "hyperbole" is a reasonable approach to the discussion of cultural phenomena, I have to say that I don't agree. One may make this or that hyperbolic statement for effect, sure, but as one's <I>whole approach</I>? All that would mean is that one can come out with any old crap and not be asked to justify it. Isn't what this is about, people wanting to make impressive statements and then resenting being pulled up for it?<BR/><BR/>Secondly, it's <I>not</I> obviously the subject of the piece: the nature of chess itself, rather than its perception by non-players, appears to be the subject of the piece.<BR/><BR/>Thirdly, on the "rarefied atmosphere of chess clubs" and so on. Now I should observe that "rarefied atmosphere" is a cliché and cliches usually indicate that those who use them are dealing with a stereotype rather than a reality. I don't know of any club with a "rarefied" atmosphere: perhaps this points up the problem when people who do not know anything about a field insist on laying down the law about what it is and what it's like.<BR/><BR/>I have, however, spent much time thinking about how chess represents itself to (and how it is perceived by ) non-chessplayers. This can be backed up with comments I have made above, with comments I have made when reviewing books (some of which are reproduced on the front cover of a recent book) and in a certain amount of my writing and journalism about chess.<BR/><BR/>Many chessplayers and chess writers actually spend a good deal of time discussing how the public in general view chess and communicating with said public on the subject: this is because we would like to increase our audience and to make more people interested in chess. Did you know that, or think about it?<BR/><BR/>For that reason, it's possible that I know something about why, and to what extent kids play other games rather than chess. Matter of fact, a lot of kids <I>do</I> learn chess and whether or not they continue with it doesn't seem to have anything to do with "elitism", possibly because no such thing impedes them.<BR/><BR/>They continue, on the whole, if they have access to regular competition, if they enjoy it and if they improve, which is related to questions like "is it available in schools?" or "is there a club they can join?".<BR/><BR/>Of course many kids find it slow and boring and abandon it (or never learn it) <I>for that reason</I>: and fair enough, it's difficult and neither as colourful or exciting, on the surface, as computer games.<BR/><BR/>I've spent a fair amount of my time discussing the question of how chess may be made more accessible to kids, asking how it can present itself to the general public, providing commentary on chess events to non-players and inexperienced players. I tend to think this provides me with rather more understanding of the subject than can be summoned either by quoting Debord in order to show off, or by screaming "elitism" as a cover for not having an adequate knowledge of the subject. I've given much of my time to providing (and discussing) chess for people who are not regular players. <I>Very</I> elitist! How much time have you given?ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-82756340320346418712007-02-15T07:33:00.000-08:002007-02-15T07:33:00.000-08:00I'm ducking out of the comments after this one, be...I'm ducking out of the comments after this one, because this place is getting too hostile and detailed.<BR/><BR/>But I do just want to say that Battlechess is not so successful - the last time it was produced was 1994.<BR/><BR/>I would think (but don't know) the most popular chess programme nowadays is 'Chessmaster'. Their central imagery revolves around a magical wizard. Interpret that how you will.<BR/><BR/>In specialist circle, the most sold chess programme I strongly suspect is either Rybka or Fritz. Fritz doesn't have central imagery - but rather has numerous types of imagery you can choose from, including but not limited to war. Rybka's imagery is centred on fish.Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-8592080737330896982007-02-15T06:51:00.000-08:002007-02-15T06:51:00.000-08:00What do superior chess players understand that les...<I>What do superior chess players understand that lesser players do not? Well, by its nature that's a hard thing to explain, but the better one becomes the more one can appreciate what the nature of chess actually is.</I><BR/><BR/>It's becoming glaringly apparent that what superior chess players <I>do not</I> understand is how chess is perceived outside the rarefied atmosphere of chess clubs; which is obviously the subject of IT's piece. Apparently they also have no concept of hyperbole.<BR/><BR/>Sorry to disappoint you but in the big wide world, chess is seen as <BR/><BR/>1. Analogous to war. Hence the success of programmes such as 'Battlechess', where you can watch animations of the pieces fight whenever they take each other.<BR/><BR/>2. A difficult board game that does not repay the effort that it takes to play properly.<BR/><BR/>Ask yourself this, ejh: Why are more children prepared to take the time and effort to learn the baroque and ludicrously complicated rules to table top war games and role playing games when if they put in the same sort of effort into chess they would probably be quite good at it? Could it have anything to do with the appallingly smug and elitist attitude that you are displaying in your comments?johneffayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10188565082989108143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-62690614499130539812007-02-15T05:46:00.000-08:002007-02-15T05:46:00.000-08:00Why do posts that begin with the chastisement of o...Why do posts that begin with the chastisement of on-line insults almost always end with an insult?Wesleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07554191534789905377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-84291685257300508272007-02-15T05:37:00.000-08:002007-02-15T05:37:00.000-08:00Daniel, I'm afraid that when I refer to content-fr...Daniel, I'm afraid that when I refer to content-free postings I do not consider insults to be be content.<BR/><BR/>If you have nothing to say, could you not find a way of saying it that embarrasses you less?ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-44752015783994615172007-02-15T05:08:00.000-08:002007-02-15T05:08:00.000-08:00I don't play chess very well, but I think that I a...I don't play chess very well, but I think that I agree with 'ejh' about this. I think that something similar can be said about philosophy, or anything abstract.Wesleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07554191534789905377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-3760330122288958512007-02-15T05:03:00.000-08:002007-02-15T05:03:00.000-08:00"What do superior chess players understand that le..."What do superior chess players understand that lesser players do not? Well, by its nature that's a hard thing to explain, but the better one becomes the more one can appreciate what the nature of chess actually is."<BR/><BR/>You really are a pompous windbag, aren't you?Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14033501265373725519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-81010414202206952752007-02-15T04:39:00.000-08:002007-02-15T04:39:00.000-08:00While we could speak of a love of chess, or a pass...While we could speak of a love of chess, or a passionate involvement in its rules, I don’t think that a ‘chess of love’ is possible, because in chess every act must be bound by its static set of rules, whereas acts of love continually displace the rational terms through which we evaluate our relation to an object of desire. Though chess is seductive insofar as it begins with a pact in which the intensity of our pleasure requires our opponent’s acumen, and though this might resemble love in saying to him ‘the more knowledge that you have, the more pleasure I take’, these qualities are bound by its rules, and by the very particular objects that it allows us to stake. To say that love takes the form of a game isn’t to say that it requires a Machiavellian operation which replaces belief with other, more important ends, but rather that love is the domain of stakes rather than investment, in which an object of desire is offered to displace its economic ends. That is, whereas the stakes of chess are determined by a finite number of permutations of its rules, even if the number of these permutations and the problems that they challenge us to stake is extremely high, because love is a game without ends, and that ends only in death, love is a game in which the stakes are infinite.Wesleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07554191534789905377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-72243949210666583932007-02-15T03:05:00.000-08:002007-02-15T03:05:00.000-08:00Indeed, why not identify some more of these dramat...Indeed, why not identify some more of these dramatic claims and ask them to justify themselves? In the name of intellectual rigour, if nothing else.<BR/><BR/><I>The defeat of left-wing politics, of reason and seriality, and its replacement by the flows of capital and the madness of markets informs us that whichever side chess was on, the game itself has lost</I><BR/><BR/>How so? In what sense would chess have been on any given "side"?<BR/><BR/><I>and lost badly, relegated to the status of whimsical pastime for the terminally intellectually aspirational, the insane and the incarcerated.</I><BR/><BR/>Really? Would any but a tiny minority of regular players fall into any of thse categories?<BR/><BR/><I>The hustlers that sit in Washington Square Park, playing for the odd five bucks against business-folk on their lunch-break are the last remnants of the chess vanguard.</I><BR/><BR/>Are they? In what sense do they represent a vanguard? Of what previous vanguard are they a remnant?<BR/><BR/><I>Chess is the game of modernism</I><BR/><BR/>Is it? Does it really play a sizeable role in Modernism's history or theory or output?<BR/><BR/><I>If chess is the wrong war for Deleuze and Guattari, it is because structure per se is loaded, corrupted by its collusion in the wrong history. Go is fluid</I><BR/><BR/>In what way is Go fluid that chess is not? In what way does chess possess structure but Go does not? In what way is structure guilty of "collusion" and what constitutes "the wrong history"?<BR/><BR/><I>In an odd linguistic and thematic prefiguration of "Casablanca"</I><BR/><BR/>Does "Chess Fever" really <I>prefigure</I> "Casablanca" <I>thematically</I>? How does it do so? Isn't it really nothing at all to do with "Casablanca" that a chessplayer with a similar-sounding name appeared in a film made twenty years earlier? Would a film involving Bobby Fischer have prefigured "The Fisher King"?<BR/><BR/><I>Fifty years later, Guy Debord too understood something of the wit of chess with the invention in 1977, of his board game, 'Game of War'.</I><BR/><BR/>How does this demonstrate that Debord understood the game's "wit"?<BR/><BR/><I>that characterises the war on chess</I><BR/><BR/>What "war on chess"?<BR/><BR/><I>Chess had to lose precisely because it revealed too much</I><BR/><BR/>How did it "have to lose"? Who decided this? What defeat did it then suffer? Who brought it about? How did it actually "reveal too much"? Aren't you actually trying to create an enormous intellectual edifice on the basis of a very small number of artworks?ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-49824726132126757472007-02-15T02:40:00.000-08:002007-02-15T02:40:00.000-08:00I don't think you've presented the theorists badly...I don't think you've presented the theorists badly as such, nor have I claimed that you did: it's that you've not really asked whether what they are saying is true.<BR/><BR/>What do superior chess players understand that lesser players do not? Well, by its nature that's a hard thing to explain, but the better one becomes the more one can appreciate what the <I>nature</I> of chess actually is. This is partly in the sense (discussed by Tom above) of whether it is art, science, representation of war, sport or what you will. But also in terms of commentary on statements like this:<BR/><BR/>"the wilful misunderstanding of chess, by both its defenders and its critics, as primarily a game of war, and not as a game of seduction"<BR/><BR/>Well, is it <I>really</I> a game of seduction rather than war? In what way? Players would, I think, generally feel that what they were engaged in was a contest. To some degree it may be a contest in which co-operation is required in order to achieve aesthetically pleasing results. At a higher level there may be a feeling that the players' forces are in some way interdependent, that the relationship between the sides is not purely antagonistic (one recalls what is said about the ebb and flow of the initiative in works by Suba or Watson or Rowson). My own problem with commenting on the last suggestion is that I'm really not quite good enough to understand whether it is true: my comprehension of what is occurring on a chessboard is too superficial.<BR/><BR/>I do think you're going to have problems if you inist on making statements like this:<BR/><BR/>"After Duchamp and Debord, we are left in a post-avant-garde era which operates with the sorry opposition <I>hyper-chess or no chess at all</I>"<BR/><BR/>Your piece is full of this sort of dramatic claim. This being so, people are going to ask, on the basis of knowledge of the world of chess and understanding of the mechanics of the game – "is this true?" They are going to ask "what does the writer really mean by <I>post-avant-garde</I> and has anybody, really, been left with that sorry opposition?" They’ve not, really, have they? Chess continues as before, does it not? It has not been surpasssed or outdated or discredited or rendered defunct, has it? Not in any sense.<BR/><BR/>So isn't it a claim that can't remotely be justified on any sort of evidence? Isn't the employment of the language of social theory therefore, as I say, a camouflage for the making of draamtic claims that are justified neither by the facts nor by the theory?ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-24746655897384524712007-02-15T01:57:00.000-08:002007-02-15T01:57:00.000-08:00ejh - you haven't given me a single substantive po...ejh - you haven't given me a single substantive point of criticism here. <I>Which</I> theorists have I presented badly? <I>What</I> exactly is it that superior chess players understand about the game that lesser players do not? I couldn't care less if you like the piece - at least your chess colleague had some contentful comments, even if he (?!) did make a fatal assumption at the beginning of his game.ithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-516177347266393162007-02-15T00:55:00.000-08:002007-02-15T00:55:00.000-08:00you've just resorted to empty superior sneeringNo ...<I>you've just resorted to empty superior sneering</I><BR/><BR/>No I haven't: I was (very, very obviously) making that point as an introduction to discuss how people perceive chess. There’s nothing about it that could be remotely described as empty, or superior, or sneering.<BR/><BR/>One of the things I find most fascinating about chess is its fascination to people who do not know (or barely know) how it is played: I can recall this from (for example) schoolfriends being hooked on the TV programme <I>The Master Game</I> when I was a kid. So why not ask what the basis of this fascination is? Why televised representations of chess often have someone announcing checkmate that their skilled opponent somehow hadn't seen, as if a rabbit were being pulled out of a hat?<BR/><BR/>I'm sorry you're not happy that I didn't like your piece. But the problem with it is that,as Tom has extensively observed, it makes a lot of claims that can't really be backed up and which are often exceptions rather than generalities.<BR/><BR/>I think that if you <I>make</I> claims, in the realm of cultural commentary or anywhere else, you have to accept that people with knowledge of the field are going to ask you whether those claims really stack up. I don't think they do. I don't think that most people with regular experience of the world of chess would agree with them. This would include those who are familiar with the theorists to whom you make reference.<BR/><BR/>I often feel that reference to certain theorists can camouflage unfamiliarity with the material on which they are being employed for commentary and I'm afraid I felt that was the case here. Sorry if you didn't like it. I didn't go out of my way to dislike your piece, but dislike it I did and I say so on, I think, a well-informed basis.<BR/><BR/>Of Daniel's posting very little complimentary can be said - I think he is confusing me with Tom, in the first place. Comments like this:<BR/><BR/><I>you understand nothing of discourse, or desire, or chess for the matter</I><BR/><BR/>are free of all content except empty rhetoric. Tom knows <I>nothing</I> of chess, or I don't? Don't be silly.ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-78251589406970216172007-02-14T18:18:00.000-08:002007-02-14T18:18:00.000-08:00email address is actually wearekinofist@gmail.com,...email address is actually wearekinofist@gmail.com, slight d'oh.ithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-7248004903578009812007-02-14T16:30:00.000-08:002007-02-14T16:30:00.000-08:00Ok, fair enough IT.I am not used to how you write ...Ok, fair enough IT.<BR/><BR/>I am not used to how you write or what your interests are. I come from a general chess angle and figured you might be intersted in my reaction, but maybe not as probably we were talking at crossed purposes most of the time.<BR/><BR/>I'll drop you an email.Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-85989316208377653282007-02-14T16:27:00.000-08:002007-02-14T16:27:00.000-08:00Just a couple of things before I have to finish my...Just a couple of things before I have to finish my lecture for tomorrow (it's on Descartes - oh no! my poor brain!).<BR/><BR/>1. Nabokov played his wife Vera at chess almost every day. I find this an attractive, seductive model both of marriage and of chess.<BR/><BR/>2. I am clearly not claiming that famous people who play/ed chess, like Duchamp, are whimsical. I am claiming that some who may be inspired by Duchamp's dramatic decision re art and chess might find the game attractive on the basis of such a thing. These people may be whimsical. It is not necessarily a bad thing. Not all of us will ever be good enough to beat the hustlers in Washington Square Park.<BR/><BR/>3. <I>I think the problem is, I do not think that generalities of the kind you seek for chess are realistic to the game currently and its history.</I><BR/><BR/>Clearly the post I wrote isn't going to respond to such demands, seeing as <I>not for a moment was that my intention</I>.<BR/><BR/>If I wish to write an account of the current status of the game, or its <I>really real totally empirical</I> history I will call on you to provide me with all the sensible information I could possibly need. <BR/><BR/>4. <I>I assume you are having a knee-jerk moment of implied outrage on behalf of feminism.</I><BR/><BR/>One is only outraged 'on behalf' of something? What an oddly distanced formulation.<BR/><BR/>5. <I>Btw, please do me the favour of reading what I actually write. I did not accuse you of 'fuzzy sociologising' when I wrote: "Perhaps some technical, sociological sense I am fuzzy on."</I><BR/><BR/>I apologise for this slip. But it strikes me that you too are exhibiting a tendency to misread some of my claims. When I say that chess has shifted from a more central role in the cultural imagination, this does not automatically imply that there are less people now playing the game, for example. One claim is socio-cultural, the other empirical.<BR/><BR/>6. <I>A good test of whether or not Donner achieves that - as Mulisch claims - would be if one of my female readers read his book and gave their view. No volunteers, so far.</I><BR/><BR/>Email me at wearekinofist@blogspot.com and I'll gladly do you the courtesy.ithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039096198679139361.post-42901095007778198312007-02-14T16:23:00.000-08:002007-02-14T16:23:00.000-08:00Daniel - one thing I don't view conversation as is...Daniel - one thing I don't view conversation as is a chess game, whether over insults, style of address, or comprehension.<BR/><BR/>IT asked for comments on his article and I simply provided mine. I hoped he would find them intersting or useful, but maybe not. If he doesn't appreciate my comments - fine - he is welcome to ignore them, disagree, or delete them as he sees fit. It's his blog. I don't see what your problem is.Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.com