George Duke wrote on Thu, May 29, 2008 06:46 PM UTC:
We thought, well great, here is some original topical Chess material for
once, instead of CVPage esoterica or the standard columns and blogs
promoting dead or dying FIDE Chess, owned by Computer. But wait, it is not
Mike Henroid's weekly column but the Bridge(!) column by Jared Johnson
next to it 25.May.2008 with the interesting content in local paper. Writes
Bridge expert Johnson, ''Both chess and bridge are great games, but
interest in top-flight chess seems to be waning for one major reason. Most
Chess games among experts result in draws -- and that's boring. You rarely
have ties in bridge. .... Whereas Chess has just two opponents facing each
other, a bridge event can have dozens or hundreds of pairs, so no one is
playing for a Draw. Another problem with Chess is that the standard range
of opening moves has become so thoroughly analyzed and predictable, you
just don't get much excitement. Not so at Bridge. You get the occasional
dull deal, but the next hand might be seven hearts, six clubs and 17 high
card points. If they really do want to rejuvenate Chess, some new
approaches are needed. Computers have already beaten world champions at
Chess. The bridge computer programs aren't even close, since the game is
so much harder to program with all the hidden variables. Knowing that a
machine can beat a man has been one more blow to Chess. At Bridge the
humans are still on top. .... Meanwhile, Bridge players will pick up their
next hand with fair confidence that most of the time the complete deal
will be something they've never seen before. And there will be a winner.
And a loser.''