Friday Night
So there I was at the stroke of midnight, contemplating the four-knights opening by the dim glow of a flashlight, ears popping under the extra five pounds per square inch of pressure.
On Friday night, Dan (who you may remember as the Robot9000 bot author), Elizabeth and I invented midnight underwater speed chess.
A nice feature is the naturally-enforced clock. You have as much time per move as you have air in your lungs. Protip: don’t use a glass set.
Now we just need to combine it with chess boxing.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:56 am
We never did finish the second game!
May 19th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Underwater speed chess boxing - sounds fun.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:03 am
> We never did finish the second game!
Can we add “insufficient oxygen” to “insufficient material” in the draw rules?
May 19th, 2008 at 3:04 am
Shame the actual photos didn’t come out. We’ll bring more lights when you two go to finish the second game.
Mostly I’m put out that now we don’t get to show off the floating stuff we rigged for the purpose.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:06 am
How would one weigh the pieces down?
May 19th, 2008 at 3:07 am
I know people that play cards 10m under water. A nice training if you are somewhat experienced with apnoe diving :)
May 19th, 2008 at 3:13 am
I would think a good magnetic chess board would be good for underwater chess.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:13 am
We were using a glass set I had, so the pieces were heavy enough to stay properly, as long as a stray stream of water didn’t hit the board.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Wow. If I actually played chess, this would be amazing.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Great idea, I should try that as soon as I go back to Guadeloupe !
May 19th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Wow. That would just be awesome all around. Good apnea training. Where in Boston are you doing this?
May 19th, 2008 at 3:41 am
There’s a version some people I know play that is drunk chess boxing–drink a round (booze or water-equivalent), a round of chess, then a round of boxing. Not sure how well that would mix with underwater speed chess though before turning into speed chess boxing drowning.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:56 am
i used to have a heavy-as-hell, hand-carved marble chessboard that i bought at a yard sale for forty bucks. it was smashed to shit by a bunch of idiots at the boarding school i used to go to. it would have been perfect.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:49 am
I read it wrong at first, thought you meant midnight underwear speed chess. I thought, hot.
Oh and what the hell at the CAPTCHA for this comment… how the hell do I write 17 3/4? Seventeen and three quarters? That’s the longest CAPTCHA ever…
May 19th, 2008 at 4:50 am
I read it wrong at first, thought you meant midnight underwear speed chess. I thought, hot.
Oh and what the hell at the CAPTCHA for this comment… how the hell do I write 17 3/4? Seventeen and three quarters? That’s the longest CAPTCHA ever… Going to try it. If this posts twice you’ll know why.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Protip 2: don?t use a wooden set.
this would work well with my brother; he doesn’t play chess but does dive whereas I do play chess but can’t hold my breath for very long.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Hmmm… very eeenteresting. I suppose that this disqualifies chess computers, unless their operators do the diving. Still, even then, not as fun. Now, computers in chess boxing, that’s where the fun is: one of those US Army killbots that went crazy in Iraq, armed with the thinking power of deep blue v. Gary Kasparov, armed with an M16.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Boxwood (the wood that is most commonly used for chess pieces) is one of the few woods that is denser than water, so that you probably -could- use wooden pieces.
I, however, would counsel making your own set, designed to withstand at least mild currents (whatever the equivalent of “aerodynamic” would be underwater), and made of steel or something appropriately heavy.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:36 am
David Blaine would own at this (recently held his breath for 17 minutes or something)
May 19th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Yeah, by the time he finishes his turn the person on the top forgets what the board looks like and all hell breaks loose ;)
May 19th, 2008 at 7:26 am
*Sighs* Sadly I can neither play chess or swim so even though this does sound like fun for me i is out of the question…*pouts*
May 19th, 2008 at 8:15 am
It’s never too late to learn, Jekka_Lynn =)
May 19th, 2008 at 8:55 am
If this is another case of life copying xkcd, i wonder just how many drownings this comic will cause…
Underwater-chess responsibly, everyone!
May 19th, 2008 at 8:58 am
What exactly is this apnea that people have mentioned (I assume it is a breath control technique)? Any tips other than materials? I’ll bet this would be great training for mental chess as well, considering that you would have to visualize it more often than you would actually see it, considering the trips up, down, and time spent recovering/breathing.
I wonder if dolphins can learn chess?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Or you should build an underwater rollercoaster (and I don’t mean one that travels beneath water, but one that actually goes THROUGH water) and combine this sport with your chess photo.
http://xkcd.com/249/
CAPTCHA: that Kenney. Indeed.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:11 am
maybe they could, but movement would be hard, unless you used pieces that were REALLY heavy, or maybe had a big board. assuming they would move with their noses, wouldn’t the pieces be to close together?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:55 am
This is the best idea I’ve heard today.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:16 am
This is perfect…
Unlike those automated can openers, which although bring me glee at the potential laziness, bring about my fear of an ever possible robotic rebellion… if the Republicans win this election, I will need to work on a Robot Plan, and likely a Zombie Plan…
Back to the subject…
If the chess pieces illuminate, a lot easier to play…
May 19th, 2008 at 10:46 am
midnight underwater chess, alternating rounds of one on one waterpolo in between, 1 minute break.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Am I being retarded in that I went out of my way to do histogram equalization on the image so I could actually see it?
May 19th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Apnea (or apnoea) is the cessation of breathing. Most people know the term from “sleep apnea”, which is when a sleeping person ceases breathing for short periods during the night.
Apnea diving is an extreme version of “free diving”, or diving without any breathing apparatus. Apneists can hold there breath for extreme lengths of time and can dive to great depths with training.
My re-CAPTCHA word: oriental $180,162
The re-CAPTCHA project must be digitizing some accounting ledger or something. For those who don’t know, the second “word” in the re-CAPTCHA comes from a project that is digitizing library books. You are helping to proof an OCR program that is having trouble. http://www.captcha.net/
May 19th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Ugh, “their” breath. Not “there” breath
May 19th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Slightly OT, but-
I’ve never been impressed with the idea of chessboxing. I mean, alternating rounds of boxing and chess? There HAS to be a better way to fuse the two games… so here’s my idea:
The chess game is played by individual boxers standing in for the pieces, like the “live chess” played at so many lame renaissance fairs (or Battle Chess, for the slightly-less-geeky). The difference would be that captures are not automatically awarded, but are decided by a one-round boxing match between the two “pieces” involved, with the losing boxer removed from the board. The chess players for each side take the role of the king, so they have to be decent boxers as well.
The possibility of losing a capture would change the strategy of the game substantially. Also, you would need to decide which of your boxers plays which piece, requiring you to match up different skill levels during play, and keep track of each player’s fatigue as the game goes on.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
well the idea about chess boxing is physical stress combined with mental stress right? so why don’t you just make the chess pieces really big, this will serve two purposes the bigger bases will allow them more stability, and the in creased surface area and distances will require you to swim with them pushing against water. You could make moving pieces subject to water polo rules (kings pawn to D4 intercepted by a diving tackle).
May 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
You know those “World’s Strongest Man” competitions?
I’d like to see those guys play chess, and have to lift 450 lb. chess pieces to move them.
…underwater?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
i love this concept! when i was a little girl i used to have the classic imaginary tea party with the underwater twist! couldn’t get any of my friends to attend, but that’s cool… that’s where the imaginary came into play, right?
some things are just that much more fun when you do them underwater!
May 19th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
This is awesome! But not quite perfect.. Well, as perfect as human beings
I feel bad that I’m the first person to point this out, but if you don’t trust the person you’re playing with, there isn’t much of a way to tell if they cheated, unless you go down with them each time. Otherwise, perfect. I used to springboard dive, and would lounge on the bottom of the pool all the time. Just like if I were on the beach..
May 19th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
For the more patient (and those with substantially better lung capacity), there’s always midnight underwater speed Go. Though I guess the “speed” thing defeats the purpose of playing Go.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Midnight Underwater Charades!
May 19th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
For the LoTR fans here… midnight underwater tig?
May 19th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I’ll be more properly impressed when someone invents underwater monopoly.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Eew, pounds per square inch :<
For anyone who was curious but not quite enough to work it out, the chess board is about 3.5m down (or 1/64 furlongs for you Americans)
May 19th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I think you need to see this…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joefxd/2439632886/in/set-72157604423778692/
May 19th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
There was a monopoly game put on by the New England Divers Club like this. They somehow got Parker Brothers engineers to create a 42 pound waterproof set. All the pieces had metal in them, and the board itself was very heavy and magnetic. Once news of this had spread other groups of scuba divers set out to break the record they set for longest underwater monopoly marathon. The record holders were a group that played a 100 hour marathon that was briefly interrupted because of a possible thunderstorm. But they had scuba equipment. What would
Citation:
Brady, Maxine. The Monopoly Book. 1st. New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1974.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
so it’s one breath per move then?
Would suck playing against a experienced diver wouldn’t it?
Or a dolphin.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I knew a lead chess set would come in handy for something other than firing it out of a cannon, now to obtain the pool
May 19th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Wow… How about underwater twister? That would be so much fun!
PS: Captcha was “Strip Golfer”! That is so disturbing…
May 19th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Great idea! It reminds me of the time my buddies invented bingochesquerships, the hybrid game on the century!
May 19th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Bingochesquerships? Sounds like something I’d play!
CAPTCHA: souht string. Souht isn’t even a word, is it?
May 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I can’t wait for someone to post pictures of this. It sounds like a lot of fun.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Actually, glass chess pieces with LEDs and button cell batteries would look awesome underwater at night. I’d do red and blue. Some plastic cover could be used to waterproof the circuits.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I hate to double post, but I just remembered my experience with underwater tug of war, and it was awesome. Had 8 people wearing rocks on ropes around their necks to hold them down on the floor.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
get a board that floats and get a big piece of plywood to hold it underwater…UPSIDE DOWN!!!
then you could have upside down midnight underwater speed chess.
way more fun!!!!!!!!!!!
May 19th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Midnight underwater anything would probably be fun. Still, this really makes me wish I was any good at chess.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
i might try this with the swim team. or the chess team.
NO SKREW THAT: make a new team
May 20th, 2008 at 12:24 am
You have as much time per move as you have air in your lungs… (except) in bed.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:35 am
This would be excellent with some kind of waterproof light up board, and perhaps light up pieces as well. For getting the pieces to stay without being weighed down, I would want snap on pieces or something.
This is interesting. Now all I need is a modified chess set and a friend that likes chess!
May 20th, 2008 at 1:08 am
“I didn’t have a solid gold chess set in Finchley, did I?”
@micksam7: good luck for us they don’t have hands eh?
May 20th, 2008 at 3:17 am
So, assuming that picture is to scale, the extra pressure is at least like 15 psi, since I remember from scuba diving that one atmosphere is about equal to 33 feet deep of water, and they look like they’re at least 40 feet deep. Also, one atmosphere is about 14 psi.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Underwater yahtzee with lead dice?
Rules:
You must roll from above the surface.
You must dive to read the dice and make your move in one breath.
You must surface first to yell yahtzee first!
oh hell, i don’t really remember the rules for dry yahzee…
May 20th, 2008 at 10:01 am
@Pascal: Skip the lead dice. I’d rather see a dice that was heavy enough to float towards the bottom of the sea, but light enough to be taken away by currents and what not. That’d make for an entertaining game of Yatzy.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Regarding appropriate chess sets for underwater chess, my industrial themed set would probably be pretty stable.
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk93/ewige_photos/IMG_0403.jpg
The kings alone weigh a pound or two.
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk93/ewige_photos/IMG_0398.jpg
May 20th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
@annyoingfactcorrectorguy:
If it’s to scale like you said, and you think they’re 40 feet down, that’d make those people 12-15 feet tall.
It looks more like they’re at the bottom of a pool.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:22 am
this sounds like a lot of fun.i wish i could do that
May 21st, 2008 at 3:00 am
as both a free-diver and a (very poor) chess player, i feel this would be awesome, if only i could find an opponent. :(
why does it have to be at midnight though? and what stops someone from spending 5 mins on the surface recovering before every move?
also who won the game you played?
May 21st, 2008 at 4:20 am
An expansion on the chess boxing idea….Everybody likes watching people in rigid unaccommodating papier mache suits right? Why not watch them FIGHT in said suits!
My moneys on the pawn because its small enough the boxers in the pawns will have a mobility advantage ;)
Why do i do this to myself.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:23 am
A magnetic chess set makes this a little easier, plus if you’re finding it a little too easy you can invert it, stick the board to the bottom of a small boat.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:34 pm
sounds dangourous GET MONKEYS TO DO IT FIRST!!
BWA HA HA HA HA
May 21st, 2008 at 10:47 pm
[...] I challenge you to a duel. For serious. http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/05/19/friday-night/ [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Midnight?
That makes it hard, unless you own a pool. It could still be acomplished during the day in a public pool.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
There’s something more fun than chess boxing: electric chess. The stronger player gets a tazer-like (but not as harmful) device at the upper arm, with which he must make his moves. Every time a piece is put off the game, the amperage increases.
Youtube “Stromschach”.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 am
>>Will Says:>>For anyone who was curious but not quite enough to work it out, the chess board is about 3.5m down (or 1/64 furlongs for you Americans)
For us Americans, we prefer the equation:
3.5m ? 11.5′
Furlongs are only really used in racing (horses).
Cheers. =P
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:37 am
Arg. “?” was an ‘approximately equals’ (≈) symbol.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
This is so my sport. I was never excellent at chess, and never spectacular at apnea, but I’m reasonable at both.
And your average pool is about 11.5′ or 12′ deep in the deep end, based on personal experience. So that makes perfect sense.
And Dauthi, I have a friend that gives all speeds in furlongs per fortnight.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
“You have as much time per move as you have air in your lungs.”
No, you have as much time per move as you have oxygen in your bloodstream. Hyperventilation for 5 minute turns!
May 26th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
New rule for geohashing: if the location is underwater, a midnight chess tournament is mandatory for all participants.
May 28th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I COMPLETELY AGREE with David!! hopefully when I get back home (in a couple weeks, in Missouri) I’ll be able to get to some of the geohashing spots..
also, I’m kinda seeing a couple issues with this.. underwater, unless you really took your time, it would be very difficult to move a piece without knocking 3-4 other pieces over when you grab it, just because you’d be a little off balance while underwater… the obvious fix to this kinda takes away from the free-diving aspect of it.. let me explain what I would think the perfect way to play would be..
a small boat/canoe/anything that could work (wouldn’t be hard to make), with enough buoyancy to hold at least 1 10 lb rock, that the player would grab when they were ready for their turn, allowing them a quick decent to the bottom, and the extra stability when they got there to allow for easy movements (any swimmer knows, that to stay steady underwater, you either have to blow out all your air, or grab onto something), the thing at the surface that holds the rock would also be used as something for the player at the surface to hold onto, so they didn’t have to swim to shore with each move.. the only real problem to this, would be the painstaking task of lugging the rock back up to the surface… but then again, that would REALLY make you want to win as quickly as possible, cuz I really doubt your legs would last very long :\
well… wait… if it was a boat, it wouldn’t be hard to attach a line to the rock, so that the player could just leave it there, and the other player (in the boat) could pull it back up when the player came to the surface…. but again, this kinda takes away from the whole free-diving thing…
any ideas?? I think we should come up with a “set” way to play… well.. crap… if the “meeting” is going to be IN a lake.. it’d be practically impossible… after you set up the board even, the dirt would be completely mixed in with the water… you’d have to wait a couple hours between moves to let the sediment settle before you could even SEE the pieces again :( such a waste… guess this is a ‘pool’ thing then…
sorry for the huge post…
-Mason
CAPTCHA: Advanced Penalties
:D I’m imagining (can’t think of the name of them) one of those wayyyyyy over-complicated machines, that at the end, executes the prisoner :\ fun fun…
May 28th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Mason, you’re probably referring to Rube Goldberg machines.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
that sounds right xD
May 31st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Another underwater game that my friend and I invented was Underwater Rock Paper Scissors. You play RPS underwater, and the winner gets to go up for air. Then the winner goes back down and plays another round. The game is over when someone has to come up for air.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
For anyone who’s interested in making their own set, I just made one out of a cheap plastic set I had, using hotglue, sand, a nail, 16 nuts, and 16 screws. The plastic pieces were hollow, so for the pawns I filled them with hot glue and dropped a screw into the center for extra weight, then plunked the finished pawn into a bucket of water (both to test if it sank and to cool down the hotglue) I packed sand into the other pieces, capped the tamped down sand off with hotglue, then dropped a nut into the hotglue, and plunked that into the bucket as well.
I’m still working on the board (unfortunately, the one that came with the set was cardboard, which isn’t to conducive to underwater play). I’m thinking aluminum with spray painted squares.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I don’t think this has been addressed yet, but what is the penalty for not going before you run out of breath? Losing your turn? Because that’s sometimes beneficial in chess to not have to move.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
You lose the game, just like in real timed chess.
Captcha: Bombay Madison
June 4th, 2008 at 1:38 am
I have recently tried this using my old marble set and the pool at my university. While it worked well at first, I quickly noticed a slight problem in moving the water to stay down there and how it moved the pieces. I am currently building a plastic (weighted by a metalloid) version that snaps into place, which should fix this problem.
Also, debating the introduction of LEDs into it to see in the dark
Will post picture when I have some.
Thanks
Robert Barga
http://whalertly.blogspot.com/
June 4th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I wouldn’t call it speed chess personally given that speed chess is normally less than 5 minutes per game. Even lasting 30 seconds underwater puts you above that,
June 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I am going to add this onto the list of things to do the next time I’m swimming in a lake at midnight.
June 7th, 2008 at 4:00 am
If you’re losing, it’ll be really easy to accidentally tip the board over. No?
http://death-sentences.blogspot.com/
June 9th, 2008 at 3:45 am
@annoyingfactcorrectorguy, OP
that’s 14.7 psi.
ex.
1-33′=29.4psi
34-66′=44.1psi
etc.
you can do the math and come up with an exact amount, but for decompression/lung squeeze purposes, it’s all the same. to make it better for people who suck at apnea, you can use a SpareAir tank(google).
June 12th, 2008 at 8:37 am
This reminds me of something we used to play at my old chess club: Chess bowling. I’m not going to give the exact rules here, but basically the objective is to knock down the opponent’s king. I’m not sure that would work very well underwater, tho.
Some friends of mine used to play “blindfold” chess, i.e. keeping all the moves in their heads. They also used this technique to play five-in-a-row (or something; I don’t remember what is the standard number, so let’s say n-in-a-row, where n is an integer constant), sometimes in 3D. I suggested that they extend it to 4D or more. Apparently that was too much for them to keep in their heads. Sissies.
Come to think of it, I would love to have a formula for the most suitable n as a function of the number of dimensions…
Also, for the real enthusiasts: Midnight underwater D&D.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Very Good.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Thanks
June 13th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Magnetic weighted chess set!
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j152/PodHead3789/photo.jpg.
Great for underwater speed chess and the top comes un-tied so you can carry it on a rollercoaster.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Sounds awesome, but no one pass out because you’re hyperventilating to get more oxygen in your blood ;) It temporarily botches your body’s ability to recognize how much is really in there, and you can faint before the compulsion to breathe drives you to the surface. Two heavy breaths, maximum, is what the swim team always told me.
I suck at chess, but I’d totally do this.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
“David Blaine would own at this (recently held his breath for 17 minutes or something)”
Doesn’t he use a transparent tube out the corner of his mouth though?
July 5th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Combining it with boxing would be easy! Just bring a pair of pool noodles and beat the crap out of each other every few minutes!
July 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Chessboxing Champion Crowned!
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23979955-23109,00.html
July 10th, 2008 at 2:38 am
@binaryb: the word you’re looking for here is aquadynamic.
captcha: hackman power
yes please?
July 16th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
In case you all were wondering, this set of comments is 58.16% serious.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Years ago, me and my friends came up with funny skit that involved sports announcers for “Underwater Basket Weaving” and “Full-Contact Chess”. It’s nice to see you’ve taken it one step further.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:21 am
Chess Teacher pieces filled with quickcrete sink just fine.
My friend and I used a mat made of some sort of vinyl floaty material as our chess board, using sharpie to line and grid. It had some waves in it when we weighed it down with the bricks, but the chess pieces stayed on anyways. We only played 3 1/2 feet under, and at 4:00 PM, but maybe next time we’ll move to the deep end (only 6 ft).
If you’re really struggling to stay under, only then might you move a piece enough for it to matter. Then you can just put it back.
Success!
timberland is
is what? Damn you captcha!
August 8th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Live chess boxing ought to be an Easter egg on Wii sports.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:04 am
This sounds great! If only I could get over my phobia of being underwater. ;)
It’s so cool to see someone come up with a new, novel idea, and then see what directions others take it in (the underwater chess boxing ideas, people’s chess boards, etc.) Also, I’m sure it would be hard to play in a river, or one of those ‘endless pools’ that seem to be advertised in lots of magazines. Or the ocean, for that matter, lol. Maybe the pieces shoud be similar to the “weebles” toys, which are egg-shaped and can’t be knocked over. Something would have to be done to keep them from scooting around, however, but not always falling over might help a bit.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting idea and the cool comments. =)
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
thanx for nice share