Contemporary is younger than it has ever been.
Chess traditionally was considered as a game played between wizened old men at the park or in an august chess club. Now chess is played increasingly by energetic eight year olds pounding chess clocks in thirty minute games at schools across America.
The tremendous increases in scholastic chess has turned much of chess age demographics on its head. Now youth rules, and adult chess is in the minority. During the Fischer Boom Years, the reverse was true.
The Scholastic Chess Boom made chess younger. The kids got good first as teenagers, but now excel as 7 and 8 year olds. Young players to improve at faster and younger ages than ever before.
Today’s open tournaments seem to feature fewer young adults, some middle aged adults (Fischer Boomers) and a lot of scholastic players (especially elementary and middle school). Scholastic tournaments are more popular in terms of numbers, and elementary students predominate.
The New American Chess Game is faster than it has ever been.
Tournament chess is faster than it was forty years ago in several respects:
• Tournaments now have a sudden death time control where the game must end;
• Scholastic tournaments are the largest number of tournaments and;
• Scholastic tournaments use much fast time controls – normally game in 30 minutes;
• Internet play has is fast play normally speed, blitz or bullet play;
• Digital clocks and online play mitigate the problems previously associated with shorter sudden death time controls.
Scholastic chess is faster, because it is played by young children with a shorter attention span. Young children who play Game in 30 minutes usually use less than 10 or 15 minutes of their allotted time, even when they are advised to play more slowly. Casual or skittles play among children tends to be very fast; much faster than skittles play among adults. An adult skittles game may take 20 -40 minutes; the same game with elementary school kids takes 5-10 minutes.
Speed chess is speedier than it has been before. Forty years ago, when speed chess was played, it was game in 5 minutes. Today, game in 3 minutes is popular, and the new variant, bullet chess (game in 1 minute) has taken its place as the fastest variant of chess. Quirky Bughouse has gotten faster too, with most games going from game in 5 minutes to game in 3 minute, and only Bughouse tournament games played in game in 5 minutes.
Taken together, the factors illustrate how chess is a much faster game today than it was 40 years ago.
The New American Chess is Digitally Oriented
American chess in the 1970’s was: offline, analog, mail order books, human-driven analysis and postal chess. Everything has changed in the intervening 40 years. Digital changes has altered how the game was played by grandmaster and amateur alike.
Digitally oriented changes covers a broad area including: internet chess, internet learning, chess databases, chess computers and subsequent search engines, chess DVD’s and online lectures, chess TV, digital clocks, automated tournament pairing software and online chess coaching.
Internet chess has been the most significant change to American chess of the digitally oriented changes since it has brought millions of Americans online to play internet chess. While some of the players are active tournament players, the vast majority of American players are not. Internet chess is the vast center of American adult chess where speed chess and casual play occurs in the United States.
Internet learning are one of the services provided by the internet chess sites to encourage their members or users to stay on their websites. Puzzles, endgames, lectures, opening databases are some of the other services chess internet websites provide.
Internet databases of chessgames are popular, since they can be used for individuals to review openings, endgames, types of positions, etc. Players can use databases as tools for study, especially if they are able to effectively manipulate the database. Chessbase programs are particularly well-known for that ability as databases, but there are others as well.
Chess-playing computers were popular in the 1980’s and 1990’s as a playing and training companion for players. As they increased in strength and became known as search engines, they were still used for playing humans. However, they were more likely used for analyzing games, checking analysis for errors, checking new opening ideas for accuracy and allowing players to assess their strength.
Books and magazines were the “gold standard” of chess learning well into the 21st century. Club players especially relied on books and magazines for improving their chess knowledge. Starting around 2003, digital guides to openings emerged. More popular products developed a few years later that provided visual lectures to openings and other topics. Online products and DVD’s are both sold for these items, and provide a more rapid means of digesting many of the concepts previously included in books.
Electronic books are also becoming far more popular and are replacing paper books in the purchase of published material. The continued increase in the percentage of electronic books purchased is likely until they constitute the majority of chess books published.
Digital clocks and automated tournament pairing have substantially changed the tournament experience. Digital clocks have sped up tournaments and provided a much greater flexibility to tournament time control options. Automated tournament pairing has sped up pairing of players, especially in larger tournaments from cumbersome manual methods. Complaints regarding pairing have declined precipitously as well.
Digitally oriented technology touches American chess in many different ways. The result is a very different kind of American chess than was seen in the 1970’s. American society has changed drastically demographically since the 1970’s and so has chess.