Posted by BlizzBirne on 2012-02-23 22:40:14

6 for stating spot on why BB is fun
1 for stating that chess stinks for the same reasons - i like it a lot too, but differently. beer and chess go very well together too, but not on a competitive level. +0.5 for pointing out that the two games are not to be mistaken for each other without making a jerk out of yourself.

Posted by hale on 2012-02-23 22:48:07

Reasons I like blood bowl rather than chess:
You can move every player on your team in a turn instead of one piece & every piece can move in any direction. Just these two factors make blood bowl infinitely more complex than chess but then add in different races and skills on top of that. In chess the good players have already played out the next 5+ possible moves on the board but to do this in blood bowl requires a far higher level of intelligence.

Also on the luck thing, the dice are there to confuse the bad players into thinking they have a chance at winning but in the long term the better player will always prevail.

Posted by licker on 2012-02-23 23:54:34

1) Incorrect. But superior is a wonky word. If your opponent is superior, but you manage to get into an opening you are better at, you have the advantage. For the middle group of players at least. At the top and bottom you are correct.

2) Incorrect. Within the confines of a single game you may be right, but within the confines of a tournament you are sorely mistaken.

3) I don't know what you mean by 'risk'. There is plenty of 'risk' though generally, otherwise every game would just be a rote exercise in who had the better memorization skills. It ain't checkers afterall.

4) Incorrect. See #2.

People who have never played chess competitively shouldn't make stupid comparisons to it. And don't tell me you played chess competitively, because I would know immediately it was a lie.

On the other hand, your reasons for perfecting BB to chess are certainly meritorious, though, as our recent match should highlight, the luck factor can also make games utterly dull and uninteresting because there is no possible way to achieve even a modicum of success, let alone a victory. And that from a game where there were like 2 KOs and zero CAS...

Posted by Overhamsteren on 2012-02-24 00:32:55

No /cheer and /boo
Even a freaking human lineman is cooler than any chess piece*
No 6+4+2+2+1d hail mary blitz
You don't smack the shit out players - you 'capture pieces'
Foul!

*at least after he gets a few skills ;D

Posted by licker on 2012-02-24 00:49:36

You've never been to a chess tournament if you think there's no /cheer and no /boo ;)

And there are actually fouls... not as an accepted part of the game, but people have been known to cheat from time to time...

On the other hand, in support of chess...

Deep Blue.

Posted by Overhamsteren on 2012-02-24 02:21:29

Nope never witnessed a chess tournament, you have cheerleaders too?

Posted by awambawamb on 2012-02-24 02:25:52

...I am disappoint.

Posted by Marcellus on 2012-02-24 03:10:54

6 for an interesting and unique post.

Painstate is truly one of my favorite coaches -- love to spec his matches.

Having played competitive tournament level chess (former regional and club champion in the United States) I would have to disagree with some of your points. I have played quite a bit of bloodbowl as well (mostly TT) but I am certainly not nearly as experienced (or proficient) as you are.

1) Chess does indeed tend to reward certain players. Not necessarily the most experienced but the more proficient and studied. This difference is certainly more pronounced in chess than it is in bloodbowl, but I would argue that it is not as large of a gulf as many would at first assume.

2) I would actually argue that chess has at least an equal number of variables as bloodbowl. Both games have time constraints. Both games have multiple players with widely variable levels of skill. Chess even allows players to change mid-game (through the promotion process) into new and more powerful units.

3) I would also disagree with your assessment of the differing risk levels. I would say that players in both games adopt styles that suit their needs or their personalities. In chess, I tend to favor a very aggressive play style by playing seldom used openings and using sacrifices to further my immediate tactical or strategic position. There are other chess players who play the same opening 90% of the time and who will never vary from this pattern. I have played BB players who operate in much the same manner.

4) This point is hard to argue. Bloodbowl certainly has a much larger luck factor. There actually are some luck elements in a chess tournament -- things such as:
a) is my opponent tired
b) is he distracted
c) have i managed to luck out by getting into a position that he is not familiar with

For me number 4 is the love/hate side of bloodbowl. It can indeed be difficult to see a superior team with a superior plan fall victim to elves disease repeatedly -- or to have a run of injuries early in a match to key players.

I love bloodbowl for the quicker matches (some tournament chess games can stretch to 5 hours) and for the long term team building that you can accomplish. I certainly play a lot more bloodbowl than chess since I have been fortunate enough to find fumbbl!

Posted by Balle2000 on 2012-02-24 05:52:16

I swear, Chess would be be twice the fun if Pawns had Stunty and the King had TTM.

Posted by hizard on 2012-02-24 08:50:25

Try speed chess, at competitive level. You will see even more luck and risky moves rewards than in BB.

While chess has no random factor it has other luck which isn't so easy to see. Also as BB chess is most fun at equal coach level, not experience but level.

Posted by Calcium on 2012-02-24 09:21:14

I like this blog :)

I like chess, but LURRVVEEE BB!

Posted by Wreckage on 2012-02-24 10:18:47

No offense painstate but if you look at the average distribution of wins and losses between experienced players and compare it to the average losses and wins between experienced players in chess you will probably notice that it isn't that different. Wich tells me that luck isn't such a big aspect in bloodbowl. In the end dealing with your luck is part of what strategy is all about in bloodbowl.

And Marcellus a single turn in bloodbowl has more variables then an entire chess game and if you don't understand that, you clearly don't understand what a variable is.
And understanding those variables is all what the game is about.

From a strategical point the difference between chess and bloodbowl is that due to amount of possible variables the human mind isn't able to process them all in four minutes and make a decision. In chess on the other hand you are so focused on few over and over repeating variants that long term planning is easier and in fact gives you less to process because you know the only unknown variable for you is how your opponent is going to react with every move. And there he has only about 20-30 options per turn. Wich is.. very restraining.

Posted by Ravenmore on 2012-02-24 10:30:08

If I lose in chess it means that the opponent was better, at least in that particular moment in time. Maybe he knew the opening better, maybe he predicted more moves ahead, or whatnot, but he proved superior.

In BloodBowl I can always lie to myself and blame the dice :P

Posted by Hitonagashi on 2012-02-24 11:29:23

There is certainly risk in chess. If we were supercomputers, there wouldn't be...but however far you look down a game tree, analysing moves, at some point, you have to make the judgement that "This position is better for me than him". That's purely an intuitive decision (as logically, if you can look further into it, you merely push back the point the intuition kicks in).

That's where the excitement comes in, where you have your theory of how to proceed, he has his, and you are wondering if you've seen a possibility he has't, or whether he's seen a line of attack that you've missed. It's the thrill that knowing your plans aren't going to come to fruition for 4-5 turns in the future, so you are constantly trying to affect what's going to happen as much as the actual position itself.

It gets even more fun when you are a positional sacrificial player. I adore sacrificing pawns for attacks...and then you are gambling that the pawn you give up now will beat them before the endgame, where that extra pawn will decide the game in their favour.

A lot of good chess players(2000/190 BCF+) I know love probability games. My brother toured with England a lot, and poker and other card games were very popular on the tours. At university, most of the A team was also playing online poker every night.

One thing..Wreckage, I disagree with your assessment the win percentages are similar. Top players here, with balanced teams get about a 75-80% win percentage. If I was playing chess against casual players (no opening theory, no tournament experience), I'd expect to get a high 90% win percentage. Heck, Studman won about 30-40% of his games with no strategy barring Killfrenzy.

Posted by JimmyFantastic on 2012-02-24 11:50:34

Well said Hitonagashi.
Sure Bloodbowl is the best game ever but it was really just dumb to severely criticise Chess for no reason.

Posted by pythrr on 2012-02-24 13:40:03

i hate chess

just saying

it's like doing math for fun, and if that get's you off, you are a weirdo

Posted by PainState on 2012-02-24 15:43:41

"it was really just dumb to severely criticise Chess for no reason."

1)Well it was not a criticisim it was a comparison. Which highly defensive people for some reason can never tell the two apart.

2)I could make a blog on why chess is better than checkers to lift "chesses" self esteem.

3)If you criticised "Blood Bowl" you better be prepared for that knock on the door as "Blood Bowl" beats the living tar out of you. For some reason "Blood Bowl" reverts to physical viloence above all else.

4)The responses also prove that Blood Bowl is superior when it comes to fun by reading the posts defending Chess. The supporters of chess are way to uptight, the air of superiority is thick and way to many disclaimers about playing in a competitive cheese enviroment for my taste. No Blood Bowler in his right mind would start out a defense of Blood Bowl by laying out disclaimers on why his opinnion is superior and every one else is crap. Inless it was a show and tell conversation on why CLPOMB is broken. "You see I dont kill your pixels every time. That last CAS was just a SI-N. So your made up math to support the claim that CLPOMB is overpowered was just disproven". Blood Bowlers

Posted by maysrill on 2012-02-24 15:56:39

I like chess. It's a better test of skill than Blood Bowl, but less fun (just my opinion, of course).

Chess is 100% skill. Outside factors such as mental fatigue, boneheaded mistakes, and specific gaps in opening study may come in, but there is no LUCK. None at all. There's no 1/6 chance for my rook to stand there roaring, or for my bishop to trip over his own feet trying to move 6 squares instead of 5.

At low levels, chess is all about not making mistakes. Between two weak players, the first one to make a mistake (that isn't quickly offset by an even worse mistake by the opponent) usually loses. In Blood Bowl, two weak coaches are basically throwing dice at each other to determine a winner.

At mid level, chess is about playing a solid game with no errors, and having a good plan. Seeing that you can control the c file and use that to dominate the position by boxing in the light-squared bishop is a mid-level game plan. In blood bowl, experienced coaches learn to mitigate risk by balancing their risky moves against prudent ones and maintaining good ball security and an effective offense. They work to eliminate the risky elements from their game, and use (generally) a few basic strats on offense for a given race.

At high levels, chess is all about positional play, anticipating your opponents responses, and and planning several moves in advance. Openings are generally forumlaic, since both players are expected to know them ALL, inside and out. Mistakes are almost unheard of, and draws are fairly commonplace. In blood bowl, high level play looks much like mid-level play, but with more creativity. Ouright mistakes are fairly rare, but betrayals of dice still happen. Teambuilding is almost as much a factor as play on the field, and player skill selection is generally optimized well. The effects of luck are still significant enough that the best player in the world can be beaten by a marginal player.

The biggest difference between the enjoyment of BB and chess, is that Kasparov can't go down to the local park (or pub, or gaming store, or wherever you imagine spontaneous matched to occur) and sit down for an enjoyable and reasonably competitive game against whomever happens to be there.

Posted by JimmyFantastic on 2012-02-24 17:06:30

Seriously seriously dumb blog

Posted by licker on 2012-02-24 17:30:07

You're still wrong Pain. No one is exactly defending chess, just pointing out that your interpretation of what chess is is incorrect.

Your comparison is flawed, and poorly constructed because of your lack of understanding of what competitive chess actually is.

Now if you just want to 'fun' with BB then great, but even you must admit, that most people here are here to do more than just 'fun' with it.

Though even chess has it's opening equivalent of stunties. You know, positions which are sub-par compared to other options. And yet people still like to champion those openings the same way people like to champion halflings or ogres.

And yes, you leveled a criticism at chess, you can't hide behind the stupidity of 'it's just a comparison' when the title of your blog clearly shows your bias.

The problem is that you lack the experience to accurately level the criticisms you attempted to land.

But hey, no worries, your opinion is your own, chess stinks to you, but for reasons which actually don't make much sense to people who have played chess competitively.

Posted by spinball on 2012-02-24 17:57:27

PainState=2 for content, 4 for trying to compare them, 6 for all the lively posts afterwards.
maysrill post=6

I am a mid level chess player uscf 1597...after playing around 30 games...

I am lower mid level blood bowl player after 1500 games

I think the difference really is one is pure tactics and positioning
The other is a moderate tactics, moderate positioning, moderate team building and moderate luck.

Ones skill level has to be high to consistently win at blood bowl, but no matter how good you are, you will still get occasionally diced.
In Chess no matter how good you are, you are only as good as your skill and training take you. No luck

Posted by MattDakka on 2012-02-24 18:37:08

Blood Bowl has luck, Chess has no luck, but luck management requires skill, don't forget that.
In Chess you have no luck management, because it's a deterministic game.
This explains why a computer AI can defeat the best human Chess player in the world (it can choose the best strategy, among all the possible stored variants, but a computer would have a hard time to defeat a human player in BB, because in BB it's often hard to tell which is the "best move in absolute" to make in a turn. Some coaches would try a high risk move, others would be more conservative in the same situation, both approaches could be right, for different reasons. In Chess you can determine what is the best choice, in BB no, because the dice will decide your success or failure. Is this bad? No, because makes BB a way more dynamic game than Chess, with many more variables and unpredictable scenarios. Chess requires memory, you need to learn lot of openings, mid game and end game strategies, like a computer. BB requires fantasy and imagination, because it's not deterministic. After centuries of Chess, there is nothing new anymore in that game to discover. BB will be ever fun and fresh, because the random event makes each match unique (in Chess it's all about playing learned strategies over and over again, without having to worry about random elements).

Posted by shusaku on 2012-02-24 18:42:46

I have played Go on a high level and chess on a low level. Both games include luck especially in the draw of the opponent. But as Hitanogashi said, if the difference in skill is high in Go or Chess the lower skilled player will not win, whereas in bloodbowl there is a 10% or 20% chance he will. And thats one reason I like bloodbowl so much :)

Posted by Craftnburn on 2012-02-25 09:42:18

Posted by MattDakka: "Chess requires memory, you need to learn lot of openings, mid game and end game strategies, like a computer."

Chess isn't about memory, it's about evaluation. Memory only saves energy for later evaluation.

Posted by MattDakka: "After centuries of Chess, there is nothing new anymore in that game to discover."

This comment shows that you're probably not a competitive chess player either. ;)

Posted by KhorneliusPraxx on 2012-02-25 19:33:40

Now let's discuss:
Why watching Rugby League is totally better than watching someone jog down the street?

Why is a dog a better pet than a toad?

Why is hitting a 90 MPH baseball so much harder than doing 2 pushups?

I think this is fun...we could have tons of blog comparing two things that have nothing to do with each other.

Posted by Kyyberi on 2012-05-05 11:27:44

There isn't any randomization in chess. So I would say that chess has 0% luck. Of course the friggin' building can collapse or opponent might have a stroak during the match, but overall it has 0% luck. Yes, people have to make estimations and guesses, but that's skill not luck. The only luck-aspect is when white player is defined.

In BB, you have dice rolls. You can't decide what any roll is, so there is luck involved. Good coaches understand propabilities and play in a way that maximizes their chance of winning. In a game, luck has a huge impact. Anyone can win anyone, in one game. But in the long run propabilities kick in and better coaches win more games. Of couse team building matters, but even if we give similar teams for good and average coach, and they play 100 games, the good coach would win a lot more than the average.

This is almost identical discussion as chess vs. poker. In poker, good players win in the long run. Cos they play by the propabilities. Just like in BB.

And to end this discussion, there is one thing that makes BB superior to chess. Blood.