# I pit chess **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 30, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366 "2012-10-30T21:56:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/1 "2012-10-30T21:56:43Z")
Part of the fun of getting a new operating system is to see what little games are installed on it. My first computer was a 386 running Windows 3.1, and I got a lot of enjoyment out of the preset games the family friend who sold us the computer installed for us. I was never good at chess. It was fun, for a while, until the end game because I would usually get impatient and not think ahead. Its much slower than checkers and you have to always keep in mind all of the different moves that pieces can do so as to not get caught up and have your pieces eaten (more on that later). Specifically, I hate bishops. Like real pedophiles, they walk diagonally and sneak up on you while wearing a funny hat. I’ve lost more important pieces to bishops than any other piece. I got Windows 7, finally, after resisting the upgrade from XP for the better part of the last decade. One of the standard games it offers is a good version of chess. I say good because I suck at chess and almost never win, due to the aforementioned patience handicap I possess described above. Even on Easy mode, I still lose. If I were a general, I’d lose a battalion of tanks to a laughably concealed pothole. So I’m playing against the computer, on the easiest setting, and even then I’m always a move or two from my kingdom being overrun by black people (or white people, whichever). It was hard for me to accept that my comparatively excellent video game skill in something like Call of Duty or Starcraft doesn’t translate well to a game invented before electricity was discovered. But I’m winning, actually winning! a chess game for the first time in years (I don’t play much, and if I do, its against the computer)! And then unexpectedly, the game ends. WTF? I had 2 queens ready to trap the lone king in a corner! Why did it end?? You’ve robbed me of my victory! I know I didn’t go for the kill immediately because I wanted to feel the despair of the black king as my queens trapped him into a corner. Basically I was shitting around. But apparently, there is a limit upon the endgame of chess where if you take too long or too many moves to checkmate, the game ends in a draw. And that brings me to my pitting. I consider the lost pieces to be “eaten”. I’ve played Chinese Chess, [which looks like this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_chess) and the adjective we’ve always used was “Tze”, which means “eaten”. Cannibalism notwithstanding, I’ve always understood the game better when I think of the innocent humans as food to an invading barbarian horde. It artificially creates excitement where there’s only racism, and I think that makes the world a little better. But unlike Chinese Chess, western Chess doesn’t allow you to eat the king (or maybe it does and I’ve just never played it correctly. Chinese Chess isn’t a default game on any Windows OS). As an aspiring cannibal, that bugs me, and to me it destroys the game. Chess, whatever gentlemenly origins it may have come from, is fucked up because it teases you like a cumwhore that won’t let you climax. I don’t want to fucking trap the king. I want to beat his face in as a stand-in for all of the bile-cooked rage I have simmering inside. Who’s asinine idea was it that you had to god damn WARN the other player as he’s about to lose?? Here’s my warning asshole, my clenched fist in your colon with the king’s cross jabbing you in the appendix, that’s my god damn warning! You should never have to warn people you’re going to check them. Checkmate shouldn’t be a word in chess, it should be a verb describing the sex positions of necrophiliacs fucking a body no longer limited by the contortions impossible while still alive. I don’t want to warn people I’m checking them, they should be able to fall into a trap like a dog running facefirst into a doggy door you’ve nailed shut. If they don’t see my bishop in the corner, THAT’S THEIR PROBLEM. Next move, bishop eats king, BOOM HEADSHOT!! Chess is like a schoolyard fight between the most unpopular nerds at a eunuch pre-school. There’s no balls, no hate, no pain, and both players take turns gently stroking each other’s taints until one of them laughs from ticklishness and loses. A real competition has losers and it lets you know you’ve lost. The last move in chess should be the king being eaten by cannibals, just like how Chinese Chess ends and how checkers should end and how fucking Monopoly should end (don’t ask me how I would work that into the game, I haven’t thought that far yet). When I play against people, its with the express condition that we drop that bullshit rule about checks and checkmate. You go until the king is eaten, the end. No crying about checks, no warning. Its like life: harsh, unrepentant, and comes at you 100 miles per hour with no warning and no way to take back what you did. Real chess would be a better game, more respected and feared (why does a game need to be feared? Fuck you, that’s why!) if they changed the rules to reflect this. And I would no longer have to downgrade from Windows 7 back to XP just so I could get the stain of that fucking game of chess off my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Faruiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@Faruiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Faruiza)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/2 "2012-10-30T22:07:05Z")
I was never good at chess, either. I thought this would be about something boring, but clicked anyway. I’m glad I did! Sing it, brother! Excellently said. (I nomming you king!) ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/3 "2012-10-30T22:13:36Z")
no, you can NOT pit the entire game of chess. you will have to take this back.:mad: ---
**Author:** ![Sahirrnee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sahirrnee/32/13937_2.png) [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/4 "2012-10-30T23:09:55Z")
How did you get two queens? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/5 "2012-10-30T23:10:54Z")
My pawn crossed to the other side ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/6 "2012-10-30T23:18:15Z")
I immediately checked the date on this to see if it was a classic old thread someone had bumped. That’s a sign of how good this pitting is, honestly. Bravo, good sir. I too am terrible at Chess but perfectly competent to good at video games. ---
**Author:** ![justrob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@justrob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justrob)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/7 "2012-10-30T23:25:40Z")
Hey, if you want to be a little girl about it you go right ahead. I prefer to maneuver my opponent into a position where there is no escape. I also try to do it as fast as possible so I don’t mess around and run into the move limit resulting in a draw. Hitting the [fifty-move rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule) with two queens is pretty lame. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/8 "2012-10-30T23:35:33Z")
> [@justrob](#): > > Hey, if you want to be a little girl about it you go right ahead. I prefer to maneuver my opponent into a position where there is no escape. I also try to do it as fast as possible so I don’t mess around and run into the move limit resulting in a draw. > > Hitting the [fifty-move rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule) with two queens is pretty lame. Don’t make me eat you. I’ve already come out in support of board game cannibalism. There’s not much of a stretch to turn that into real life cannibalism! :mad: Besides, I wanted to have fun! I always lose in chess, even on the easiest difficulty, so I was playing around not exactly trying to eat the king but simply to push it around. Plus, I wanted to move my king from one end of the board to the other so that took a few moves too And it wasn’t 50 moves. More like 10. I’m still mad I didn’t win that game. Fuck chess and its regicide-preventing rules ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/9 "2012-10-31T00:07:39Z")
I’m not good at chess either. At least the game you were playing abided by actual chess rules. The Windows version of Hearts cheats. Bigtime. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/10 "2012-10-31T00:25:16Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Don’t make me eat you. I’ve already come out in support of board game cannibalism. There’s not much of a stretch to turn that into real life cannibalism! :mad: Besides, I wanted to have fun! I always lose in chess, even on the easiest difficulty, so I was playing around not exactly trying to eat the king but simply to push it around. Plus, I wanted to move my king from one end of the board to the other so that took a few moves too > > And it wasn’t 50 moves. More like 10. I’m still mad I didn’t win that game. Fuck chess and its regicide-preventing rules You probably know this already and are just ranting, but the other 2 things that could have happened. 1. You reached the exact same position for the 3rd time 2. Your opponent could not make a move that would not open his king to the threat of being “eaten”, but was not actually checked. (Stalemate) Whilst I have no problem with the idea that players who carelessly fail to notice their king is in check should have his king “eaten”, removing genuine stalemates would definitely harm the game. (And no you don’t need to\* actually\* announce check, like they generally do on TV. People who do it sound like idiots, as it should be self-evident. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/11 "2012-10-31T00:54:00Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#): > > . . . (And no you don’t need to\* actually\* announce check, like they generally do on TV. People who do it sound like idiots, as it should be self-evident. I play often with younger players, or with co-workers who aren’t particularly good. The etiquette of announcing check seems to work well. If you don’t need it, well, that’s cool too. (I used to work in a department where nobody said “Thank you.” It was self-evident, and just slowed things down. We got it all out of the way at the company Christmas Party. I’ve also worked at places where people do say thank you, and I very, very much prefer that. Thank you.) ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/12 "2012-10-31T02:51:29Z")
My dad plays Klondike Solitaire the same way: as soon as he can see that he’s won, he stops moving cards around. I’m like, dude, why would you skip the money shot? Just because you know it’s inevitable? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/13 "2012-10-31T03:21:01Z")
That was a beautiful rant. And I like chess. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/14 "2012-10-31T03:27:34Z")
I wish I enjoyed chess. I know the basic rules and truly love the gameplay’s elegance. But man, I do _not_ have the patience for it. Except the old DOS game “Battle Chess”, but that’s because I didn’t give a shit if I lost, since I loved the battle & kill animations. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/15 "2012-10-31T03:36:34Z")
I don’t want to take anything away from your excellent rant, but I want to point out that in Speed Chess, the king is taken, and you don’t have to announce check (and can call out “CHECK” after every move, if that sort of thing turns you on). ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/16 "2012-10-31T03:38:01Z")
(also, in my experience, speed chess is played by people with…anger management issues. I’m not implying it would be more your game, just sort of insinuating it) ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/17 "2012-10-31T03:52:28Z")
Glorious, man. I salute you. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/18 "2012-10-31T04:01:52Z")
> [@sahirrnee](#): > > How did you get two queens? I’ve been known to sneak one pawn down to the other player’s side of the board and say “King me!” ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/19 "2012-10-31T04:08:01Z")
Playing chess against a computer is like playing poker against a computer. A breathing human foe adds enormously to at least my enjoyment of the game (which I am not very good at). As I understand it, grandmasters have memorized the classic games so I imagine playing can be a bit like watching reruns, or like trying to manipulate a storyline into a different story. So really, it seems to me that getting really good would end up a bit boring. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366/20 "2012-10-31T05:29:21Z")
Lone king? Two queens? Draw in anout 10 moves? Sounds like you got stalemated! The most infuriating way to not win. You have to leave your opponent a legal move. If not, the game is a draw. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-chess/639366.md?page=2)