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Hanako appears to be pretty good at chess, I can't remember a reference of her losing a game anyhow, so I was wondering...

How good is she, really?

Hanabros, help me out here.

Pretty sure she loses to Shizune, doesn't she?

I remember her saying that Hanako wasn't really amazingly good at the game, and it seemed she was playing the game more for the memories she associated with it, than the actual game itself.

I could see Hanako losing to Shizune simply because Hanako is very uncomfortable around Shizune and wouldn't be able to focus on the game.

We don't get much of Hanako's actual chess playing, but I did some research on Nc5xb3, which has the virtue of being the title of one of her scenes.

It appears to be a line from a standard Ruy Lopez that goes:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3 d5 8. dxe5 Be6 9. Nbd2 Nc5 10. c3 Nxb3 11. Nxb3 Be7

In this position, White is likely to move his king's knight into the space on d4, with a slight advantage for White.
If we assume Hanako's playing Black, she's certainly a fairly good chess player.
Of the 20 such games on record, two of them were played into that position by Nigel Short.

I wouldn't really call her -good- at chess. She's good at beating Lilly, and I guess that would be enough to beat any apprentice without much effort. Now, put her against a new opponent with a bit more experience, and chances are she'll have a hard time.

Not enough data to say conclusively, but I'd put her above apprentice level. She can obviously beat Hisao with a bit of luck, and easily trumps Lilly, but falls against Shizune. So, methinks she understands the rules and has some experience playing against opponents in the same position, but doesn't study "Chess Theory" or anything. Similar to any game (or skill, really) one can learn to play chess, or they can learn to beat other people at chess. Hanako doesn't seem competitive enough (aside from in some Shimmie art) to really study the latter.

She definitely has some history with chess. After playing it for long enough, one is bound to be half-decent at it... But as I said, Shizune's route seems to imply that she only really plays it down to what I assume are happy memories of her playing it with loved ones before Trogdor came to town.

I'd even wager Lilly only really plays it for Hanako's sake, and puts on a façade whilst she half-heartedly plays a board game that she has little interest in. Just something to keep the two occupied when conversation inevitably runs dry. This'd explain her ability to whoop Lilly's arse most of the time, but catastrophic failure after playing Shizune; someome who actually had the desire to win.

Munch's verdict:
"I'd say she would probably do alright. Probaby beat me."

Not terribly good I imagine, but she is definitely better at it in her own route, I think. At that point she actually strives to improve her technique, rather than just playing out of sentiment as Shizune suggested she does. Assuming she was correct, at least.

In terms of raw strength, in my experience there are two types of chess players: those that have played serious tournament chess and those that haven't.The first group stomps the second group. Since there's no evidence that Hanako has done tournament chess, I'd rate her OK at best. Although she might get really into internet chess later in life.

To me the interesting thing is how she reacts to the various loses. Hanako loses her first game to Hisao, but later she is strong enough that she is beating him more often than not. In other words, her reaction to her loss was to study and get better. That tells us a lot about Hanako's internal strength of character.

With her losses to Shizune: the first one is a very near thing. The interesting thing about that game was that Shizune was able to plan her moves on Hanako's time. This tells me that Hanako played obvious, predictable moves and she has a low-risk style of play. After this loss Shizune unintentionally puts a lot of pressure on Hanako, by calling the base game unimaginative. After this Hanako loses pretty quickly. Hanako and pressure => not so good.

Shizune has an interpretation about Hanako's play, saying that Hanako plays because of emotional attachments and not because of a genuine love of the game. I think this interpretation tells us more about Shizune than Hanako. After all, some positions are simply easy to play than others.

I think she's okay at chess but not that great as seen with against Shizune. She might get better but I think she lacks the desire cuz she only plays it because of emotional attachment and not for competition sake to get better.

How can you tell that Hanako is weaker than Shizune at chess ? They have played against each other only once

Ranyel wrote:How can you tell that Hanako is weaker than Shizune at chess ? They have played against each other only once

Well, you can't really tell from that much, but it's fair to say from what we can see that she's simply okay at chess.
I mean, put it this way.
From what we've seen, she has a 100% lose rate

Munchenhausen wrote: From what we've seen, she has a 100% lose rate

Well what can you really expect from worstgirl

CoffeeDrive wrote:

Munchenhausen wrote: From what we've seen, she has a 100% lose rate

Well what can you really expect from worstgirl

Prepare for War

ogorhan wrote:

CoffeeDrive wrote:

Munchenhausen wrote: From what we've seen, she has a 100% lose rate

Well what can you really expect from worstgirl

Prepare for War

Hopefully not led by Hanako because she clearly sucks at strategy.