Talk:3082: Chess Position

This is very nearly the core plot conceit of the movie Π (1998). 172.70.130.190 22:36, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I believe you want lower-case Pi: π not Π. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film) --PRR (talk) 22:54, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Unless they're talking about an obscure spinoff where the protagonist becomes weirdly obsessed with the products of sequences of numbers. 172.69.195.180 14:47, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Which, for xkcd, is ... indeed plausible. -- JimJJewett (talk) 15:33, 4 May 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Does anybody know whether Randall has taken up chess as a hobby? 5 of the 82 comics in the 3000s have been related to chess and only 2 in the 2000s were. If so, this should be included in the explanation. BobcatInABox (talk) 23:11, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

3000s? 172.71.190.236 23:40, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh right comic number not decade/millennium. 172.70.43.157 23:41, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't surprise me, there's a three year gap in between chess comics 2465 (May 2021) and 2936 (May 2024), then the aforementioned 5 in 5 months. 172.70.114.251 00:46, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I really suspect that the full explanation has something to do with this: https://www.kasparov.com/the-implacable-logic-of-the-vortex-of-history/ 172.68.7.206 23:34, 28 April 2025 (UTC) Dan

Doubtful, that article was written in 2013, and it is unlikely that Randall came upon it just now to make this comic. Vortex is a general term for something that sucks you in. 172.70.214.66 00:38, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Quite possible, since simple web search on Garry Kasparov reveals the aforementioned article about Kasparov's theories of the "vortex of history'. And there is a PlayStation game called "Virtual Kasparov" which is reviewed on the PlayStation review site Virtual Kasparov on GameVortex.com. So, there are at least two places where Kasparov and the word vortex are connected. The term "vortex" would be very tempting for Randall to exploit for comic effect. Rtanenbaum (talk) 16:15, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I sure hope that it stays as not a real thing Commercialegg (talk) 01:32, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

It might not be, but it's easy enough to make: Train an adversarial network on human chess games. 172.68.22.41 04:56, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

The part about losing the ability to play chess even after building a resistance feels familiar. Isn't that how the Elder Scrolls worked in Skyrim, at least. Even highly trained sages would lose the ability to see for a time after reading an Elder Scroll. And the Oblivion remaster just released the other day... --Ragashingo (talk) 01:54, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

This comic has serious classic SCP energy. I feel like I'd read about this in an old Series I - II article, back when it was still good. Pie Guy (talk) 18:01, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

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Cf Von Goom's Gambit by [Victor Contoski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Contoski) published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1966:

And what of Von Goom's Gambit? Chess is a game of logic. Thirty-two pieces move on a board of sixty-four squares, colored alternately dark and light. As they move they form patterns. Some of these patterns are pleasing to the logical mind of man, and some are not. They show what man is capable of and what is beyond his Take any position of the pieces on the chessboard. Usually it tells of the logical or semi-logical plans of the players, their strategy in playing for a win or a draw, and their personalities. If you see a pattern from the King s Gambit Accepted, you know that both players are tacticians, that the fight will be brief but fierce... Now suppose someone discovers by accident or design a pattern on the chessboard that is more than displeasing, an alien pattern that tells unspeakable things about the mind of the player, man in general and the order of the universe. Suppose no normal man can look at such a pattern and remain normal. Surely such a pattern must have been formed by Von Goom’s Gambit.

I wish the story could end here, but I fear it will not end for a long time. History has shown that discoveries cannot be unmade. Two months ago in Camden, New Jersey, a forty-tliree year old man was found turned to stone staring at a position on a chessboard... 162.158.217.38 (talk) 05:22, 29 April 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"Cf Von Goom's Gambit" https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v031n06_1966-12_PDF/page/n63/mode/2up?view=theater --PRR (talk) 17:46, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

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When you stare into the vortex, the vortex also stares into you, a famous quote from Kasparov. Ralfoide (talk) 17:49, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

If I may, can we find a position that would match Cueball's description? Where he states "every move attacked every piece, yet every piece was also protected,"? That would be cool. 172.69.33.220 (talk) 20:26, 29 April 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Why is karpov mentioned in the explanation? I assume more chess comics as chess has grown in popularity to answer the above question. 172.70.91.160 22:19, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the Karpov part was copied and pasted from the explanation for xkcd:2936. I will delete it unless someone objects 172.69.23.211 00:40, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

I somehow expected this to be a political comic162.158.166.252 03:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't play video games, but I'm pretty sure that this refers to the weird glitches in video games you can get into by choosing wrong moves at just the right point in the game. Players sometimes actively seek out, even if you can't play the game properly from inside the glitch. Of course the idea of entering a glitch while playing a real-life chess game is absurd, but in video games these errors are hard to prevent because it's so easy to overlook some rare but possible situations players could get into. See also [1] Franziska (talk) 10:51, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

This feels like it would open into the House of Leaves. 172.70.130.177

Might've been romanticizing disregard for the meta. "It's funner to not keep score" thinking. Heavy "I don't want to play chess anymore" it's-better-than-chess romanticizing. --172.68.35.116 14:24, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

"The fact that an apparent distortion in the fabric of space can be countered with a single pawn just adds to the absurdity of the situation." - I'm fairly certain the idea is not that this chess position alters reality somehow, but that it is cognitohazardous - i.e. perceiving this particular board configuration interacts with the brain's learned pattern recognition for chess in a deleterious way. An 'adversarial example' for a human brain instead of a neural network. Somdudewillson (talk) 19:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

This reminds me of a story I heard about Kasparov, please feel free to fact check. Kasparov was playing Deep Blue, the top chess playing computer at the time. Apparently, Deep Blue had a glitch, and made a legal but unreasonable move. Kasparov did not know it was a computer mistake, and looked for meaning in the move. Unable to find a reason behind the move, Kasparov was "thrown off his game" suspecting that the computer was trying something he could not figure out. This lead to a stalemate in that game, and ended up being the turning point between the matches between Kasparov and Deep Blue. 104.23.190.20 (talk) 18:43, 1 May 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Personally I don't think it absurd to move the f-pawn in the opening as mentioned in the explanation (Kings gambit, Vienna gambit, Dutch defence, etc. are all respected openings which move the f-pawn early)--Darth Vader (talk) 15:56, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

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There are strong vibes here of the idea of a garden you stumble across but can never return to. I can't put my finger on which though its pretty common in literature and philosophy. Obviously the Garden of Eden and the Secret Garden. But in this case maybe something in Calvino's Invisible Cities or Borges' Garden of Forking Paths? Tim Gent (talk) 07:56, 6 May 2025 (UTC) Tim Gent

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The fractal appearance is a common kind of "form constant" that may be seen/visualized/perceived/imagined in altered states of consciousness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_constant.

In some people, these experiences can be induced by specific, but relatively mundane, situations. A simple doubt can send someone spiraling "into the abyss" or "into the vortex", as happens here.

I doubt the comic is a direct reference to any of the works mentioned above, because this is a fairly general human experience, albeit quite uncommon. The wealth and breadth of references above should prove that point. I suppose it could be a parody of these other works, considering the title text's similarity in theme to a common quote from Nietzsche: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you". It could also be based on Randall's own experience, with some inspiration taken from other works.

An approximate description of what's happening psychologically is offered by Jung, albeit in his own jargon. See paragraph 493-496 (pp. 277-278) of Collected Works, Vol 9, Part 1. https://archive.org/details/collected-works-of-c.-g.-jung-v-9-1-archetypes-and-the-collective-unconscious-c.-g.-jung

To put what Jung says bluntly, this is what a brush with insanity is like. Lesser forms are common, and more severe forms are well-documented. Inevitably the experience is hard to grasp by anyone else unless they've experienced it to a similar degree themselves.

re: 162.158.217.38's comment, sitting motionless and staring blankly at the chessboard is a form of catatonia, which is a possible consequence of these altered states of consciousness. It can also feel like everything is new and unfamiliar, i.e. Jamais vu. Cueball seems to experience the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamais_vu 174.67.238.58 22:23, 10 June 2025 (UTC)