arcsonnet

Because there are other players on the other side of the game. They will be at comparable levels of "intense training of a few basic rules" (due to ELO based matchmaking) and they will be trying as hard as they can to beat him.

This comment shows a remarkable disregard for the level of skill required to compete at the highest level.

You don't encounter a lot of autopiloting at the highest level of competition. The people you compete against are trying as hard as they possibly can to beat you, and it takes a tremendous amount of focus and ingenuity to outplay them and win. You gloss over the details of that monumental task with reductive phrasing - but I think you're overlooking a lot.

I was at a party once, talking to a stranger about why I loved programming so much. They said: "Yeah, but at the end of the day, it's _just_ programming, right?". That's how this comment reads to me - "At the end of the day, it's just playing a game, right?"

There's a reason that some people compete at the highest level and some are in the fat part of the bell curve.