[vouaobrasil]

I think it's cool that we can get so technical in this day and age when it comes to chess. But I'll admit, I thought chess was more interesting in the older times when there wasn't chess engine analysis at your fingertips and there was a bit more mystery and no endgame bases that determine perfect play. I honestly do believe there eventually comes a point in human activity where knowing too much detracts from the beauty of the thing, which is very different from what I believed when I was younger.

I think computers do that -- they're fascinating and definitely helpful in knowledge acquisition but they often reveal too much. Maybe it's stuff we just shouldn't know.

[k1kingy]

This is a big reason why some of the top GMs (Magnus Carlsen in particular) aren't super interested in playing classical chess anymore.

It's at the point now where a reasonably good GM can learn and memorize a set of openings and more often than not draw the game against the top players. So in order to not lose games or rating points the game is played relatively conservative, rather than trying to push for a win.

Magnus and others are now trying to hype up freestyle chess (Fischer Random/Chess960) in order to take away the standard openings in order to avoid this memorization game and instead go back to the days where you're forced to calculate over the board.

[vouaobrasil]

Yes indeed. I have played Fischer Random myself and I find it a nicer game to play than traditional chess at times, especially with beginners who don't know much about openings.