Chessmaster 4,000

When I was a kid, my parents bought this bad mo-fo of a computer. It was a "Gateway" and the tower was about the size of a minifridge, capable of reading (not writing, mind you) cd-roms at a supersonic 12x, and could download illegal files called "mp3s" off the internet at 3 a night! I bought a game for it, called "Chessmaster 4,000". With this game in hand, I would finally realize my childhood dream of being a huge, epic dork.

After about 30 games, it became patently clear that 'the Chessmaster' was way better than me and I was not improving nearly as rapidly as I had hoped. Like piano, it was clear chess was not my niche.

Jonah Lehrer points to a Time Magazine profile of Magnus Carlsen, an unexpected chess prodigy. Jonah notes:

One of the fascinating elements of Carlsen's talent is that he's learned the game by playing computer chess, matching his wits against advanced algorithms. The end result is a prodigy who's amassed an unprecedented amount of deliberate practice at an early age, as he's able to play multiple games on the same machine at the same time. Computers, in other words, have accelerated the pace of his chess education.

I find this interesting, because computer chess did not accelerate the pace of my learning, rather it only accelerated the rate at which I gave up chess completely. In fact I now find chess one of the most boring games in human existence. Part of this comes from the gradual transition from geek to frat boy I have made over my lifetime, and as such sitting in a park playing chess with a friend just doesn't seem as fun as tossing a pigskin with same said friend would be. But part of it comes from the fact that the very nature of chess, the complex foreplanning of moves, the stupid history lessons about chess being a trainer for military strategists, the Russian bloc domination of chess for nearly 40 years, the fact that you have to just sit there, the idea that the board is ruled by the Queen, whatever it is, I simply despise chess down to the core of me.

Spare me your judgements too, okay. Someone might argue that I was simply too "A.D.D." for chess, and that's a fair argument. But consider me playing, fully focused, and entire game of scrabble during which I toy with my opponent and see just how mad I can make them before they quit. It is not, to me, that chess is a game that requires more concentration than many of us prefer to apply. To me, chess' big problem is that the game is old-fashioned and boring.


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