The Pnictogen Wing

I used to follow professional chess much more closely than I do now and let me tell you, it's like racist gamer-nerd culture only WORSE because chess is "The Game of Kings" and thus the game inspires an unequalled degree of egotism in its worshippers. also it's a game, but it's a game that the really hardcore fans regard as a sport, like playing chess was equivalent to running races or being good at skating or whatever.

then there's the Bobby Fischer fandom, which I think ought to be regarded as something somewhat distinct from being an actual chess fan, because Bobby Fischer tried to destroy chess.

fuck FIDE. they've segregated chess according to genitalia; all the usual excuses that are trotted out for why there's some good reason for segregating real actual sports according to genitalia don't apply to chess but gosh darn it somehow all those reasons apply to chess anyway!

~Chara

Dang, I'm not surprised honestly but there goes my desire to get back into the game

it sure looks like it! https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepinknews.com%2F2023%2F08%2F16%2Fchess-regulator-fide-trans-women%2F

I mean, there's no really good way to spin something like this, is there? ~Chara

I used to follow professional chess much more closely than I do now and let me tell you, it's like racist gamer-nerd culture only WORSE because chess is "The Game of Kings" and thus the game inspires an unequalled degree of egotism in its worshippers. also it's a game, but it's a game that the really hardcore fans regard as a sport, like playing chess was equivalent to running races or being good at skating or whatever.

then there's the Bobby Fischer fandom, which I think ought to be regarded as something somewhat distinct from being an actual chess fan, because Bobby Fischer tried to destroy chess.

fuck FIDE. they've segregated chess according to genitalia; all the usual excuses that are trotted out for why there's some good reason for segregating real actual sports according to genitalia don't apply to chess but gosh darn it somehow all those reasons apply to chess anyway!

~Chara

we used to follow the professional chess world closely, even following world championship games live, but we got rather burned out by that. the chess fandom is at least as disgusting and sodden with bigotry as any other gaming fandom. and pro chess has become dull because of computer preparation; two human beings meet over the board but really you're seeing the work of a team of assistants and chess engines, sweating out some technical novelty twenty-five moves deep into a sideline of the Ruy Lopez in the hopes that it will take the opponent by surprise. anyway I haven't checked out chess in years, aside from double-checking every now and again to see if Magnus Carlsen has been kicked out of the top Elo rating slot. (he hasn't.)

so I was surprised to learn by accident the other day that Carlsen's ceding his world chess-champion title unfought (https://archive.is/8ffSG) and the current FIDE World Chess Championship, due to start in 7 April, is going to be an abbreviated affair (a mere fourteen games, not counting rapid-chess tiebreaking games) between Chinese GM Ding Liren and Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, both of whom have been elite-class players for a number of years. I'm trying to decide how much I care about this championship match; FIDE has been doing these truncated championship matches for a while now—the infamously disputed match between Topalov and Kramnik in 2006 was a short thing too—and it's hard to work up much interest.

~Chara