Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
A few reasons why Xiangqi is (possibly or possibly not) better than chess
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KetoOn1963 wrote:
Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
What do you mean?
Jun 24, 2020
0
#4
icositetrachoron wrote:
KetoOn1963 wrote:
Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
What do you mean?
That you have an opinion.
I like closed positions with lots of quiet maneuvering. That's why I specialize in chu shogi, which in my opinion is far better than chess, for the opposite reason of what you give for xiangqi. Instead of tactics, chu shogi provides a heavy focus on strategy. Draws are extremely rare in chu shogi (like 0.1% of games)
I can deal with closed positions, but I don't like closed positions in chess, where there is a large pawn chain blocking everything.
Jun 24, 2020
0
#7
icositetrachoron wrote:
Chess has some things that are nonsensical- like why is the queen so powerful (David H. Li made a name for chess called QueenQi)?
Here are some reasons why Xiangqi is better than chess:
1. Less draws
The first game in the first PCA Western Chess World Championship, in 1995, between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand, consisted of a few piece trades and then an agreed draw. In Xiangqi, you can only draw if both sides are unable to checkmate (stalemates and perpetual checks are losses for the stalemated player and the player who is giving the checks). Also, the position is not closed by pawn chains in Xiangqi, so there is more room for attacking and tactics.
2. The Queen
The Queen is insanely overpowered in chess. Combined with pawn promotion it just becomes nonsensical. As Professor Li said it best,
"Western Chess pays too much attention to the Queen, as the most powerful piece on the board. Even worse: since a Pawn can be promoted to be a Queen, Western Chess pays too much attention to the Pawn as well. Neither rule makes any sense, if one views chess as a kind of war simulation game. There has been one game, dubbed the “Game of the Century” (that is to say: the 20th century), featuring Bobby Fischer who commands the black army and who is battling Donald Byrne at the 1956 U.S. Open. During that very encounter Fischer sacrifices his Queen, allowing himself to gain tempo as well as positional advantage to produce a mate in due course. I do suspect that the Queen sacrifice has been the sole reason for this game having gained that much fame. In honour of that single-minded focus on the Queen on the part of Western Chess, I am proposing a new name for Western Chess: “Queen-Qi”, thereby corresponding to the Chinese version of chess, “XiangQi”."
3. More tactical and attacking fights
One of the problems of chess is that players can move, let's say, about 25 moves, and since the pawn structure locks up the position, they can offer a draw. In Xiangqi this is not the case. There are no pawn structures and at the beginning of the game, there are 4 open lines to attack through. This dramatically decreases the amount of locked positions and there are more tactics and attacks.
Open positions are more drawish than than closed positions. In open positions it's easier to prevent your opponents plan. Draws are not a bad thing either, all games are either a draw with perfect play, or a win for one side. Your arguments are typical for someone who doesn't understand the game.
Jun 24, 2020
0
#8
icositetrachoron wrote:
I can deal with closed positions, but I don't like closed positions in chess, where there is a large pawn chain blocking everything.
It's because you don't know how to play chess, long pawn chains lead to attacking chess here is an example:
Rugby is better than soccer.
Fewer draws.
More scoring.
Always an attack is happening.
Aggresive defence.
etc.
Does that mitigate Soccer? No, it is a different game, it has it's own integrity, tactics etc how it is then misplayed and sometimes perverted by some is a seperate issue
auto chess is better because it has a meta 😉
icositetrachoron wrote:
Chess has some things that are nonsensical- like why is the queen so powerful (David H. Li made a name for chess called QueenQi)?
There's nothing "nonsensical" about having a very powerful piece.
icositetrachoron wrote:
1. Less draws
The first game in the first PCA Western Chess World Championship, in 1995, between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand, consisted of a few piece trades and then an agreed draw. In Xiangqi, you can only draw if both sides are unable to checkmate (stalemates and perpetual checks are losses for the stalemated player and the player who is giving the checks). Also, the position is not closed by pawn chains in Xiangqi, so there is more room for attacking and tactics.
Draws are a great possibility in amateur chess, a draw is often the fairest result. It's only at the GM level where up to 50% of games are drawn THEN it can become a problem.
If both players play about the same, neither can edge victory, then the fairest result is a draw. I'm not sure why people list this as a bad thing. Association football (soccer) has draws all the time and is by far the most popular sport in the world.
If you saw too guys fighting each other and neither could quite dominate it, neither could come off the best - does one really deserve to claim he has "won" the fight? No, you shouldn't "win" a game unless you show clear superiority.
icositetrachoron wrote:
2. The Queen
The Queen is insanely overpowered in chess. Combined with pawn promotion it just becomes nonsensical. As Professor Li said it best,
"Western Chess pays too much attention to the Queen, as the most powerful piece on the board. Even worse: since a Pawn can be promoted to be a Queen, Western Chess pays too much attention to the Pawn as well. Neither rule makes any sense, if one views chess as a kind of war simulation game. There has been one game, dubbed the “Game of the Century” (that is to say: the 20th century), featuring Bobby Fischer who commands the black army and who is battling Donald Byrne at the 1956 U.S. Open. During that very encounter Fischer sacrifices his Queen, allowing himself to gain tempo as well as positional advantage to produce a mate in due course. I do suspect that the Queen sacrifice has been the sole reason for this game having gained that much fame. In honour of that single-minded focus on the Queen on the part of Western Chess, I am proposing a new name for Western Chess: “Queen-Qi”, thereby corresponding to the Chinese version of chess, “XiangQi”."
As already explained there is nothing inherently wrong about a highly powerful piece. If you want games where pieces aren't powerful play checkers or fox and geese. Someone else wrote somewhere that they call chess a funny name, do you have any idea how stupid that is as an argument?
icositetrachoron wrote:
3. More tactical and attacking fights
One of the problems of chess is that players can move, let's say, about 25 moves, and since the pawn structure locks up the position, they can offer a draw. In Xiangqi this is not the case. There are no pawn structures and at the beginning of the game, there are 4 open lines to attack through. This dramatically decreases the amount of locked positions and there are more tactics and attacks.
Right, and tactics are not the funnest part of chess - strategy is. Most people would rather win a chess game after developing a brilliant strategy and crushing their opponent that way, perhaps with a great combination to finish what arose out their winning masterplan. Tactics are more about brute force calculation, where positional considerations are cast aside. Alekhine played like this, his style has been described as simply throwing the pieces in the air and counting on his ability to outcalculate the complications that arose. For this reason nobody really cares about Alekhine's games or legacy anymore (aside from his opening theory contributions), Fischer described his style as being very "heavy".
If anything tactics play too much a part of chess already especially at the lower levels, the last thing we need is an even more tactical game.
You’re not actually making any points. Posting a bunch of meaningless links without any argument makes you look like a fool.
Firstly, the queen is not ridiculously overpowered. It is easily the strongest piece, but it generally does not “overpower” the other player’s position unless they play poorly, and it can’t even show its true power because of other pieces hampering it most of the time. The queen, while being powerful, is also the most vulnerable. Saying that the queen is overpowered is typical of someone with low position understanding and has a basic grasp of 2 move tactics. Furthermore, if anything, the Bobby Fischer you mentioned proves that the queen is not overpowered. Fischer gave up his queen and then proceeded to win without it.
I personally don’t see why a player of your caliber should be worrying about draws. Unless you’re talking about GM level, draws are in all likelihood not the result of a game. Also, perpetual check and stalemate are core aspects of chess that deepen calculation and are enrich recourses in a lot of positions. If that doesn’t suit you, than Xiangqi is fine, but that doesn’t make it inherently better than chess! Anyway, draws are only a problem at the top level; otherwise, that argument is completely void.
First off, that’s just wrong. Unless the entire board is locked, which rarely happens, every position had underlying tactics and subtleties. Every position. Besides that claim being wrong, the beauty of chess is not 30 move tactical blunder-fests, but rather the deep positional and strategical grind. If you disagree, thats fine, it just means you don’t have the patience for it, not good at it, or likely both. There is nothing wrong with that! If you prefer something which is inherently attacking from the starting position, that is more than fine!
But saying that it makes it better than chess, simply because you don’t understand, is wrong.
I personally don’t see why a player of your caliber should be worrying about draws. Unless you’re talking about GM level, draws are in all likelihood not the result of a game. Also, perpetual check and stalemate are core aspects of chess that deepen calculation and are enrich recourses in a lot of positions. If that doesn’t suit you, than Xiangqi is fine, but that doesn’t make it inherently better than chess! Anyway, draws are only a problem at the top level; otherwise, that argument is completely void.
First off, that’s just wrong. Unless the entire board is locked, which rarely happens, every position had underlying tactics and subtleties. Every position. Besides that claim being wrong, the beauty of chess is not 30 move tactical blunder-fests, but rather the deep positional and strategical grind. If you disagree, thats fine, it just means you don’t have the patience for it, not good at it, or likely both. There is nothing wrong with that! If you prefer something which is inherently attacking from the starting position, that is more than fine!
But saying that it makes it better than chess, simply because you don’t understand, is wrong.
Jun 25, 2020
0
#14
icositetrachoron wrote:
Chess has some things that are nonsensical- like why is the queen so powerful (David H. Li made a name for chess called QueenQi)?
Here are some reasons why Xiangqi is better than chess:
1. Less draws
The first game in the first PCA Western Chess World Championship, in 1995, between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand, consisted of a few piece trades and then an agreed draw. In Xiangqi, you can only draw if both sides are unable to checkmate (stalemates and perpetual checks are losses for the stalemated player and the player who is giving the checks). Also, the position is not closed by pawn chains in Xiangqi, so there is more room for attacking and tactics.
2. The Queen
The Queen is insanely overpowered in chess. Combined with pawn promotion it just becomes nonsensical. As Professor Li said it best,
"Western Chess pays too much attention to the Queen, as the most powerful piece on the board. Even worse: since a Pawn can be promoted to be a Queen, Western Chess pays too much attention to the Pawn as well. Neither rule makes any sense, if one views chess as a kind of war simulation game. There has been one game, dubbed the “Game of the Century” (that is to say: the 20th century), featuring Bobby Fischer who commands the black army and who is battling Donald Byrne at the 1956 U.S. Open. During that very encounter Fischer sacrifices his Queen, allowing himself to gain tempo as well as positional advantage to produce a mate in due course. I do suspect that the Queen sacrifice has been the sole reason for this game having gained that much fame. In honour of that single-minded focus on the Queen on the part of Western Chess, I am proposing a new name for Western Chess: “Queen-Qi”, thereby corresponding to the Chinese version of chess, “XiangQi”."
3. More tactical and attacking fights
One of the problems of chess is that players can move, let's say, about 25 moves, and since the pawn structure locks up the position, they can offer a draw. In Xiangqi this is not the case. There are no pawn structures and at the beginning of the game, there are 4 open lines to attack through. This dramatically decreases the amount of locked positions and there are more tactics and attacks.
Disclaimer: I am not trying to argue that one game is better than the other, I am just trying to show some ways that it could be better.
The rook is over powered in rookqi, therefore go is better.
Chess has some things that are nonsensical- like why is the queen so powerful (David H. Li made a name for chess called QueenQi)?
Here are some reasons why Xiangqi is better than chess:
1. Less draws
The first game in the first PCA Western Chess World Championship, in 1995, between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand, consisted of a few piece trades and then an agreed draw. In Xiangqi, you can only draw if both sides are unable to checkmate (stalemates and perpetual checks are losses for the stalemated player and the player who is giving the checks). Also, the position is not closed by pawn chains in Xiangqi, so there is more room for attacking and tactics.
2. The Queen
The Queen is insanely overpowered in chess. Combined with pawn promotion it just becomes nonsensical. As Professor Li said it best,
"Western Chess pays too much attention to the Queen, as the most powerful piece on the board. Even worse: since a Pawn can be promoted to be a Queen, Western Chess pays too much attention to the Pawn as well. Neither rule makes any sense, if one views chess as a kind of war simulation game. There has been one game, dubbed the “Game of the Century” (that is to say: the 20th century), featuring Bobby Fischer who commands the black army and who is battling Donald Byrne at the 1956 U.S. Open. During that very encounter Fischer sacrifices his Queen, allowing himself to gain tempo as well as positional advantage to produce a mate in due course. I do suspect that the Queen sacrifice has been the sole reason for this game having gained that much fame. In honour of that single-minded focus on the Queen on the part of Western Chess, I am proposing a new name for Western Chess: “Queen-Qi”, thereby corresponding to the Chinese version of chess, “XiangQi”."
3. More tactical and attacking fights
One of the problems of chess is that players can move, let's say, about 25 moves, and since the pawn structure locks up the position, they can offer a draw. In Xiangqi this is not the case. There are no pawn structures and at the beginning of the game, there are 4 open lines to attack through. This dramatically decreases the amount of locked positions and there are more tactics and attacks.
Disclaimer: I am not trying to argue that one game is better than the other, I am just trying to show some ways that it could be better.