From: Sylvain Ferrieres <ferriere <at> CLIPPER <dot> ENS <dot> FR>
Date: 4 aug 2003
Subject: Re: Beginner's Lessons No.1, Getting Orientated: Perspectives on Shogi and Chess

Hi everybody,

Some comments to add to this discussion:

I think one big idea has been forgotten in this problem: a player resigns
when HE thinks that he's lost (and not when any "omniscient god" tells him
that he's -99.99 on the position evaluation -like Fritz would do).

And he thinks that according to several things: the theory he knows (and
we know from history that the theory is not only truth), the strength of
his opponents (as to effectively transform an almost lost in a lost
position) and the feeling of the moment (including what he has just done
in the preceding, the positions he had experimented before, the time and
the difficulty the opponent will take to insure his win and .. his
lucidity [is this the right world ?] I mean his ability of judging rightly
-and this may be altered by anything: weather conditions, bad sleep, his
mother reflexions and so on..).

Perhapps Fine is the chess player who has put in evidence the importance
of psychology in such "logical" games.

And even in a lost position, he may try for some practical ways of finding
counter attacks (remember Lasker) and waits for errors back. So this is
just a GAME:"lost but still fighting" or something like "waiting for the
cavalry to come" ..

This is the most important: what is the goal of a chess or shogi match ?
Most of the times (and I hope that everyone agrees) for the fun it brings
(in french: "plaisir" but "pleasure" in english may have another
signification ?). And as such, it doesn't matter if the aim of the game is
or isn't great or significant: it's only what the players find in it that
is to be considered.

The discussion was about "theoritically aims" of both games (queening
against mating) but in the theory itself the previously developped factors
are important. I mean, one can't say "chess is just queening a pawn". It's
like saying "History just repeats itself" or such donkey philosophy.
At last, even if the "queening Vs mating" was to be a deep view of
the games, there is no better aim than playing both. They are two (very)
subtile games that have passed through history, developping themselves in
theory but not to be achieved as perfect knowledge about theirs
"predicatbility".

Two more little things from my experience (I read a lot about shogi and
chess):

- there are some variation in Shogi where Gote sacrifices his bishop in
the very begining of the game without clear win. I refer to Yokodori, N3c
variaton in the ISC site :
http://www2.ucatv.ne.jp/~yukichi.sea/Kifu/Habu/33keima/58Kingtype_page.htm

- endgames with no pawn are somewhat common, enough for Nunn to write
a part of his Tactical chess endings about it.


Sylvain F.
Amateur in both games.

PS: may I suggest Kawabata with "the Master of Go" ?