VF4 EVO made a good attempt.
Although seeing as I bested both Chibita and Kyasao with my Jeffry, not good enough.
Garry Kasparov has said that there are at most only five people in the world who can play super-GM level chess using intuition, by “feeling” where the pieces need to go. For most improving players, in chess, practicing tactics is not enough–learning positional concepts and how to play practical endgames is necessary; for street figher players, the same applies for not knowing about certain frame traps, option selects, or available options in oikizeme situations.
IMO, playing against Rybka isn’t the equivalent of playing against Valle’s Ryu low forward game. It’s the equivalent of playing against Watson’s CE Bison. Some of the tactical shots Rybka can find are so outlandish and anti-positional that a beginning player who knows nothing will just get destroyed over and over again without any chance to systemize their knowledge. They wind up with gimmicky and passive “strategies” (like repeating moves, pushing pawns, and making frivolous piece moves) to keep either side from playing (which wind up being futile) or unsound, ultra-aggressive play that hands their opponents the match. (Sound familiar?) A community of players of varying strengths with plenty of opportunities to practice and share knowledge is critical.
its all really based on pattern recognition… i really cant say how long it takes to see most of the patterns that there are in say, sf4.
but i’d be willing to bet that MOST players that have been playing the game against high level players for say a year know MOST of the patterns… at least subconsciously.
the problem is that, o say, lets take me for example:
lets say i know all of the patterns in sf4 subconsciously… does that mean that i can go out and beat a top player? no.
one of the biggest reasons is because even though i may know these things subconsciously, i may only know 20% of the total patterns consciously… which means that only 20% of my game is fluid, able to be switched up at a moments notice, the other 80% are things that i get by “on feel”
that 80% represents my good and bad habits, when coming up against a stronger player that is able to read one of those 80% patterns and make me pay for using them is when i either learn and adapt making myself now aware consciously of 21% of the patterns in the game. if i however am unable to figure out the pattern even though i know it subconsciously, that means that i’m doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. thus i will have reached a plateau, which is where my current game is.
so to me the game is “wooden” when you dont know all of your options or seek to use them.
and being good at any fighting game is a combination of pattern recognition skills, reactions, and executional ability… imho.
-dime
Great Job Ganelon. I must say you pretty much hit the nail on that one. This has been my over all expereince in comepetitive gaming career.
I think getting the feel for a game is largely connected with completing the same reaction or string of motions or actions enough times for it to be committed to subconscious memory, as opposed to conscious memory. For example, even if a beginning player knows how exactly to, say, hit confirm Chun-Li’s c.MK into SAII in 3S, and can consistently do it in training mode, they might miss it in a match, because they weren’t thinking fast enough. A better player would not have thought at all in that situation, because they have done it so many times that they don’t think about it at all. They just do it. This goes even more so for long combos such as infinites. I would be willing to bet that nobody did the ROM infinite in MvC2 on their first try, even if they knew what the inputs were, and even if they watched multiple videos both of what it looks like, and of how exactly players that can do it move their hands to do it. Even when someone get’s a combo like that down, it’s usually a while before they can implement it in a match. When a difficult combo is first learned it often takes intense concentration to do. In the middle of a match, that concentration is not possible. It becomes trivial, however, when it takes almost no concentration.
The other application of this subconscious memory is in not actually playing, but recognizing situations. A dedicated player sees thousands of matches. If 95 out of 100 times in a certain situation, a player will do the same thing, a good player will be able to prepare for that event, or take a chance that will be favorable if the opponent acts accordingly (see: Umeshoryu).
I’ve heard Fighting games compared to Chess a number of times on this site but as someone else pointed out that analogy doesn’t work very well. Chess is a game of COMPLETE INFORMATION, its TURN BASED, and does not take place in real time. Fighting games on the other hand always possess uncertainty because it is humanly impossible to anticipate/react to everything your opponent is about to do. Poker is actually a closer match to Fighting games, in that Poker is a guessing game of rock paper scissor in which at different times the consequences of each option are differently weighted. But anyway… also Chess has always been a game of child prodigies. Has OP heard of PAUL MORPHY, CAPABLANCA, who were also world champions who dominated at an early age? Carlsen obviously has a natural gift for chess which is the main reason he is dominating, not because of his computer training. Traditional chess training would have undoubtedly yielded the same results. And also to say chess players use intuition is all wrong too, they certainly go by feel but that is in formulating their general strategy on the board, at all times even when using “instinct” or words like that to determine their OVERALL plan they have to calculate lines exactly. They certainly do utilize the “frame data” of chess, ESPECIALLY when training with computers. When you train wtih a computer in chess you basically use it to insure the tactically validity of your opening lines, you use it to find any potential traps in opening lines before the real game against your human opponent even takes place. Anyway yeah, Chess is not at all like fighting games, that is all.
R-Panda, I am just posting to let you know that I can’t stop staring at your avatar.
Oh, and I think you can feel out a game the more you’re exposed to it at high levels, much like how you can feel out conversations and typing.
Damn, this is amazing. REally, really good post.
Fighting games are games of complete information, though they are in real time and it is played out a little differently because of that fact. However, you have things like speed chess to emulate that idea in chess as well, but I understand your point. I don’t agree that poker is closer though. Not at all. Poker isn’t rock paper scissors. It’s partly a statistics game, and partly about bluffing. There are a few elements that carry over, sure, but I wouldn’t say they’re terribly similar at all. Fighting games have their good young players; the younger players just tend to be 14-17 instead of 9-12. Carlsen does seem to have a gift for chess, but one of the best chess players in the world and Carlsen’s current personal chess teacher has said that the experience he could get with a computer program increased his skill at the game in dramatically faster times than traditional training would have.
"And also to say chess players use intuition is all wrong too."
Really? That’s what the entire article was about. The article basically based on what Carlsen said himself. He said he uses intuition fairly often, not in exclusion to his conscious thought, but in addition to. Are you calling him a liar?
Did you even read the article?
Just read deadfrog’s posts and stop posting.
Me too. 
Hmmm. You wouldn’t happen to be pandacraft on youtube would you?
Sorry, I should probably elaborate.
I remember a few months ago, in a fit of idleness, I got into an extended discussion, via youtube pm, of the appropriateness of the analogy between chess and street fighter, and it struck me that your username is similar to the guy I was talking to.
I remember thinking afterwards that it was sort of pointless to go on arguing about how apt or unapt the chess analogy was, when it was clear that the analogy had already served its purpose in creating some discussion.
That’s sort of how I feel about this thread right now–since it’s served its purpose, there’s no point in waging an intellectual turf-war. The original idea was to find ideas for improving everyone’s game, and I think it’s done that.
No, I’m not.
I wrote this on a another post about MUGEN and I thought this could be used as an example to improve game’s AI
[media=youtube]2gMMC70-UAA[/media]
This video is about a MUGEN creator who created and patched some CVS2 characters. Some MUGEN authors are able to apply great, reasonable AI in their characters, almost mimicking real good casual players. So I’m wondering why some game programmers aren’t able to do AI like in the video?
I just checked my youtube account, and the username I was thinking of was pandaman64. The guy was pretty gracious in his pms actually. If it doesn’t ring any bells, sorry, my mistake.
My youtube name has nothing to do with pandas, sorry.
It is not wrong to say chess players use intuition (though its related to experience with games and board transpositions. the word intuition can be aimed at a lot, it doesnt mean your brain didn’t process something. we don’t know most of the stuff our brain is doing).
i dont think fighting games are complete information systems. i would say this because information isn’t given from the get-go. the fact that two new players know to get health to x before time reaches y is not enough, i believe, to call the it a complete information game (as its just the system goal and not information about any particular state). new players dont go into the game aware of the other persons options (and to some extent even their own). however maybe it does become more like a complete information game over time.
i think most chess games are timed to some degree. all games are played in real time.
Who would have known 6 years ago that Carlsen would become world champ!!!