From: Albyn Jones <jones <at> REED <dot> EDU>
Date: 1 feb 1996
Subject: Re: pop shogi

>At 11:10 96/02/01, Reijer Grimbergen wrote:
>
>>But saying that American Football is less interesting
>>than soccer would be a hard claim to justify.
>>
>Really?! But surely, four billion world citizens can't be wrong <g>. Sorry,
>I could not resist the temptation.
>
>Cheers, Pieter.

i expect more people play western chess than shogi, so you shouldn't
rely on this argument.  as an american who grew up on football (american)
an only discovered soccer as an adult, i am in no doubt that soccer
(real football :-) is a better game.  why?  i can give you a long list
of reasons, starting with the fact that you don't have to be a monster
to play the game; the players control the game rather than a legion of
coaches, the play is continuous, ... etc.

similarly there are good reasons to think that go and shogi are in
some sense better games than chess.  these are a bit abstract, eg.
complexity, and there is no doubt that tradition and social structure
matter a lot in one's choices: i still play a lot of chess, simply
because there are a lot of people around who play.  i taught both my
children go at an early age, both played regularly until they started
school.  now my daughter plays soccer, and my son plays soccer and chess.

albyn jones
jones <at> reed <dot> edu