Games.
I no longer own a television, and I don't have any current-gen consoles. (Until maybe four months ago I was still calling the PS3 "next-gen.") My phone isn't smart enough to be considered any kind of software platform; my laptop is only good for emulation up to the PlayStation and the smaller and sparser modern games (which I really inexplicably have little interest in playing).
What I miss most are fighting games. If King of Fighters XIII had halfway decent netcode I might have changed my mind about not investing in a PS3, but I'm tired of crying about it.
Meanwhile, my Magic: the Gathering binge has hit a wall. I have nobody but myself to blame; I convinced my friend (and most regular opponent) Jason to build that horrible monoblue Jin-Gitaxis EDH deck that my Sheoldred deck is incapable of countering. I mean, I could modify my deck to stand more of a chance if I were willing, but the price tag would easily approach the triple digits. The only sensible choice is to let it go.
So I've been playing a lot of chess lately. I want to get good at it. Of any competitive game out there, chess seems to make the most sense to me, in light of the fact that twenty-nine out of every thirty people I meet have no interest playing Street Fighter III: Third Strike with me. Chess doesn't require any hardware, software, or booster packs. There are no balance patches or tier lists. There will never be a shortage of players and netcode will never be an issue, and I can find people to play with in almost any crowd, no matter where I go.
I'm reminded of how I felt when I started mucking around with BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger when it first came out in North America. It's the same shiver of excitement and trepidation at recognizing the complexity of the game and how difficult it will be to get good at it -- and the same self-consciousness that made me refuse to humiliate myself playing against human opponents before I could put up a decent fight against the AI.
I've only played a couple of more experienced colleagues at chess, and I performed so poorly that my referring to them as "colleagues" seems somehow audacious. So I've been playing Chess Titans until my game improves. It's not looking good -- the AI pretty consistently kicks my ass. No matter what I do, it transforms the board into a machine designed to destroy all of my pieces, and it does so without me even noticing until there's no way to stop it.
I suck at chess. But I also think I love it.
Does anyone else who sucks at chess want to play chess with me?
Man, I'm yet to meet another person who sucks at chess as much as I do, which is a shame because it's one of those things I feel I should probably take up now my PS1 has finally died after a good 13 years of unhealthy usage. If it's weren't for the whole, y'know, completely different timezone thing I'd gladly give you an excruciatingly slow-paced game, one terrible player to another.
ReplyDeleteYes. I have a chess.com account now; it seems straightforward and legit. Is there a time you'd be able to play?!
DeleteAwesome. I've just signed up myself. As my computer usage is quite random, i'll opt to keep it logged in whenever i'm online and see if we can't cross paths sometime. My profile name is Will_Dawson if that helps. I don't know how you seek people out on this thing yet.
DeleteGetting good at chess for most people involves learning simple strategies, thinking multiple moves into the future and understanding the precise power of each type of piece. You know, basic, obvious stuff. But apparently at the very highest levels, chess is mostly just memorization, so much so that it's turning top-level players off of the game. Bobby Fischer (anti-Semitism aside) actually invented a variant of chess called Chess960, which involves randomizing each player's back row of pieces. This prevents memorization from being a factor because there are 960 starting positions, so no one could ever come close to memorizing it all.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't the most useful information, but I just read an interesting article about it, so I'm taking any opportunity to regurgitate the facts.
Yeah; I'm finding that about halfway into a game, it arrives at a point where there are definitely correct and incorrect moves. I don't think I'll ever get to a point where I'll need to tangle with grand masters, so I'd be happy enough to get to a point where I'm just more likely to see the right moves.
DeleteAs someone else who sucks at the game, I'll play chess with you--though I also encourage you to try out the game of go. Like you with chess, I'd like to improve my skills at go yet have no one interested in playing.
ReplyDeleteI've heard people hailing Go, but never learned to play. One game at a time, though.
DeleteSo yeah; chess.com. I got an account recently. It seems to be the easiest option. Drop me a line
...huh. My email address isn't anywhere on this thing. Well, it's beechleavesold [aaaat] gmail.
Fischer was big on chess variants, although how many of them were are worth playing are up for debate.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, from a chess perspective, you've caught me at a bad time - I found myself most interested in the game during elementary and middle school and occasionally participated in small local tournaments. Nowadays I seem to have lost interest, but much of what I learned, I learned from playing on the FICS server. Playing there would give you a variety of opponents, some of whom most certainly "suck at chess", but also some resources for getting better at the game.
FICS server. TELL ME MORE.
DeleteAlso, queens. Tell me how I can kill queens.