Thinking about a conversation I was having with an acquaintance years ago. He was a friend of a friend and we were talking about food. I forget the exact phrasing but I brought up loving avocados. He said “what’s that?” I was a bit surprised and explained. He responded “OH thats crazy I thought that was one of those made up words”. The statement was like a flashbang I had to contemplate for a few minutes. PERSONAL STORIES ONLY, DO NOT INCLUDE A STATEMENT FROM A CELEBRITY OR POLITICIAN.
My boss, her boss, her boss’s boss, the big boss (who reports to the CEO) and I are on a meeting last week.
At the beginning of the meeting there were some pleasantries being shared. The big boss shared her kid was going to be featured in some large chess tournament
My boss replies “that’s great. What kind of chess does he play?”
I was shocked because there is only one type of chess just like there is only one type of checkers. Yes I know there is 4-d chess, Star Trek chess, and chess game variants. But typically there is only one type of chess.
The big boss answers “You know chess. He is a grand master.”
My boss replies “Grand master. Does that mean he is a performing magician?”
I sat there looking at my screen in shock. My boss had not idea what grand masters are.
The big boss had to explain the chess grand masters to her.
To be fair there’s several ‘types’ of Chess, like Bullet, Blitz, Rapid, etc…, and it’s not uncommon for high-level players to specialize in some of them. But given that they didn’t know what a GM is they probably didn’t know that either.
There’s also chess960, where the positions of the pieces are randomized (with constraints). I like it because it removes memorization of positions as a factor.
That’s interesting, one of the reasons why I don’t like chess at all is that it’s usually a memory game so you either need to memorize lots of plays or you will always lose to someone who has.
It starts out with a handful of standard movements which you have memorized, but the interesting part of the match isn’t about memory at all.
I was giving your boss the benefit of the doubt for the first statement-- you could call the different time controls “kinds of chess”. No idea what would possess someone to say that second one though.