A hypothesis about Chess vs. Go

Hey guys,

lately I´ve been reading quite some stuff where authors had been comparing Chess and Go, mainly resulting in conclusions like "Go is a lot more complex than chess". In most of those articles, I could hear the author fanboying a little and putting Go on a more intellectually demanding level than chess.

While it may be true, that there are mathematically more moves possible in Go, it´s probably just because the 19x19 board is a lot bigger than chess´ 8x8 board. However, thats not my point, my thought is (and I´d be happy if you let me know what you think about this):

If Go is more complex than chess, chess is played on a higher level than Go.

How do I mean this? Well, lets say people playing Go and Chess are equally intelligent, and one group is playing a game that is more complex, then the other group most likely has a better understanding of "it´s" game, thus playing it on a higher level (in terms of "how deeply do I understand this game).

Thoughts?

Regards,

cheytaac

I suspect you've never played Go

 

You suspect correctly, but what is your point?

 

I think my argument is quite methodical. Because the contrary would be: "Go players are more intelligent than chess players in general." Is that what you want to say?

I am arguing against the impression many media leave on the topic that Go demands more intelligence and cognitive abilities than chess. I am saying that chess is played on a higher level then. You did read my post before commenting though?

 

e: Neither do I know what this Trump-stuff has to do with this nor do I see how your Walmart comparison makes any sense here ...

Either I put it wrong or you misunderstood me: I´m not thinking about a game of chess between the Go and the Chess player. I am comparing them in their respective games. In other words: The top chess players play chess better/on a higher level than the top Go players play Go.

They are completely different games, played at quite different speeds with very different patterns of play.  The size of the board is irrelevant.  Depth of understanding is not a very meaningful term and I doubt that it can be reduced to some kind of scalar quantity to make it comparable.  

Its not chess players or go players I'm commenting on, you are using poorly defined terms, assuming that some ranking of the players is meaningful because someone said to you that the games can be ranked in some frankly not very useful way.  You assumption about the relationship between game complexity and intelligence is also questionable.  

 

Thanks for making that point, let me clarify: I am not making that assumption. After reading more than a few articles on the topic I got the impression, that others are making and spreading that assumption. I guess here we can all agree that this is a very questionable assumption, as you said. I´m just curious about how you experience and observe that discussion in public.

 

Regarding your point of "game understanding": I actually think this is a thing. Just having a look at chess, the understanding of the game has developed so much since it´s been invented (I´ve read somewhere that in medieval times you probably were a pro player if you played at todays 1300 rating). And Alpha Zero, for example, helps to push that understanding even further. So I think complex games like Go or Chess have a long way ahead until they are completely understood (wont ever happen most likely), in contrary to, lets say, tic tac toe. 

You are still missing the point about quantification and comparability.  The fact that something can be said to have developed (another un-quantifiable term) does not mean that it can be quantified sufficiently simply to be compared with a completely different game. 

I agree that quantification is difficult if not impossible in this "game understanding". It can only happen qualitatively. I don´t want to make a science out of this, thanks for your thoughts so far!

I think the size of the board is an important consideration. I'm playing 9 x 9 GO online a the moment to prepare myself for the larger board. The full size GO board is certainly a challenge. I imagine a 17 x 17 chess game with added pieces would add degrees of complexity to chess's normal 8 x 8 board as well !

Dont feed the troll.

@Z_Z: Quite likely it would, yes!

Not make science out of it?  The problem is that without comparability what you are saying means very little.  If its all qualitative, then it IS possible for tic tac toe to be (qualitatively) more complex than chess.  

Nope, since we are relating the qualitative rating to the complexity (which is measurable). You missed that point!

Adorable how you dedicate your time to try and tilt me. c:

Have a good day lad!

A way to measure complexity is variation. Let's look at Tic Tac Toe：

There are 3 possible placements in the first step. (In the corners, on the edges and in the middle)

There are 12 possible placements on the second step.

There are 38 possible placements on the third step.

There are 108 possible placements on the fourth step.

There are 170 placements on the fifth step. 21 of them are fifth steps, and the first hand wins.

There are 202 possible placements on the sixth step. 21 of them result in a win for the first player.

There are 153 possible placements on the seventh step. 59 of them result in a win for the second player.

 

 

 

Now who in the world can tell me how many variations Go and Chess has?

If you say that Go is more complex because Chess is more fun, then I'll agree.

No, I have already addressed it.  There are different kinds of complexity which matter to different degrees in different games.  The fact that there may be more sequences of moves in one game than there is in another is, as I said before, quite uninteresting.  Place 32 chess pieces on a board 1000 squares on a side and you have a huge number of possible moves but the game and its complexity does not fundamentally change, the number of possible moves just goes up and the game would be likely to get a lot more uninteresting.  This new business about redefining "qualitative" so you can claim its measurable just confirmed to me that you started with a conclusion and worked back to a form of words that superficially looked like an argument.  

@greghunt:

 

No, now you are connecting the term "qualitative" that I used to describe the progress of understanding a game more deeply with ... what? I am not redefining anything here, so what are you talking about?

The number of moves that can be made in each of the two games isn´t my concern at all.

 

I´m trying to put it differently, please try to actually understand what I´m saying here:

 

Lets paraphrase "complex" with "how much is there to learn/consider/grasp" in the game.

 

Then: If Go > Chess (using the complexity term above), Chess is better understood/researched than Go (based on the assumption that the players share about the same cognitive abilities).

 

It´s not so hard actually to stay on that topic, you drove the topic away from my point consistently. Can you agree on that thesis, yes or no, and why? 

 

@catdogorb: Thanks for that feedback, appreciate it! Good point about the number of reasonable moves...

 That troll here actually created the account today and thank god closed it again now. Does this happen often here? I´m new.

 

 

Excellent point! I once witnessed someone saying "humans are real bad at chess, look what the computer does". Well this is just some big bullshit comparing computers to human. The game was invented to simulate a battle between two humans with HUMAN cognitive abilities. 

Chess players are generally smart people with slightly anti-social tendencies. Go players are generally smart people with higher degrees of anti-social tendencies that tend to be angry at the world because they couldn’t get the girl (I would say girl or boy, but let’s be honest, a girl wouldn’t be caught playing Go), also they most likely spent most of their school years stuffed in lockers. Now, they tie their self identity to a game that is not well known so they can be (in their warped minds) cool and mysterious. Therefore, cheytaac, when you sense this “fanboy” bias, you aren’t imagining things. They can’t help it, just like they can’t help flinching when someone pats them on the back because they are expecting a wedgie.