Why Checkers is NOT easier than Chess

[adamjohnson]

No offense Joe but Chess is way harder of course it is. More posistions, more openings, more endings, more competition ETC. Most grandmaster Chess players are genius's with very high IQ's.

When i did play Checkers i got to a pretty high level as did alot of online Checker's players i know. But i know for a fact if i played Chess i'd get nowhere even close to getting to a very high level even if i studied. I think you have to be a natural at chess or just an incredibly smart guy.

Checkers is probably more fun but i wouldn't know cause i haven't played Chess in a competitive manner. Only played it a few times messing around so i wouldn't know unless i played Chess instead of Checkers.

[MostFamousDane]

No offense Joe but Chess is way harder of course it is.

Well of course it isn't since it is a scientific fact that game theoretically they belong to the same complexity class.

More posistions, more openings, more endings,

Yes chess is larger but checkers is more deep and profound. There exists games that are larger than chess, simple games played on a go board that because of the size of the board makes them big but which can be played to a draw by humans each with relatively ease - of course they are less hard than chess.

All games that can not be played perfectly by humans are equally hard no matter the size of their game trees.

more competition ETC.

Well you are right about that since there are way more people that play chess than checkers it is harder to reach the top. This is a trivial observation but it has nothing to with chess being harder than checkers it just means chess is more popular.

Most grandmaster Chess players are genius's with very high IQ's.

Well I suck pretty hard at checkers I'm not a grand master or a master not even a candidate master and my IQ is VERY high. IQ tests was invented to find people who had some kind of defect. Our society's use of IQ tests to differentiate between "normal" people is completely absurd only something people who don't have the first clue about what intelligence is would do.

[adamjohnson]

No offense Joe but Chess is way harder of course it is.

Well of course it isn't since it is a scientific fact that game theoretically they belong to the same complexity class.

More posistions, more openings, more endings,

Yes chess is larger but checkers is more deep and profound. There exists games that are larger than chess, simple games played on a go board that because of the size of the board makes them big but which can be played to a draw by humans each with relatively ease - of course they are less hard than chess.

All games that can not be played perfectly by humans are equally hard no matter the size of their game trees.

more competition ETC.

Well you are right about that since there are way more people that play chess than checkers it is harder to reach the top. This is a trivial observation but it has nothing to with chess being harder than checkers it just means chess is more popular.

Most grandmaster Chess players are genius's with very high IQ's.

Well I suck pretty hard at checkers I'm not a grand master or a master not even a candidate master and my IQ is VERY high. IQ tests was invented to find people who had some kind of defect. Our society's use of IQ tests to differentiate between "normal" people is completely absurd only something people who don't have the first clue about what intelligence is would do.

Im not saying every guy with a high IQ can play Chess, obviously you got to be a bit of a natural aswell and have a feel for the game straight away, im just saying on average most top level Chess players are very smart.

Chess is just so deep as Marion Tinsley once said "Checkers is like looking down a well, Chess is like looking across the ocean".

Im also pretty sure that if Chess grandmaster got to play Checkers quite often he could reach a very high level, considering how much they can memorize and think ahead in Chess. If a Checkers player tried the same they wouldn't even be in the top 1000.

Im not dissing Checkers i used to enjoy it when i played it, but Chess is a whole different kettle of fish.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

I think we should adopt one rule: everyone can make one post here if contribute two other posts in defferent sections of forum

[adamjohnson]

And just how many chess grandmasters have reached master level at checkers? Seems like it would be trivially easy if chess is really as difficult as you claim it is.

Why would they bother ? there's hardly any money in Checkers, i don't know what the prize money for Chess is but i assume its much more than Checkers.

But im pretty certain that if a Grandmaster Chess player, put his time and effort into Checkers he could reach master level no problem. If a Grandmaster Chess player can memorize that many positions and think that many moves ahead, pretty much what you need in Checkers but not on as large as scale as Chess. Then i see no reason why they couldn't.

[liam stephens]

An old saw, worth repeating:

"CHESS as a showy game may claim the sway.
But DRAUGHTS for depth will bear the palm away;
Chess can be played by Philidor's though blind.
OUR GAME requires both sight and thoughtful mind."

John Drummond - in his 2nd Edition 1851.

[Chexhero]

Adam, I agreed in my original post that chess has more complexity. Of course it has more openings, lines, endings, etc. My point was that checkers is still incredibly deep, and like chess has never become close to be mastered by humans. A checker game despite being less complex can still force you to think to the max. When a game goes off pp, more often than not the best we can do is assume a certain move is best. It is not like we can sit there for 5 minutes and always scientifically prove to ourselves why a certain move is best. Sometimes certain best moves are obvious, but most times they aren't. You play a lot of Internet checkers where the games are played fast with very minimal thinking involved. In tournaments, checker games are a lot longer and more intense. People aren't just sitting at the board playing, they literally study the board and can take up to 10 to 20 minutes sometimes to make 1 move. Killer whale, or great white? You choose, you are never going to come close to survival perfection against any of them.

Who is truly better at their game is another discussion. This day and age chess masters may be the top of the top, idk. But I can tell you such so was not the case years ago when their were more checker players. No one dominated their game as much as Marion Tinsely. No one in chess has ever come close to such perfection and dominance. Before the Chinook program match, Tinsely played thousands of games from 1950-1992 and lost "3" tournament games. That is absolutely incredible.... The great Ron King lost more than twice that amount in about 1 month. Find me a chess master that equaled his dominance. I am sure a great like him, Hellman, and others could have potentially played chess at a very high level too. From what I know Tinsely was a good chess player, but liked checkers more. But yea, chess today would certainly be more difficult to crack the top 1000, checkers hardly has a 1000 world wide.

[Eric Strange]

I have done a lot of thought about this in the past... I play some chess and I consider checkers to be a more difficult game
(for me). You can argue which has more moves and openings but in reality... they are just 2 completely different games.

The thought process for chess and for checkers are completely different. With checkers... 1 move without affecting how many men are on the board or even putting yourself in a bad position....changes the ENTIRE GAME.... this is not true with chess.

I read somewhere that in one of the games of man vs machine... in the 11th move of the game tinsley said the computer was in a loss. Once computers became more advanced the line was studied to discover Tinsley had to be seeing 80 moves ahead in order to find that win. I may be inaccurate on the exact details because it was a LOOOONG time ago that I read this. Show me in chess where you can get a win 80 moves ahead....... seems to be that in chess you can take moves back and have options to play aggressive, passive, or equal. In checkers.... you can only move forward and face your opponents... we do not retreat!!!

It may not be as deep of a game... but there is much less room for error. I give both games an equal vote of competitive difficulty.

[Chexhero]

Schaeffer said it was 64 moves ahead that Tinsely was able to look to find that win and that he played the one exact variation perfectly. I think he said he spent over like a 100 computer hours to verify it was a win. It was said that in some instances Tinsely was able to look more than a 100 moves deep.

[adamjohnson]

He probably just recognized the loss from the pattern, which is what i did when i memorized losses. I doubt he was actually thinking 100 moves ahead because thats 50 moves each, and he couldn't just look at one alternative route. He'd have to look at many different ways, or it could of been a loss he remembered from book.

[adamjohnson]

Are you seriously comparing yourself to Marion Tinsley?

How did you come to that conclusion ? im just saying something that used to work for me when i played. Im not comparing myself to Tinsley in anyway what so ever i just questioned 100 moves ahead, and said he could of remembered the pattern of a loss something i did and what some other top online players do, but im not comparing myself to him or saying im at his level far from it.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Lets stay on topic ...

In conclusion everything I read, we should say:

1) Chess is more complicated than checkers.
2) Checkers is not game of luck
3) Checkers is complicated enough to be worthy of study and play.

If everyone agrees with these 3 statements, we can finish this conversation, if not - we can continue.

Regards,

Alex

[Chexhero]

I think we are on topic Alex. Adam disagrees with my post and feels chess is a harder game and he has made some very valid points of how chess is more complex and complicated. We are just stating why we feel checkers can be more difficult with some very valid points of our own. In conclusion, I agree with Eric, I think both games are equally challenging and can be looked at through different view points regarding which is more difficult.

[MostFamousDane]

Lets stay on topic ...

In conclusion everything I read, we should say:

1) Chess is more complicated than checkers.
2) Checkers is not game of luck
3) Checkers is complicated enough to be worthy of study and play.

If everyone agrees with these 3 statements, we can finish this conversation, if not - we can continue.

Regards,

Alex

Yes we agree on all three points

1) Chess is not more complicated than checkers.
2) Checkers is not game of luck
3) Checkers is complicated enough to be worthy of study and play.

I am assuming this is what you meant otherwise you have not read or undestood a single post in this topic

[Chexhero]

Sune, I think Alex meant chess being more complicated in the sense it has more lines of play and overall a larger game tree. I don't think he meant more complicated to play well at or to master.