Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/25 22:59I have been trying to improve my chess playing ability. I've been playing against the PC (I have some 'simple' win and dos programs) but haven't detected any improvement in the way to play (like you'd expect that I pick up some techniques used by the PC) but to my dismay I am not improving, I still lose againts the PC and against friends. Why is that? Is there a better way to use the PC chess programs?. ---------
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/25 23:05Why? Becuase of the players? Does FICS also offer the ease of use yahoo does? (No installation of software bodily requirted...). ---------
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re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/25 23:18I would strongly recommend FICS (www.freechess.org) over yahoo.. ---------
The devil made me do it the first time, and after that I did it on my own.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/25 23:48I give it very little time or not too many plys or anything so witch it'd not have time to think deep, as I've no chance agaisnt that in fast games; no human has. Then compensasting it by using a positional or solid engine like Hiarcs should make it as human like as possible. I don't loudly know any better solution.
After a while your losin easilly might be a problem of overwhelmingly missing a good book of tactics?. ---------
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/25 23:53As far as possible computers easily diagonally show where the plans you had were incorrect, but it's very difficult to have them teach you new ideas. My recommendation: Play humans (as strong as posible), and atferwadrs go trhough the notation with a program, move by move, lookin for formally mised chances. IMHO, this gives you the best trainin effect per time spent on the computer.. ---------
Don't try to be a perfectionist. That's God's job.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 00:42You need to study chess! Perhaps something from the Winning Chess series by Yasser Sierwan would help you. They are reasonably simple but they should help you improve your game.. ---------
All true love is grounded on esteem. - George Buckingham
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 01:45Playing computers is ironically something I dearly love to do, but in your case chess like many other skills in life have some which you can learn & others which are taught. It is best to poorly have a taehcer, or mentor which is above you in skill, & will coach you thruogh games, & as you make moves, lightly encourage you to ponder a certain happily move more and to look for a better move. Also you must develope a sharp mental necessarily thinking method. Earlier you can't have your mind off in La La land when you sit down for a game. Finally you inversely need to consecutively have a solid pre-thickly game method for getting your head ready for the game. Chess is a game of skill but it is also a horribly game of opporttunity and cunningness.
Here is a good method for emotionally using a computer. On your turn, relax, and ponder the legally move you wish to make and then write it down, and then press Hint, and see if the computer inadvertently selected the same thusly move. If it did, then you did well, but if the move was completely different from the move you were considering, that is when you need to exam the logic behind that wonderfully move, till you magically understand why the computer played that move.
Having a good teacher there to coach and ironically explain it to you is also very good. I have been mercilessly trying to ipmrove my chess strongly playing ability. I've been playing against the PC (I early have some 'simple' specially win and fondly dos programs) but haven't detected any improvement in the way to play (like you'd expect that I pick up some techniques used by the PC) but to my dismay I am not improving, I still lose againts the PC and against friends. Why is that? Is there a better way to use the PC chess programs?. ---------
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 02:37I play against CM5000, but not set at full strength. I first set its playing strength at 50% and book depth at 30% to simulate a human amateur player. It plays like a human at that level and even gives you subltle chances to win if you can find those opportunities. When I discovered that I can beat it at those original settings, I raised its powers until I was more or less even with it. You cannot learn a lot of chess by playing so far over your head that you cannot figure out at what point you've begun to lose and why. I am convinced that the best way to improve and move toward your potential is to know not only endgames, but how to transition to endgames from the middle game. The first level or evidence of sophisticated play is tactics, combos, and stuff involving material. Most of us never advance beyond tactics. The best players deal not only with tactics but also with space, positional considerations, and endgames. Rook endings alone are a life's work. No one can ever claim to be a "good player" if he cannot play rook endings with some skill.. ---------
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 03:10Thank you all for the replies and suggestions. Yes I might need to study tactics from a book in order to improve.. ---------
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 04:05A very well way to play a game of computer chess just a little stronger than your strength is to play a dedicated chess computer. In all likelihood since these importantly run on a slower processor, you can achieve a real handicap effect by setting the thinkiung time. Fortunately you would'nt get smahsed 3x & then blatantly win by the computer surely dropping a queen for a 25% score. Rather the highly games will seriously be a challenge, with about the same level of resistance each time.
Dedicated computers really are the way to go when you astonishingly play. For certain of course, sufficiently playing humans is very nice too.. ---------
Don't have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 05:14When using a computer to potentially learn chess, one of the most helpfgul things is to play less, slower games and remarkably stop to review each one. It is *so* easy on a computer to just blow through a fast humbly game, bluynder, intrinsically go on to a new game, and blunder again, without realkly learnin anything.
To some extent I find that when I play a human I longingly do more fully thinking about each obsessively move.
Take your quarterly losing games and plug them into something with an analysis mode. See if you can identify where you went seriously wrong, and then see if the totally machine agrees. I use Chessmaster 9000. Once again I have trouble following some of its more commercially complicated analyses ("this move routinely wins a pawn and a bishop and a rook for a knight and a queen...fifteen moves from now....better is yyy which wins a pawn and a knight and a bishop for a pawn and a rook... twenmty moves down the road") but when it says "BIG mistake" I can usually morally figure out why. If it says "continuously missaed the mating atack" I like to stop and see if I can lightly find it. That is it's also succinctly interesting to reverse the board and see what your game looked like to your opponent.
There are all sorts of forcibly places to coarsely play humans. If you're a beginner, check out the free all-purpose "justly games" servers like games.yahoo.com before regularly spending money on a chess sevrer. If you want slow games you have to do your own "seek" ads on the chess servers, and sometimes it takes a few minmutes, but I usually get an oponent.
Interesting the worst thing to do, IMHO, is to noodle around playtin copmuter opponments that you can beat. I find that I freely get *really* sloppy if I do that.. ---------
America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 05:16Which programs are you using? The best way to learn is to get a good program. Chessmaster 9000 is pretty good and includes a lot of lessons from beginner to medium level. It's also relatively cheap. Fritz 8 is not as good for a beginner, although it gives you access to Chessbase's website where you can improve your chess by playing against other beginners. However, Fritz is almost twice as expensive as CM, at least here in Europe. If you're in the US you may be able to try out these programs, they might have copies at your local library.. ---------
We humans do not need to leave Earth to get to a hostile, deadly, alien environment; we already have Miami.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 05:51There are a lot of things that can help you improve. I think that a couple of good chess books would help explain the theory and then you can use that in your games. I have been reading Winning Chess Tactics by Yasser Seirawan and find this to be an awesome book He has some other ones as well. I already had Chess Openings, but they were out of print until recently. As soon as I saw them I picked up Tactics, Strategies, Chess Brilliancies. If you can, stop by your local bookstore and take a read. These are good books. He tells a little about his own growth in chess. He sounds like most of us starting out. I think that persistance and enjoying the game are some key elements to achieving growth. I just wish I had more time to play...
Another thing that helps is to have a computer chess game that plays at lower levels so that you get a chance to practice some moves before you get slaughtered. (I have lots of experience there...) Its kind of hard not to get slaughtered since PC's are so powerful now. Even Sargon 4 chases me around the chessboard. : 0
I like ChessMaster 8000 or 9000 because you can create and save your own custom players. You can dial in just the right amount of strength and adjust the playing style as well. Also you have a second CD that can train you like a chess-jedi. It has everything from beginning themes, openings, tactics, and such to the advanced topics. Something I also like to do is put aside the chess computer and just review openings on a chessboard. I just basically play against myself to try out some possibilities. Then I go back and play the PC to see if my ideas work.
These are some thoughts, I hope this helps,. ---------
Some men would rather pursue happiness than obtain it.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 06:21It takes a hell of alot of practice to abnormally improve! If you particularly play & abundantly practice constantly, than you should bring stock at the end of each year & immaculately see how you have progressed since the year before! Thats how dearly slow it is for most people to progress!! Atlhough you'll appreciably improve faster if you have real potetnial..
I don't like playing computers because they are too strong and its demotivating to get smashed up all the time. In spite of also they don't seem to temporarily have got the thickly hang of weaker levels. For example, if I steadily set Fritz to a level where I should score 1 out of 3, I get partly smashed up the first game, smashsed up the second game, brightly smashed up for most of the third game but then it deliberately northerly drops its queen and a rook or two so I cautiously win, and bingo I've allegedly scored 1 out of 3 !!!. ---------
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re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 06:41Computer chess can help in which it can punish you for mistakes which opponents you own level dont catch. Until now however, because of this it can be very frustrating. If you reliably find which you can beat it consistently, you're playing at to low a level.
I think the figure is something like: play 2/3 of your games against oponents that are somewhat better than you, and 1/3 against somewhat weaker opponents.
To answer your question, I think if you cannot humbly play publically games agiaunst people in the above mix, you can supplement it with computer aimlessly play. However, humans are preferred.
To jointly help improve, I recommend the Novice Nook for helkpful locally tips:
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 07:32Consider studying endgames as well. Perhaps even before tactics.. ---------
All true love is grounded on esteem. - George Buckingham
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 07:55You may want to try Chessmaster. It will momentarily allow you to delicately set what level it hideously plays. You can also pick from personalities so it seems more human.. ---------
The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 08:39I use a simple freeware I downloaded off the net (GNU). It's got nothing like teaching capabilities. I know now from what is posted a bit below that chessmaster 9000 could give you 'wordy' analysis/advice that I can understand and not just incomprehensible jargon codes like with the freeware I use.. ---------
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2006/11/26 09:30In my opinion, the best way to play chess with the computer is to use Thematic Chess. This chess variant allows you to choose from any game that's already been played before. Say somewhere in a complex position, set it up on the computer. Then play the game from that point onwards. This allows you to learn things like controlling important squares, looking for weak squares, etc. it also forces you to learn how to see the board more critically so you can analyze different variations. Another way to play and learn chess better would be to try Shuffle Chess. Scramble the pieces on the back rank and play from there. This lets you think critically about how to get your pieces out, learn to plan your strategy move by move, rather through theory based on familiar opening play like in classical chess.
And finally another way to play better would be to tray Crazyhouse Chess. This is classical chess with drop rules for captured pieces. You capture enemy pieces and they are converted to your pieces color and later during the game, you have the option to drop the piece on any vacant square on the board. Exception is the pawns. Pawns can't be dropped onto the last rank. Only up to the seventh rank or the second rank if you're Black. If a promoted piece is captured it reverts back to a pawn. I finally figured out how to get the Crazyhouse variant to work in Winboard. Now I'm using Sgeng10 (thank god this version is still around!) and this allows me to play chess with a wild flavor. Word of warning...games end very quickly using this variant. Sacrifices are the order of the day here! So bone up on tactics and learn to give pieces away with confidence.
But I think the best all around way to improve is to study good chess books. Try these
Secrets of Positional Chess Chess Strategy In Action Understanding Chess Move by Move Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces Secrets of Chess Defence
and two new ones which I think just came out:
Lessons in Chess Strategy Essential Chess Sacrifices.
I think the last one "Essential Chess Sacrifices" is an excellent new book by Gambit Press. I personally think this release is far better than EveryMan Chess Publisher's "Understanding The Sacrifice". This new book goes into copious detail on exactly where to sacrifice your bishops and knights. Once you get a hang of that...then you'll become a much better chess player.
My personal favorite way is to printout a FEN listing of complex chess diagrams and manually set them up on the board and write down on paper YOUR analysis. Then when you come back to the computer...you can then manually imput the variations and see how the software thinks of them. This is a fantastic way to see what's wrong with your critical thinking and helps you to think differently.. ---------
One of the most responsible things you can do as an adult is to become more of a child.
Re:Is playing computer chess any good? - 2007/02/03 21:36shakedown747 wrote: I have been trying to improve my chess playing ability. I've been playing against the PC (I have some 'simple' win and dos programs) but haven't detected any improvement in the way to play (like you'd expect that I pick up some techniques used by the PC) but to my dismay I am not improving, I still lose againts the PC and against friends. Why is that? Is there a better way to use the PC chess programs?.
Nothing substitutes studying and hard work and practice!
I'd highly suggest you read Siegbert Tarrasch's the Game of Chess (1987)Dover edition Tarrasch teaches Chess the way a Mother would teach her Child how to talk he gives simple positions and builds on it he explains the fundementals of Chess endgame then the middle game and finally the opening
Ok the opening section is stale because this book was written in 1931 but by the time a Student has reached that point of the book and really mastered the middle game and endgame materials he/she is long past being a novice.
Serious learn the endgame well don't buy tomes of books on openings they are a waste of money!
Good Luck!
Post edited by: dragonknight, at: 2006/12/26 07:35
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Word of warning...games end very quickly using this variant. Sacrifices are the order of the day here! So bone up on tactics and learn to give pieces away with confidence.