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gnohmon wrote on Sat, Jul 20, 2002 02:56 AM UTC:
Capablanca spent his time at Columbia U, NY, studying endgames. He was
neither untutored nor intuitive by the time he was worlf champion.

In order to understand the Capa style, you must realize that the 'simple'
moves conceal extreme calculation. The secret is that he would by
preference choose one of the several moves that looked 'simple', and make
the choice by complex tactical thought. 

When was Capa 'intuitive'? Perhaps when he won a match from the Cuban
champion at the age of 3 months (or whatever age it was).

The problem with Chess as a game played by champio-class players is that
although it is beyond human abilities to play the game 'perfectly',
perfection seems to be so near, and calculation is 99% of the game.

The good thing about Go as opposed to Chess (and, as a fairly strong
player of both, I can also argue the good things of Chess versus Go, but
that's for some other day) is that it is so far beyond human abilities to
play 'perfectly' that (at least at a non-championship level) intuition
outweighs calculation (but calculation is important and necessary).

At a championship level, with the looooong time limits, Go is too much
calculation and too little strategy too little intuition; except perhaps
for players such as Sakata or Go Sei Gen; or Otake, perennial championship
of fast Go.

Amateurs do not play Go so slowly as the champions, which makes intuition
more important. Likewise, blitz Chess favors both the extremely fast
calculator and the player with good intuition (and the fastest calculator
I ever saw and the most intuitive player I ever saw were both the same
person -- Bobby, of course).

Time limits do a lot to redress the balance between intuition and
calculation. Labourdonnais versus MacDonald with clocks? No contest.

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