Human beings may be naturally superior chess players but not when they are systematically deprived of opportunities for doing so. A player needs time to look at each move from first principles, to look ahead, considering possible replies, creating his own plans, and modifying those plans based on what he has foreseen in looking ahead, as well as time to think strategically, all of which is basically impossible under the extremely short time controls being offered now. There was a time when chess games were commonly expected to last longer than an hour, unless the players were unmatched or unless they were both poor, and serious play (i.e. tournament games or games between serious club players) was expected to commonly take two or three hours.
Now, players generally are offered only very short time controls. These are preferred by those who seem to get their cues from elsewhere, like robots downloading data from third-party references, because it denies their human opponents the time they need to think, which human beings need both to develop chess skills and to practice them properly.
Otherwise, they are offered only very long time controls (e.g., correspondence chess) and don't get to play enough games on a regular basis to learn the game and improve. In any case, they are denied enough online time to play games with normal time controls, and denied the opportunity to play over the board games with normal time controls on a regular basis, all to deny them the opportunity to improve and play well; or else, the environment is made hostile to them by means of noise, harassment, threats, or other disruptions; or else they are deprived of adequate or restful sleep, poisoned, placed under abnormal stress, or otherwise attacked and harassed, and denied reasonable conditions for living, learning, and playing.
In other words, human players are systematically deprived of what they need to learn to play well and to do so in practice. On those occasions when, by some miracle, they manage to play well anyway, their opponents act like spoiled, malicious monsters who can't bear to lose and who would rather do anything other than lose, including cheat by the only means they can: means extrinsic to the game itself.
Originally posted by Mark Adkinsrec'd
Human beings may be naturally superior chess players but not when they are systematically deprived of opportunities for doing so. A player needs time to look at each move from first principles, to look ahead, considering possible replies, creating his own plans, and modifying those plans based on what he has foreseen in looking ahead, as well as time t ...[text shortened]... her than lose, including cheat by the only means they can: means extrinsic to the game itself.
That is very true
People are forced into playing 1 min chess because of cheating and disruption of chess sites that play longer games. say around 5/5.
I genuinely don't believe many people cheat - you might be misinterpreting hacking / DOS attacks as cheating.
1 min chess in particular - though fun should not be seen as chess at all -it is a shoot em up computer game ... With all the empathy and thought that entails.
This may be of interest - it ran for 9 pages back in July 08.
I don't get it! Why cheat?
Thread 95904