[MikePlacid]

Isn’t very high-level chess kind of dead already? I mean - watching Karpov-Kasparov was watching two best players in the world. But nowadays a match between human players just clarifies which of the second-rate devices is better than another. Or is it just me?

[whimsicalism]

Did the invention of artillery cause javelin throwing to be dead?

[MikePlacid]

I do not know the name of a single javelin throwing champion. But I know the names of chess champions… up to Kasparov.

[darepublic]

You have no knowledge of Kramnik, Anand or Carlsen?

[MikePlacid]

I’ve heard of these guys. But I do not know which of them is/was a champion. But I can name the previous champions, and I think I can still remember the exact sequence: Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanka, Alekhin, Eiwe, Botwinnik, Tal… missed somebody?

But I’ve lost interest after Deep Blue event. Alpha Zero plays were fun to watch though.

[V-2]

You missed a guy named Bobby Fischer, for one - a rather big name in chess history I would say. He was arguably a major driving force in turning chess into a professional discipline outside of the USSR.

As for computers, they've certainly changed the landscape tremendously, but it doesn't mean that players simply play like chess engines. You don't just get to transfer the chess engine heuristics to a human mind. Chess engines help players find ideas, refutations etc., and they're certainly significant when it comes to opening theory. The role of memorization in opening theory (at the highest level) predates computers though.

Computers have also levelled the playing field, improving (buzzword alert) inclusiveness. Players from countries with flourishing chess tradition, such as Russia, don't have the inherent advantage anymore. That's why the current top 2 (on the rating list) are from Norway and China, which would be rather unlikely a few decades ago.

[darepublic]

They were/are all world champions :)

[drc500free]

Carlsen, yes. But only because of his personality and streaming. I played in the chess club every day in high school in the 90s, and I must have had a similar reaction about computers, because I don't know what happened after Kasparov.

I also stopped watching red sox games once they won the world series. Fandom is weird.

[frisco]

I mean ... yes?