Strategic Balance in Chess and Fencing

[epeeslasher]

Came across this article while I was searching for fencing gear. It was interesting so I thought I'd share it.

http://saf.pair.com/chess.htm

[RITFencing]

These days I compare fencing more closely to poker, than chess...

You try to make the other guy think you have a hand you don't, either to keep him from threatening you or overcommitting, and if you can't bluff him out, you can still win by having the best hand.

[JEC]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

These days I compare fencing more closely to poker, than chess...

When I am fencing Div I or Open tournaments, I think this is the best analogy given the shortcomings of my athleticism. However, fencing remains chess against my Veteran opponents.

[jBirch]

Fencing and chess have always had a lot in common.

I've been taught that Chess scores a moment in the game along four axis:

1) Material
2) Positional
3) Pawn Structure
4) Tempo

Material is analogous to the score. Obviously, the player that is ahead has an advantage.

Positional attempts to measure how "free to move" one player is in relation to the other by counting the "squares under threat" of all the pieces on each side. In fencing, we can see this instinctually and through the lens of RoW. The fencer who is attacking, who is threatening target and who is generally controlling things has an advantage over the fencer who is passive and reactionary.

Pawn structure is the ability to protect oneself and deny opportunity to the opponent. I see this as the preparation and athleticism of the fencers and their ability to "keep up with" their opponent's actions. The one who can keep the distance and prevent themselves from being controlled has an advantage over the one who is constantly at a disadvantage.

Tempo is the number of moves that threaten the opponent minus the number of moves that do not. It is a measure of the progress of the game to date. It can also be expressed in positional terms, with moves increasing one's own development minus the moves decreasing one's development being the tempo. This relates strongly to the notion in fencing of stealing tempo and making tempo. Our students learn to make actions that are never useless, that always learn something about the opponent, threaten valid target and conceal their own intents. The fencer who makes more active moves then reactive ones, can be said to have greater tempo over their opponent.

If you notice, all of these terms relate to the balance between the two contestests. Lasker's theory of Balance in chess, as it were, applied to fencing.

True, this can be applied to any competitive environment: whomever has the balance, has the advantage. But chess' unique focus on strategy and tactics, and in particular the struggle for control of the other player, make it uniquely suited to describing the "Inner Game of Fencing (tm)".

*grin*

I dislike the Poker analogy because Poker still has a large basis in simple luck. If you get crappy cards there's not much you can do. Chess, however, creates opportunity from the moment the game starts, each player simultaneously feeling out their opponent and striving for early, overwhelming, advantage.

Poker MAXIMISES opportunity when it happens, Chess CREATES it.

James.

[Sean Butler]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

These days I compare fencing more closely to poker, than chess...

You try to make the other guy think you have a hand you don't, either to keep him from threatening you or overcommitting, and if you can't bluff him out, you can still win by having the best hand.

This was something I heard attributed to Peter Westbrook back in the 1980s. I agree, to a certain extent, but I feel that there is less randomness in fencing. One fencer isn't arbitrarily (luck of the draw) weaker than his opponent, and he is not necessarily weaker in a completely objective sense. He may have strengths and weaknesses which match up poorly with his opponent's. Fencing well involves a lot of subterfuge in masking the reality of your game's strong and weak components. In that sense yes it is much like poker.

Originally Posted by jBirch

I dislike the Poker analogy because Poker still has a large basis in simple luck. If you get crappy cards there's not much you can do. Chess, however, creates opportunity from the moment the game starts, each player simultaneously feeling out their opponent and striving for early, overwhelming, advantage.

Poker MAXIMISES opportunity when it happens, Chess CREATES it.

I'd have to agree with you, though I think that Chess players cannot hide information like fencers can. Unless two fencers are good friends who fence all the time, there is a great deal that isn't known when two fencers meet on the strip. This lack of information tends to highlight the poker elements of the game more than the Chess elements. In Chess there are only two things you need to know in order to play the best move: The position in question, and the player to move. Everything can be determined through analysis from there. In fencing things are less mathematical; you need more information, and some of it you will have to learn through experimentation.

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by Sean Butler

In Chess there are only two things you need to know in order to play the best move: The position in question, and the player to move. Everything can be determined through analysis from there. In fencing things are less mathematical; you need more information, and some of it you will have to learn through experimentation.

Oh ho! Spoken like a true afficiondo of checkers! ...or of someone who plays a lot of computer chess.

*grin*

Chess is all about the other player. The psychological impact of a move, or series of moves, or position, is as important, if not MORE important, then the mathematical manouvre from any given position.

Part of the point of the opening game, and part of the reason why there are so many mystical stories surrounding unorthodox plays, is precisely to feel out the psychological element of the other player. If every time I threaten your queen with my own queen, you retreat, instead of exchange, I've learned something that I can use to exploit the situation in the future. If you Fianchetto, or neglect your pawns, or over-penetrate, I've learned something useful about your character. Can you be lured? Do you think offensively or defensively? How deep are your plans?

Lots of the psychological in chess...more so, I think, then Poker, since concealment and deception are only part of the game of chess and form pretty much ALL of the game of Poker. Simple domination, traps laid, observed and defeated, plans spanning multiple moves, dualism in each movement, all have more place in Chess then in Poker. And all are core components of fencing.

How many fencers have you seen who rely solely on trickery instead of domination? Not many, I'd wager. And of those you do, I would expect only middling performance.

James.

[Sean Butler]

I won't argue that psychology doesn't play a big role in chess, but computers have trained us to be more analytical in our approach. You can only lose so many times to a computer before you start adapting your style to accommodate the tactical depth that they attain. In the end the other player has to be held in your mind with what I'd call a cautious disdain. You assume the worst from him, and plan for his best move. If you start making less than optimal moves with the expectation that they will have a strong psychological effect, you are setting yourself up to be surprised at how clever people can be when they are under pressure. On the other hand, there are broad-minded psychological ploys one can make: Like, simplify vs. a novice when you have an small endgame advantage. It doesn't hurt you and it drives them crazy with thinking they are losing. But, in a game of equal skill, you should be optimizing everything, and searching for every form of dynamism you can muster.

Speed chess has a stronger psychological aspect to it, if that is what you meant. In speed chess, I'd say that skill and convincing intimidation can often beat someone with a slightly higher skill level. It can even be how you play your move which conveys in a convincing manner the strength of it. In fact the more I think about it, speed chess (and I mean really fast speed chess, like 3 minute games or faster) are very much like a fencing bout. There's a lot of bluffing going on behind moves which are considered for 2 seconds or less.

[tbryan]

Originally Posted by jBirch

Oh ho! Spoken like a true afficiondo of checkers!....Chess is all about the other player.

Originally Posted by Sean Butler

speed chess (and I mean really fast speed chess, like 3 minute games or faster) are very much like a fencing bout.

Maybe this thread belongs in the general fencing forum?

We started with a not horrible essay on thinking about fencing. I'm not sure how much the essay is really saying, but it was written by a fencing coach, and it may at least be useful in helping to create a vocabulary for talking about certain aspects of fencing.

Now we've already side-tracked into a discussion of which non-physical activity is most like fencing. It's perhaps an interesting discussion, but I think that it's really missing the point. To me, the purpose of referring to fencing as "physical chess" or "physical poker" is simply to convey some message to a non-fencer. It's probably important in that case to think about who you're talking to and what you're trying to communicate. (You might want to avoid the poker analogy, for example, in a market where a lot of your customers believe that all gambling is a sin.)

And why use either analogy? You might communicate something more appropriate by comparing fencing with other sports. Especially when you're looking for inspiration and ideas about strategy, looking to other sports seem more appropriate. Both poker and chess are probably going to be a farther stretch than something like tennis or boxing.

How many of your fencers have played chess at a level where any of the things that you're talking about mattered? How many of them understand the real strategy and balance in a chess game? I'm guessing that there aren't many. Thus, this approach to thinking about strategy isn't terribly useful. "Having trouble thinking about fencing strategy? Let me compare it to another activity that you don't really understand well." Trying to stretch "Material, Positional, Pawn Structure, and Tempo" to fencing seems like an odd approach unless you're dealing with a new fencer who happens to be a highly-ranked chess player.

Instead, maybe you could really talk about the elements of strategy in a fencing bout. Things like

1. physical condition of fencers
2. score
3. momentum in score (who scored the last several touches?)
4. time remaining

Within a single touch, we probably are concerned with things like

1. initiative (who is starting an exchange?)
2. distance
3. change of distance
4. state of preparedness

Like I said, while Lasker's theory of Balance applied to fencing may help you, it seems like a really tortured analogy to me. I feel that it would be better to take the general ideas and then apply some of the same rigor of thinking to a fencing bout. Don't necessarily use the same framework to measure fencing balance, cramming fencing concepts into a chess framework. Think about how the concept of balance translates to fencing. What are the elements of balance in a bout? And once you've figured that out, how is a fencer or coach supposed to use that information?

[telkanuru]

Originally Posted by jBirch

I dislike the Poker analogy because Poker still has a large basis in simple luck. If you get crappy cards there's not much you can do.

Um.

Epee.

I win.

[jBirch]

tbryan,

Think of it as cross training the mind. Chess is one of the unique endeavours that trains disciplined thinking and planning in an adversarial setting.

Plus, it's a fun game .

To me at least, it can be a useful tool.

James.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by jBirch

I dislike the Poker analogy because Poker still has a large basis in simple luck. If you get crappy cards there's not much you can do. Chess, however, creates opportunity from the moment the game starts, each player simultaneously feeling out their opponent and striving for early, overwhelming, advantage.

Poker MAXIMISES opportunity when it happens, Chess CREATES it.

James.

Ehhh... I tend to disagree.

Don't look at one touch of fencing being equivalent to one hand of poker, look at each touch being like a whole game. If you get crappy cards and you can't bluff out a win, you learn to cut your losses (break off the distance, lose a bit of ground but ultimately stay pretty safe.) The opponent does the same, and you keep it up until one of you makes the other commit a large amount to the pot and then loses, either by folding (abandoning their action too late) or committing to an action that not only fails, but gets them hit (having a worse hand.)

A good enough poker player can create an opportunity with almost any hand, because just like chess, it's about playing the opponent.

[telkanuru]

I'm just reminded of something Mr. Soter once said at a camp I was at-

"To me, the most interesting thing about epee is that the best fencer doesn't always win."

[MdA]

Originally Posted by jBirch

I dislike the Poker analogy because Poker still has a large basis in simple luck. If you get crappy cards there's not much you can do. Chess, however, creates opportunity from the moment the game starts, each player simultaneously feeling out their opponent and striving for early, overwhelming, advantage.

Poker MAXIMISES opportunity when it happens, Chess CREATES it.

James.

After watching the foil at the NAC B this past weekend...I am more likely to side with the poker analogy...and some simple luck. With the new foil timings....there is still a lot of luck. I saw many touches when both fencers hit squarely and no lights. Or touches where the clear attacker hits...no light and loses on a simple counterattack.

...add a plastic chest protector and you have some really "bad" luck.

Maybe...more like Roulette? ...or slot machines.

I am beginning to think that the foil tips require more maintenance then in the days of the "flick". It seems they go bad sooner now.

[NGV]

I've always thought the fencing/chess analogy was pretty meaningless. The types of tactical and strategic calculations that are required for the two activities are completely different. And any strained and tenuous connection that can be made between chess and fencing could probably be equally easily made between chess and any number of other sports (baseball, soccer, boxing, whatever).

I don't see much point to the comparison - aside from maintaining a phony pretense that fencing is somehow more cerebral than other sports.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by NGV

I don't see much point to the comparison - aside from maintaining a phony pretense that fencing is somehow more cerebral than other sports.

I thought you said you didn't understand it....

-B