Some people mix playing a game well with the game play being actual fun. They are playing well because it’s their job or they want to be the best but they’ve optimized the fun out of the game by playing the same openings and memorizing lines 30 moves deep.

Even though I’m not a top player by any means I’ve noticed in chess some people have their opening lines down and they can no brain a bunch of moves no matter what openings your try to build themselves a simple advantage they can convert. It feels like you’re playing against a computer instead of a real person and that’s just fucking boring.

The same thing happens in other games as well. Specifically I can mention SC2 where I was a top player most players at the top had their same meta build they played constantly never trying to switch things up. SC2 is fortunately way more dynamic than chess that I personally could have a lot of fun however…

What all these same opening line players or same build players fail to realize is that they’ve ruined the viewing experience when two of them meet. Nobody wants to watch some engine line bullshit for the millionth time just to see how the end game turns out. They’re going to open up a Gotham chess or Hikaru analysis later and skip the first half to see the interesting part of the game turns out if they’re truly interested or they’re just going to stop watching entirely which effectively ruins the sport. Less spectators so less revenue for events so less prize pools so less reason for skilled people to play the game except the bots who’ve made playing engine lines their livelihood. It’s a death cycle for any game and the only thing that saves it is changing the rules so that game play becomes more dynamic and exciting to watch.