@Molurus said in #1:
> I find it fascinating: nearly everyone on Lichess, after playing a game, offers a rematch. I wonder why that is.
>
Fascinating that you have that experience, I had no idea. In my rating range (1600-1700 blitz 3+2) I think it is 10 or 20% at most. Is it mostly losers that ask or winners that offer or both? (Or draws)? :)
> I like having different opponents... and unless I know my opponent personally, I have no interest in playing the same player twice. I never offer a rematch and I never accept rematch requests.
Like you, I am neither asking for nor offering rematches.. but, for my part, I am often accepting them. And then, in the course of a few rematches, I find myself asking for or offering some rematches myself.
You can have different opponents anytime.. while having a rematch only happens if both players wish. I understand you prefer having different opponents, but why exactly no interest in playing the same player twice? A single game will hardly disclose all there is in one player. I find there is a personal level growing in a series of games, just by chess moves, without any other personal information.
>
> Am I weird in this respect? Any thoughts?
I believe many people enjoy the hit&run/fail&run possibility online because it relieves them from the pressure of personal battles, of supposed 'now let's r e a l l y find out who is better of the two of us'. But the motivation to ask for a rematch need not be seeking revenge, satisfaction and to offer one need not be seeking confirmation of dominance. It can just be a player interested in meeting a player as a person rather than playing 'the world' on the virtual board.
I know both. Usually, I want to play persons as opposed to machines. I'm glad we're here and we're real and also glad it's not getting personal because it doesn't go beyond one game. By not allowing for a second game, personality comes in in facets, exclusively. It may be that the game of chess comes into view more purely if we do not spend time construing a personality out of our opponents moves in a couple or a series of games.
But sometimes, I will agree to making chess a game between two characters again (like you much more often find it OTB). There is no harm in playing chess reading the other chess player. If you play in person in any chess community, it is obvious part of the game. You will less be read in meet&run style, and you will less read. So you will less be found out and find out less your opponents. So this kind of productive feedback we drop, meet&run. But we are playing less the opponent, more the board. And that we can put to use OTB, too, where this learns less intuitively.
