[KVFinn]

>Chess is as balanced as it gets.

It's "balanced" in some respects but both sides use the same features and most games end in a draw, and high level play is less and less interesting. And for that matter it's not even balanced really -- tournaments have players play both white and black because they are so inequal. This is like balancing starcraft by having everyone play mirror matchups or swap races.

>So Anand encountered a "mild surprise" in the opening moves that left him "flying blind" (meaning the board was in a position with which he had not previously studied) and because of that he decided to not keep pursuing the game. He just engineered a draw.

>Most real people are "flying blind" after the first couple moves of the game, and it's the challenge of trying to solve a puzzle against a live opponent (who is also flying blind) that makes the game so fun. At the highest levels, Grandmasters go very deep into the game in positions they have studied exhaustively, and then the moment they feel uncomfortable they search for the emergency brake, and consider themselves happy to escape with half a point.

>Intuitive understanding of the game and moments of brilliant improvisation are the most exciting aspects, and yet memorized lines of play are so deeply entrenched now that when a top player encounters anything outside of memorized, studied lines he heads directly for the draw. It's really the opposite of what you'd hope.

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2013/11/11/high-level-chess.html

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2013/5/30/announcing-chess-2.html

[smky80]

As much as I recognize and appreciate the limitations of chess, it pains me physically to see the strategic depth of it compared to something like Starcraft. It's not close by orders of magnitude.

I still remember some important match almost 15 years ago between two world class Starcraft players, who also apparently were friends off the board, being settled in 3 minutes by one guy "4 pooling" (basically sucker punching) the other.

[omni]

A 4 pool isn't a sucker punch. It is a highly risky opening strategy that almost always ends the game very quickly. If your opponent does not scout it quickly, he is very likely to lose. If he does, you are very likely to lose. The existence of this early all-in option does much to "keep players honest" during the opening phases of the game and greatly expands the strategic depth of the beginning minutes. Without this option, each player's optimal strategy would always be to sacrifice defense and scouting early in favor of better late-game economy.

[smky80]

> a highly risky opening strategy that almost always ends the game very quickly

In other words, a sucker punch?

[girvo]

I think parent was reading sucker punch (as I did) as not "risky", but unfair -- as you can't see it coming (by definition).

In SC2, 6pooling is certainly quite powerful (Zerg makes Tassadar cry...) but if it is scouted, the Zerg is now fucked.

The thing is, in the current meta, you never bother drone/probe/scv scouting that early, so you'd have to be able to read your opponent and know that he's a kind of player that loves those "Cheesy" build orders!

[omni]

Like girvo said, I meant that it's not unfair. If you think surprise attacks and imperfect information don't add strategic depth to a game, then we have nothing left to discuss.

[smky80]

It's not to say Starcraft isn't a challenging game or there isn't any depth to it, but I am saying if 4 pooling is considered deep stuff, you have to realize that something like chess is on a completely different level.

I'm quite sure you could put all you would ever need to know about Starcraft strategy into a single 300 page volume, whereas there are entire libraries full of chess books, databases of millions of games and 3300-rated computers slugging it out constantly, and the game still hasn't been completely exhausted yet.

[omni]

Look, I'm not even disagreeing with you. I never said StarCraft is as deep strategically as Chess is. I think Chess is certainly more strategic. I also happen to think StarCraft is a much more interesting game because it has tactical, psychological, and physical aspects totally absent in Chess. These statements are not incompatible.

The only issue I took with your original post was that you seemed to be claiming that 4 pool openings made the game less strategic when in fact the opposite is true. It's a common mistake made by people who do not understand the game.

[girvo]

Tell that to Taeja, the "I'll go 3 command centre before rax if I wanna" Terran player ;)

I love Taeja so much.

[dasil003]

So is it safe to say you consider Go the superior game?