[Isofarro]

This is not about being super-competitive at bughouse, it's about getting the mind in a working state to quickly go into the zone. Bughouse to the non-serious chess player is random enough to be zany and enjoyable whether you win or lose. It doesn't need to have a super-competitive streak to be useful as a tool for getting the mind up to speed. Spending a few minutes thinking about a concrete problem is sufficient.

It's not all about winning at all costs. Its just a warm up exercise that gets the blood pumping.

[xenophanes]

You don't understand.

If they ever stop to think about how to play well, they will soon discover they can win by playing worse moves faster.

Just a little basic strategy with the clocks will trump a lot of play skill on the board.

The only way it can stay the way it is now is if they never think about it much. Which is dumb.

Imagine candyland or monopoly was played with clocks and whoever moves faster won. That would be a terrible game for new players. And if they don't understand that the clocks matter, it's in a very precarious position: the moment one of them reads any strategy guide or thinks about it, their game will change itself against their wishes.

They are playing with a ruleset that makes something the most important part of the game, then ignoring it in their actual play. The ruleset doesn't do what they want. It's the wrong ruleset for them.

It's much easier to win on the clocks than learn chess. They are all easily smart enough to do it. It isn't very complicated and doesn't take long to learn.

I don't think if they knew how completely broken there game was they would be advocating it to the internet. The internet has people who know how to play bughouse, the internet will destroy their ignorance which is the only thing keeping their game working.

None of this has anything to do with being super-competitive. It's just the easy, lazy way to win: by focussing more on the part of the game that's easier but also more important.

This problem is fixable. They could set up clocks so if you don't make a move within 30 seconds on a board, you lose. After moving you reset to 30 seconds. With that system they will have some time pressure to keep the game moving, and there also won't be a simple easy strategy that completely dominates them.

You don't have to be super competitive to think about how to win and what is an effective way to play. You just have to be thoughtful. They are clearly thinking about chess strategy (even if they are chess beginners. chess is hard. shrug). I'm just pointing out they could divert a little of that thought to something else, be way more effective, and also dramatically change the style of the game. You don't have to be super competitive to put the thinking-in-service-of-winning which you're doing anyway to a more efficient area.

And if you want a game that you can post on your blog and suggest other people use, it needs to have robust rules!

They are setting up themselves -- and anyone who listens -- for conflict. Some people will play slowly, lose, and be annoyed. Some others will start to play faster and win all the time. One guy will say, "Don't be so competitive", the other will say, "What do you want me to do? I don't spend more time on this than you, I don't practice, I'm still just as bad as you at chess in general. Should I intentionally sandbag and not try to win? That would ruin it for me."

[Isofarro]

At that point, the winning-uber-alles guy doesn't get invited to play. Because he's over-competitive and missing the point of the exercise: stimulating the mind with an interesting and novel problem under a constraint of slight time pressure. Not win at all costs.

The game doesn't have to stand up to scrutiny of strong chess players or expert bughouse players. Those people don't play chess as a means of putting them in the frame of mind for solving dayjob problems.

You are defending a position that really doesn't need to be defended. I'm pretty sure that geeks using this as a ten minute brain exercise aren't going to think they are the next Kasparov.

[xenophanes]

"You aren't allowed to play" because you use a good strategy is a terrible system.

Blame the ruleset, not the smart players who learn the basic way the game works.

Bughouse does stand up to scrutiny of strong chess players, it's just the way to win is different than what they think the game is about.

You're still completely misunderstanding. This has nothing to do with being Kasparov. The point is that simple strategy changes, using the chess skill they already have no more, would make then far more effective at bughouse, because the bughouse rules do not work they way they are imagining.

None of this is "win at all costs" or anything. It's just a simple fact: a 15 second time advantage in bughouse is as good as a substantial amount of pieces. A one minute advantage is almost always game over. Their play is disregarding how the game works -- it's strategically poor in simple ways that they could learn to do better in a 15 minute lesson -- and you are wrong to blame people who use a part of the game (the clock) for applying basic strategy that any of them could learn in 15 minutes.

Games that rely on following special unwritten rules, such as objectively bad time management (vaguely defined for how badly you're required to play), are broken.

[Steko]

You missed the point 3 times. This isn't really about bughouse and everything you've said is about bughouse minutiae. This is about recommending a task that will quickly refresh someone during a break. I think it sounds like a great idea.

At the risk of inviting another irrelevant wall of text, I'll say that your advice while mostly on target is not all accurate. Plenty of people play 5 min bughouse. Not everyone is a high level player or interested in becoming one. For new players taking 2-5 seconds to come up with a move is often superior.

[xenophanes]

The task he recommended as a quick break just happens to be one of the hardest games around, and a game that is despite appearances, all about going really really fast. Not what he wanted. Oops... And then he recommended a version that is well over twice as hard.

All good players play 2min bughouse, go on FICS and type "best B" and look through the game history. Or just look at the games in progress, it's all 2min. More is stupid. If you look at the current game history of the highest rated active player, one of the 2min games involves a 1:48 wait on like move 6. If that was a 5min game, it would have been a 4:48 wait on move 6. So 5min is simply stupid and zero good players play 5min.

You're doing a weird mix of pretending this isn't about the details of bughouse and then getting the details of bughouse completely wrong.

Similarly you claim that taking 2-5s per move is superior for new players. This is 100% false. You will get a worse record if you do that. Stop arguing about the right strategy for newer players in a game you're clueless about. Even if you go back to 1995 or something it was still 3min games, never 5.

[Steko]

You are abrasive and ignorant but I'll slog through some points...

"The task he recommended as a quick break just happens to be one of the hardest games around, and a game that is despite appearances, all about going really really fast."

It didn't "just happen to be" anything. The whole point is an exercise that frees up your brain up from whatever else it was doing. The whole point is that it's hard and you are forced to think about it. Your mind can't wander back to what you were working on in bughouse, much less without a partner, because the game demands your attention.

"All good players play 2min bughouse, go on FICS and type "best B" and look through the game history. Or just look at the games in progress, it's all 2min."

This might be relevant if we were talking about good/high level players. We aren't, they are new players and they are playing OTB and most new players playing OTB play 5 minute bughouse. Yes, true statement, full stop.

"Similarly you claim that taking 2-5s per move is superior for new players. This is 100% false. You will get a worse record if you do that."

I would but a new player wouldn't. What's semi-optimal in bughouse is to make a strong move as fast as possible. A strong player can choose a reliably decent move in less then a second. A new player forced to move in 0.5 seconds as you suggest will make terrible moves and probably lose on both boards.

[Daniel_Newby]

> Games that rely on following special unwritten rules, such as objectively bad time management (vaguely defined for how badly you're required to play), are broken.

You are the exact opposite of Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes comics.

[nhangen]

I read through your entire chain of comments and can't fathom why you've gone to such great lengths to tell other people how to spend their break time. If it works, and they like it, what's the problem?

[xenophanes]

Some people like to analyze games and game rules/systems and see how they work. That's reason enough. You can use reason and logic to figure things out about them. It's the same sort of activity which is popular on HN.

Also they already tried to change the rules by raising the time control to make it slower but you don't think it's interesting that that actually doesn't work in the presence of a tiny bit of strategy? With all other chess variants it does work.

I'm amazed that you came away thinking I care about those particular people. If someone posted about a security hole on a website, and explained it in great length and explained why it does matter because the moment someone competent comes along it will be exploited ... you would not think that was a personal discussion to do with the particular people who made the insecure website.