i think chess could get some decent air on cable with some of the more screwball formats. i'd watch a million dollar bullet bughouse event.

RotGut wrote on 03/01/06 at 20:00:03:



There's nothing anyone can do to stop cheating because cheaters can avoid detection by using a second computer or pocket fritz it doesn't look good for the game when Grandmasters and  International Masters are being caught using them so it's not just the 1200 and 1300 rated players abusing them!  Playchess recently caught IM Kurtenkov using computer assistance in the champion challenge shame on any titled players who cheat with engines nobody this good has any acceptable reason or excuse for using a program 
to win their games!
 

Tater_Salad wrote on 03/01/06 at 23:04:18:


Yep, that's the reason 

poker has a lot more advantages over chess than just promotion. 

you can learn how to play poker in under 5 minutes, and you can be a decent player in under a month. compare that to chess where you need to work hard for at least a year to even understand what a strong player is doing, let alone actually be able to give one any sort of a game.

poker is more social. if you have 7 people at your house, you can play a 7 handed game, and everyone plays and talks together. in chess, people just go into their separate corners and play their separate games, occasionally glancing over. not that chess can't be a social experience, it usually is for me, but there's really no comparison.

in poker you get laid pretty good odds on your money, whether you're playing in a casino or online, the rake is relatively low. chess, on the other hand, is very expensive if you aren't a world class player. i remember playing in a big class tournament in KC a few years ago. i won my class, but after paying for duel memberships, i didnt even double up on the cost, and i won! that's not even counting the cost of a clock and up to date material neccessary to play. also, all the good online action is pay to play with no financial reward (usually). there's enough poker information available for free that you really don't have to pay. you also don't need a training engine to compete in poker in the same way you need a chess engine to be compeditive in chess. i'm a good, not great, poker player, and i'm +money by a long shot, with all expenses taken into account. i'm a much more skilled chess player than i am a poker player, and i'm probably down a couple grand to chess over the span of my lifetime, and so are just about all of the other players that post here and are even stronger than me.

chess was my first love as far as gamin goes, and it will always be the best game to me, but there really is no comparison with poker when it comes to mass appeal. i don't care how good chess promotion gets (not that its anywhere close to good now), it will never hold a candle to poker, period.

  It never ceases to amaze me the huge Texas Hold 'EM popularity explosion that has engulfed the entire nation. It is on the television all hours, on the radio and the flops are flying in every club, bar, and every other place men gather. I play and enjoy the game but I don't understand why chess can not reap the same benifits. Many of the guys I play Hold Em with know the rules and like the game. SO why can't the powers that be tap into this? What is the hang up?

I belive that the game has been grossly mispromoted by the different chess bodies of the world. Firstly this high brow intellectual attitude has got to be dropped. That snobbery just puts people off anything....besides chess to me is more a sport then anything else. I could careless about the aesthetics of the game. 

Secondly, this overpromotion of schoolastic chess. I don't care what folks might think of this but face facts...95% of grown folks don't enjoy playing children.  That is just a fact and it is something I have heard from many folks outside the world of chess. It is because of this overpromotion of schoolastic chess that the game holds equal ground with other games such as Mouse Trap, Monopoly, Pay day, etc. in the eyes of many folks outside of the game. The game needs to be promoted a great deal more for adults. It is time for the game of Kings to grow up..........

Thirdly,  this overkill on how the interent has become the new frontier for chess. Well in some ways it has. As far as information such as the kind provided on this site and others has done wonders for the patzer masses. Though I have to laugh when I read Nigel SHort's quote on the internet and chess 'It is a fertile ground for cheating.' This is so true & it seems folks don't want to acknowledge the cheating epidemic that is internet chess. 

A mindless rant.......maybe but the key to making over the board chess popular on a scale like Texas Hold 'EM  is to promote it to adults in a mature fasion.