What has made the biggest impact for chess in the past 30 years?
– Digital clock
– Internet play
– Computer software
– The break up of the Soviet Union
– Something else
Click here to vote or vote via the comment section.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Definitely computers. It has opened up so many doors for analysis and viewing recent games and tournaments. It is comparable to the old days where you would not know the results of a tournament in Europe for days or weeks until word came across the sea.
Unfortunately the impact has a negative side as well but there will always be some dishonesty in mankind.
Work for integrity and dignity.
CFDinCLE
Computers, definitely, I’d say. But which aspects of the computer have had the greatest impact? Both software (chess engines) an the Internet have had huges impacts. I’d find it hard to say which of those two has been more important than the other.
While both of these have had some unfortunate consequences, chiefly the decline of clubs and OTB play, on balance I think they’ve been good. I can find an opponent any time of the day or night, and that’s really something.
FIDE – sadly, a highly negative impact.
Wouldn’t we have to say “Bobby Fischer”? Seems to me he has the biggest single impact of anything else.
I agree, Fischer did have a huge impact on chess but I think computer chess has had a bigger impact on how the game is played today, chess programs playing stronger than World Champion, Chess databases are two examples of how chess is played today. They have taken Fischer’s opening preparation he did with books/magazines to a new level.
i like the internet. i remember very rarly being able to find a decent game outside of tournaments which are very costly. now i can find expert play anytime i want. computers and internet gods gift to chess.
i guess all but mainly living on the xx1 century!
jb.
Two things: the internet (blogs like this one!) and game software such as Shredder and Fritz. I’m 46 and just reawakened to the game this year and the web presence of several very good teachers and bloggers has been a boon for players like myself. I’m like a kid again!
Also, I have a slew of nieces and nephews — all young — who I will introduce to the game over the next year with chess sets and books as gifts.