The analogy is still good.... The analogy doesn't claim that one is more cerebral than the other - that's your conclusion.
A better logic, is to consider connect 5/checkers is no less cerebral than chess. If you stop presuming that chess is some sort of holy game, that is the only "complex" game out there, and instead consider that connect5 is just as complex, just in a different way, why would you think the analogy somehow claims that mma is more complex than boxing?
You have to stop looking at an analogy like this as if it's offensive to you, because it's claiming that boxing is simpler than mma - that's not what the analogy is about - that's your conclusion, based on the presumption that checkers are less complex than chess. Which they are not, they are just as complex, just in a different way - just like boxing is compared to mma.
Have we now shifted to discussing your new, more convoluted analogy? I thought this thread was to discuss Tito's comment. Do you not believe that chess is more cerebral than checkers? I love checkers and all, but it takes nowhere near the level of skill and foresight that gets displayed by chess masters.
Checkers is undeniably less complex than chess. Tito is claiming that MMA is fundamentally more complex than boxing because there is a greater variety of things to do, but the level of strategy employed in boxing far outweighs that which you see in most MMA bouts. Boxers generally don't want to "go to war." They want to win. They want to hit and not be hit. MMA guys might want that too, but they rarely succeed with the level of success you see in boxing. There are more options with kicks and the ground game, but with very few people having reached elite levels of skill employing every aspect of the game, it's hard to compare the sport to chess.
The point is, neither of these sports are board games. There is no reason to compare them to board games, at all. The only reason Tito made his claim is to disparage boxing so, as a fan of boxing: yes, I take it as an insult to the art.
Do you really think Tito put as much thought into his remark as you are defending your own altered version of it?
Remember again, we're talking about this man:
__________________
Great White Dope, dating Muay Thai and BJJ; cheating on them both with boxing.
anybody who thinks checkers (or connect 4) is not less complex than chess isn't playing chess the right way. it ain't even close if you are talking about game complexity...
Have we now shifted to discussing your new, more convoluted analogy? I thought this thread was to discuss Tito's comment. Do you not believe that chess is more cerebral than checkers? I love checkers and all, but it takes nowhere near the level of skill and foresight that gets displayed by chess masters.
The skill and foresight displayed, is dependent primarily on how good the players are. Believe me, if there were a professional checkers league and people were getting payed for "matches" you would see some incredible foresight in checkers.
There actually are professional connect5/gomoku/go leagues in Japan. I sure as hell wouldn't say that connect5 is less complex than chess, and I'm sure if you saw a match between 2 great players, you would see a lot of foresight.
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Checkers is undeniably less complex than chess. Tito is claiming that MMA is fundamentally more complex than boxing because there is a greater variety of things to do, but the level of strategy employed in boxing far outweighs that which you see in most MMA bouts. Boxers generally don't want to "go to war." They want to win. They want to hit and not be hit. MMA guys might want that too, but they rarely succeed with the level of success you see in boxing. There are more options with kicks and the ground game, but with very few people having reached elite levels of skill employing every aspect of the game, it's hard to compare the sport to chess.
The point is, neither of these sports are board games. There is no reason to compare them to board games, at all. The only reason Tito made his claim is to disparage boxing so, as a fan of boxing: yes, I take it as an insult to the art.
Do you really think Tito put as much thought into his remark as you are defending your own altered version of it?
Remember again, we're talking about this man:
I'm not defending him and I don't like him, I'm only defending the fact that the analogy makes sense.
Because... it does, as there's the very simple and obvious similarity of fewer different moves allowed in boxing and checkers. Of course, the analogy is a hyperbole as checkers really only have very, very few different moves compared to chess, and I wouldn't say boxing has that much fewer moves compared to mma, as checkers does compared to chess... so a more precise analogy would be something like:
"Mma is to boxing, what chess is to a variation of chess, played on a smaller playing field" . However, the analogy still makes sense.
Checkers is no less "complex" than chess, both are complex in their own way. Define what complex is, then we can talk whether it's more or less complex. Even better, make a few programs that will play chess, connect 5, checkers then tell me why one game is more complex than the other.
To explain my point a bit differently-
There are various games out there. There's chess, there's chess on a bigger playing field with more pieces, there's chess on a smaller playing field, there's go, there's poker, etc.. In a sense, they are all equally complex, they just emphasize different skills.
For example, there's limit poker:
You can only do few things in limit poker(texas hold'em). A kid can play it, just like checkers, and he can even make good money thanks to luck. But would you say it's less complex than chess? Of course it's not, because depending on the competitive level, any game can be complex, just in a different way. The skill that you need to play high stakes limit poker is HUGE (presuming you are making profit in long term). You need to maximize your chances of profit. You need great, great foresight and skills to get that tiny little advantage, that will allow you to be the player who makes profit in the long term, while your opponent is the one who's losing money in the long term.
It's not what the game is about and what moves you can do, complexity you see is determined by the skill level of the players.
Two stupid kids playing chess? Yeah, you won't see much foresight and thinking in advance.
Two great players playing chess? Of course you will see a lot of skill.
- and it's like that with EVERY game, where skill is important. The difference is, that in different games, different aspects and skills are emphasized. But they are all the same complex, in a sense.
The basic analogy makes sense, if you allow more techniques, there are more possible combinations, which then creates a more complicated game. For instance, if you assigned different rules of movement to individual checkers pieces, the game would then be far more complicated.
The wrong thinking part of it has always been the conviction that a more varied ruleset immediately results in a more strategic game, which is not true. if the rules of boxing were changed so that both participants were only allowed to jab, an incredibly strategic and varied sport would emerge.
Boxing is undoubtedly chess. MMA is a game that incorporates that chess, as well many other 'chess' games, so it is easy to use the boxing=checkers, mma=chess analogy, as theoretically MMA includes all of the options of boxing as well as many others. Unfortunately, the variety of options available in MMA clearly cause this NOT to be the case.
Because competitors in MMA need to compete under rules encompassing more than just boxing, they will rarely, if ever, be able to master the complete intricacies of that sport. Since they need to be able to compete in 'MMA chess', they are often only able to gain 'checkers' level ability in other aspects. Boxing fans often see the 'checkers' level ability of boxing shown by MMA competitors, and, since they are lacking the 'chess' level boxing they are used to, feel that MMA is in fact a 'checkers' level sport (at least as far as striking is concerned), effectively making the same mistake as those same MMA competitors and fans did when talking about boxing.
All that being said, striking in MMA will continue to improve, as has and will the wrestling and submission skills of the competitors as training practices improve with experience, and the replacement of the old guard with new, more open minded trainers.
Fighting is fighting. It's really not relative to any number of board games. What matters with this analogy is the intention of the person who made it. Are we really discussing an abstract comparison between two activities as disparate as tabletop games and combat sports? We shouldn't be. Tito's quote means what it means. If you think that Tito was trying to say that MMA and boxing are equally complex but in different unique ways, then I'm not sure what to say. If he'd meant that , then he'd have said it.
And just about everyone already agreed that even just the greater number of moves available makes chess more complex than checkers. This is what Tito had in mind when he made his analogy, but it's wrong. You move your piece, in either checkers or chess, and it's over. Boxing isn't a game like that. You don't just enter the correct combination and watch the results. How quickly can you punch? How well-designed is your stance? What are your attributes, i.e. size, strength, length of limb? Do you have knockout power? How quick are your reflexes?
These are things that totally negate any difference in the number of possible techniques between MMA and boxing, because you see such highly developed skill in boxing. You don't see it in MMA, at least not in striking. The level of grappling is a different story. Whereas guys like Demian Maia can do very well in pure grappling, even Anderson Silva is gonna get clowned by the top tier of Muay Thai or boxing.
Guys like Tito think they understand boxing because they can throw a decent punch. Fact is, most mixed martial artists don't know the first thing about the art of boxing, and I'll stand by that statement.
And yes, Tito is possibly the worst commentator to have ever walked this earth.
__________________
Great White Dope, dating Muay Thai and BJJ; cheating on them both with boxing.
Thanks, I like to add something when I feel I can, and your post is spot on as well to what I was thinking. Fighting is fighting, it is complicated, regardless of rule set.
The basic analogy makes sense, if you allow more techniques, there are more possible combinations, which then creates a more complicated game. For instance, if you assigned different rules of movement to individual checkers pieces, the game would then be far more complicated.
The wrong thinking part of it has always been the conviction that a more varied ruleset immediately results in a more strategic game, which is not true. if the rules of boxing were changed so that both participants were only allowed to jab, an incredibly strategic and varied sport would emerge.
Who said anything about more strategic? We're talking "complex".
If both participants were only allowed to jab, the sport would be just as strategic as it boxing is, and it would be just as strategic as mma is.
But if you admit that jab-only boxing is less complex than boxing, then so is boxing compared to mma. I don't think jab-only boxing would be less complex than boxing though, as different things would be perfected and emphasized, creating a more complex sport in different aspects.
Also, what makes you think that if you limited the playing field of chess to 6x6 instead of 8x8, that an incredibly strategic(complex) and varied game would not emerge? It would, because different playing strategies would be created, and because of the smaller playing field, more advanced tactics would be created in the given playing field, relative to what you see in normal 8x8 chess.
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Boxing is undoubtedly chess. MMA is a game that incorporates that chess, as well many other 'chess' games, so it is easy to use the boxing=checkers, mma=chess analogy, as theoretically MMA includes all of the options of boxing as well as many others. Unfortunately, the variety of options available in MMA clearly cause this NOT to be the case.
Because competitors in MMA need to compete under rules encompassing more than just boxing, they will rarely, if ever, be able to master the complete intricacies of that sport. Since they need to be able to compete in 'MMA chess', they are often only able to gain 'checkers' level ability in other aspects. Boxing fans often see the 'checkers' level ability of boxing shown by MMA competitors, and, since they are lacking the 'chess' level boxing they are used to, feel that MMA is in fact a 'checkers' level sport (at least as far as striking is concerned), effectively making the same mistake as those same MMA competitors and fans did when talking about boxing.
You can say the same about checkers and chess. Similarly to your post, it would be something like:
"Because there's more things to worry about in chess, such as positional advantages, combinations, different moves, the aspect of "pure-thinking-in advance" becomes less important, compared to the ability to estimate efficiently which player is in the advantage at a given situation, and other things. The high amount of potential moves that can be done at any moment, also make the ability to tell which moves to disregard, very important - minimizing the tree of choices to good moves, and then thinking in advance in those becomes more important, than the simple ability to think in advance quickly by itself. Checkers (and other games with fewer moves similar like connect5) in comparison, emphasize pure thinking in advance more, and thus the skill players possess over this quality will be higher, than similarly ranked (equally competitive) players of chess."
That's what you would see from a great connect5 player too - the simple ability to go through potential moves to a greater degree, in less time. This skill is simply more important in connect5 than it is in chess and so a world-class player would be better in this aspect, than a world class chess player. Similarly, a chess player will be better at this skill, compared to a go player (or to a chess variation played on say... 12x8 playing field) of similar competitive level (both great in their respective game).
This is one of the reasons why a computer can easily beat the best connect5 players, beat the best chess player, but it has no chance against the best go players.
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Originally Posted by Discipulus
Fighting is fighting. It's really not relative to any number of board games. What matters with this analogy is the intention of the person who made it.
The intention was definitely offensive. My point is, if someone accidently praises/doesn't offend you, while his intention was to offend you, there's really no argument, besides explaining that what he said isn't even offensive, even though he doesn't realize it. I disagree with people saying that the analogy doesn't make sense, as it does, but it's not offensive.
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Are we really discussing an abstract comparison between two activities as disparate as tabletop games and combat sports? We shouldn't be. Tito's quote means what it means. If you think that Tito was trying to say that MMA and boxing are equally complex but in different unique ways, then I'm not sure what to say. If he'd meant that , then he'd have said it.
And just about everyone already agreed that even just the greater number of moves available makes chess more complex than checkers. This is what Tito had in mind when he made his analogy, but it's wrong. You move your piece, in either checkers or chess, and it's over. Boxing isn't a game like that. You don't just enter the correct combination and watch the results. How quickly can you punch? How well-designed is your stance? What are your attributes, i.e. size, strength, length of limb? Do you have knockout power? How quick are your reflexes?
These are things that totally negate any difference in the number of possible techniques between MMA and boxing, because you see such highly developed skill in boxing. You don't see it in MMA, at least not in striking. The level of grappling is a different story. Whereas guys like Demian Maia can do very well in pure grappling, even Anderson Silva is gonna get clowned by the top tier of Muay Thai or boxing.
Guys like Tito think they understand boxing because they can throw a decent punch. Fact is, most mixed martial artists don't know the first thing about the art of boxing, and I'll stand by that statement.
And yes, Tito is possibly the worst commentator to have ever walked this earth.
Ok, so because there's more moves in chess, it's more complex. Is chess more complex than limit poker too?
The fact that everybody agreed that checkers are less complex than chess is not very important. It depends on how you define the meaning of the word complex. In a sense, it is, in a sense it's not.
As I've said, do you really think that if there were a league were the best connect5 players were to win millions of dollars, that you wouldn't see some insane foresight and thinking in advance? Yes you would, and that's exactly what's happening in league games of connect5. And if you take equally ranked/competitive players of chess / gomoku, they will both be somewhat differently skilled in different thinking skills. As I wrote in my reply to Ayin, in a simpler game like connect5, the pure thinking is relatively more important compared to how important it is in chess, and because of that, you will see more complexity in terms of think-in-advance moves.
I understand exactly what you're saying, but you just fail to realize, that just because a game (whether that's checkers, connect5, limit poker, whatever) has fewer moves, doesn't mean it is less complex. There's less moves, so just like in boxing, a certain part of the game is emphasized more, making it even more complex in that part, compared to chess.
If we compare something like a variation of chess played on a 6x6 playing field, to normal 8x8 chess, the 6x6 variation will not be simpler, because as a result of the smaller playing field, different aspects of the game will be emphasized, and on an equal competitive level, a 6x6 variation player will have more complex skills in given aspects of the game, compared to the 8x8 player.
Again, it all depends on how you define complex-
You guys are comparing the complexity of mma compared to boxing, based on the performance you see in the top fighting leagues there are, in both these sports. But is that the proper way, by which you should decide which is more complex?
Boxing has a tradition. It still has a larger talent pool imo, and there's more competitiveness. Of course you'll see more advanced, complex moves and technical combinations, compared to mma (and I would even say that's true compared to whole mma, not just mma striking).
But to truly compare complexity (independent on how you define complex) of mma to boxing, as sports, you need equally skilled leagues and fighters in their respective sports.
I'm not really disagreeing with anything, except the fact that you guys are willing to admit that checkers are less complex than chess, and yet you don't consider boxing isn't less complex than mma in the same sense.
If you think that boxing is not less complex than mma, then it makes no sense for you to think that a game like poker/connect5/checkers is less complex compared to chess.
