Game Analysis?

Evening all,

Is ther anywhere on t'internet that will allow me to analyse my own games and will point out particularly good/bad moves?

I'm thinking of something semi-automated

Originally posted by BaronVonChickenpants
Evening all,

Is ther anywhere on t'internet that will allow me to analyse my own games and will point out particularly good/bad moves?

I'm thinking of something semi-automated

Love the name! 🙂

I'm not aware of any online programs for doing that, but a decent free one for download to your PC is the Arena 2.0.1 program. The setup version comes with a handful of engines ready to go, and the program can do a somewhat automated analysis of your games. (Go to the "Engines - Automated analysis" menu.)

The Arena home page is:
http://www.playwitharena.com/

And the link to the setup program is:
http://www.playwitharena.de/download/arena_201_setup.exe

Edit - By the way, Arena should be ready to run in its default configuration, but it's highly configurable if you want to spend the time to do that.

Hi.

Post one of your games on here.

You will get some very good human advice, most of the lads know what
they are talking about and there are some very experienced players
on here.

Had a very quick scam through your finished games.
(we cannot discuss the ongoing ones).

You are still at the clumsy stage where you let a piece go for nothing.
This will pass the more you play. We all had to go through that stage.

Too many pawn moves in the opening. Move the e & d pawn to let
your pieces out and CASTLE.

Look at the game and notes in the first post on Thread 110152

Seen a few ideas you went for back-fire. Again this will get ironed
out with play. You have the ideas but never stopped to consider your
opponents threats.

This is a good sign, you like to do things and have ideas/plans.

Try not to leave unprotected pieces in your position. Most good players
will spot them and plan tricks against them. Your job is too look
for unprotected pieces and plot against them.

Great nickname.

Yeah, greenpawn's advice is good. Engines are good at spotting any tactical mistakes you make, but you have to know how to interpret what the engine is telling you. And engines are terrible at (or incapable of) explaining strategic ideas.

Thanks for the feedback and links. I'll check out Arena. I dont really remember much about those finished games, they were from my first stint on this site. However, when I've finished one of thy current games I'll run it through Arena and see what it says.

Perhaps I'll post it here as well. I do struggle sometimes with a lack of direction, especially once the opening handful of moves are made.

BVC

"I dont really remember much about those finished games"

Play through them again - it's a really good way to learn. Ask yourself what other moves you could have made.

dear brothers of the chess board, i have just fluked a game, going over it by computer has proved futile, for there are so many mistakes that it makes me wonder what was i thinking? the game is interesting for there were many missed opportunities and a premature and in my opinion an unsound try for a combination by black which ultimately led to a downfall, although not directly, any thoughts would really be appreciated. please be warned, the game is not pretty and the win was as far as i can determine, a fluke - kind regards in advance robbie.

Is there a brief guide to Arena anywhere..?

I managed to load one of my old games in, hit the auto-analyse button and it went away thinking for about 15 minutes.

I'm either completely missing where it's telling me about the game or I'm not understanding something.

I'd appreciate some help with it.

Thanks,

BVC

Originally posted by BaronVonChickenpants
Is there a brief guide to Arena anywhere..?

I managed to load one of my old games in, hit the auto-analyse button and it went away thinking for about 15 minutes.

I'm either completely missing where it's telling me about the game or I'm not understanding something.

I'd appreciate some help with it.

Thanks,

BVC

There's not a comprehensive guide, but there is the Help menu. It typically gives a brief explanation of features. I usually read the help info first, then if I still don't quite understand it all, I'll just play around with the settings until it makes sense.

Your problem might be that you don't have an engine loaded. First make sure you've actually loaded an engine from the engine list. You might even want to play a test game against the engine to verify that the engine is working.

Once you've loaded the PGN file of your game that you want to analyse, you need to choose all of the applicable settings for the automated analysis in the various tabs in the analysis window. (Time per move, etc. You can just start off by having it spend 5 seconds per move, but you can also have it analyse x plies deep for each move.) You can choose to have it record the results in a log file and report file which you can later view with a text editor like the Windows Notepad or Wordpad. If you've done everything correctly, when you hit the start analysis button, you should see it stepping through the moves in the game and adding some ealuation info in the move list.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
dear brothers of the chess board, i have just fluked a game, going over it by computer has proved futile, for there are so many mistakes that it makes me wonder what was i thinking? the game is interesting for there were many missed opportunities and a premature and in my opinion an unsound try for a combination by black which ultimately led to a d 8. d5 Nd4 39. Kh1 g5 40. Re3 Rh4+ 41. Kg1 Ne2+ 42. Rxe2 Qxe2 43. Re1 1-0[/pgn]

Well ~I've just had a look at this game up to move 6 and this raises my first question 6.d3...it's not a bad move at all but I wonder if there is anything more active to avoid the game becoming so closed and crowded.

6.Nc3 ... defends the e pawn and gets the knight out into the game. But it does prevent the move c3 which might be good to prepare d4 and would help keep the c6 knight out of d4

6. Re1 it defends the e pawn, Centralizes the rook and doesn't prevent c3

6. c3 Opens the d1 - a4 diagonal for the light sq bishop, prevents black playing Nd4, prepares the move d4....it does take c3 away from the queens knight bit I think d2 might be a good square for this knight in this game.

But it does leaves the e pawn en-prise so would have to evaluate just how bad 6.c3 ..Nxe4 7.Re1 would be...would the extra development, the extra tempo as the knight retreats and the space be worth a whole pawn.

However I don't know this opening so it could well be that 6.d3 is the best and strongest move here..


9.h3 seems unnecessary and weakening. I like 9.a3, 9.Nd5 and 9.Bd5 here.

9.a3 is not so committal or as active as the other moves but it does make a neat a space to drop the light bishop back into should they send the knight after it, and it controls b4 too stopping any knights from coming in and preventing black playing b4.

Also I very much like but can't decide between 9.Nd5 and 9.Bd5, Moving the knight into the d5 whole could lead to a knight exchange with you recapturing with the Bishop sort of pinning the now undefended c6 knight.

Moving the Bishop into d5 and they might be tempted to take it with the knight allowing you to recapture with Knight...not a bad place for a knight at all...and just maybe in a crowded game a well placed knight will be stronger than the light sq bishop.


... .will chug along to the next position to catch my eye later. It's quite an instructive game, throws up some interesting question....imho

Originally posted by Mahout
Well ~I've just had a look at this game up to move 6 and this raises my first question 6.d3...it's not a bad move at all but I wonder if there is anything more active to avoid the game becoming so closed and crowded.

6.Nc3 ... defends the e pawn and gets the knight out into the game. But it does prevent the move c3 which might be good to prepare d4 and wo my eye later. It's quite an instructive game, throws up some interesting question....imho

thanks Mahout, your thoughts are most appreciated, infact, i don't know why i should play the Ruy, i have no idea of any of its principles, beyond move 3.Bb5, gulp!

i felt at the time my worst move was 38.d5, i almost set my monitor alight in a sacrificial frenzy to the God of stupidity. the whole reason that i played d4 previously was to allow space for my rook to go to d3 and prevent the knight from coming in! actually i should have given the exchange back and taken the knight when it was on f5 ages ago, anyhow hopefully we live and learn!

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
thanks Mahout, your thoughts are most appreciated, infact, i don't know why i should play the Ruy, i have no idea of any of its principles, beyond move 3.Bb5, gulp!

i felt at the time my worst move was 38.d5, i almost set my monitor alight in a sacrificial frenzy to the God of stupidity. the whole reason that i played d4 previously was to allow s ...[text shortened]... hange back and taken the knight when it was on f5 ages ago, anyhow hopefully we live and learn!

The good news for you is that a lot of us also don't know the Ruy beyond move 3. 😵

I agree, it looks like an interesting game. I ran it through Arena (I'm sure you ran it through Infinity, also.) No major tactical mistakes by either side until move 24. (Not bad!)

I agree with Mahout, 6.d3 did seem a little passive to me, although I don't know much about the Ruy either. (Probably better just to develop the queen's knight in this case.) Also, I couldn't figure out why either of you played h6 (h3) in moves 7 and 9. (Black could have just castled if he was worried about the white knight plopping itself on g5.) Your h3 move did provide luft for the king, but I think it was too early in the game to worry about that. And you should have known that 10.Bd5 might lose a tempo. 🙂

Anyway, I enjoyed running through the game.

Originally posted by Mad Rook
The good news for you is that a lot of us also don't know the Ruy beyond move 3. 😵

I agree, it looks like an interesting game. I ran it through Arena (I'm sure you ran it through Infinity, also.) No major tactical mistakes by either side until move 24. (Not bad!)

I agree with Mahout, 6.d3 did seem a little passive to me, although I don't know much ab ave known that 10.Bd5 might lose a tempo. 🙂

Anyway, I enjoyed running through the game.

I remember playing the likes of the h3 and h6 in my ear;y days at the club. This got some of the old boys drawing air through their teeth...tut tut.

Whilst it seems like a good preventative move it usually just wastes a tempo. And you may be preventing something that wasn't going to happen.

Also, they said moving these pawns around the king "weakens" these pawns. I found that last one quite hard to grasp especially when they added something about loosening the white squares or weakening the dark squares or even the wonderful expression " effecting the colour complex"

So now I look for a really good reason before playing this move.

I've not run it through an engine yet as I prefer to look over the game first and my sigma (OK OK...but it runs on a mac) just makes me lazy.

Originally posted by Mad Rook
The good news for you is that a lot of us also don't know the Ruy beyond move 3. 😵

I agree, it looks like an interesting game. I ran it through Arena (I'm sure you ran it through Infinity, also.) No major tactical mistakes by either side until move 24. (Not bad!)

I agree with Mahout, 6.d3 did seem a little passive to me, although I don't know much ab ...[text shortened]... ave known that 10.Bd5 might lose a tempo. 🙂

Anyway, I enjoyed running through the game.

thanks for taking the time Rook my friend, Purdy would be turning in his grave at the thought of h3, h6, when there is no valid reason, other than to prevent a pin, which might never happen! normally in the Ruy, white does play h3, but its only to prevent black from undermining his control of d4 which he might try with Bg4 pinning the knight on f3, but you are correct, in this case there is no justification for it. it was a woosie move!🙄

I've now moved all the way onto 13.Ne2..is there an improvement for this move and is there a strategy with it? What strategy should white be looking for from here?

On the surface it seems like quite a decent move, bringing forces over to the battle on the kingside. But it's not developing and actually cramps whites queen. It doesn't seem to put th knight on a better square.

It also seems to be ignoring blacks advanced queenside pawns and some other features of black position such as blacks free reign on the light squares and quite a bad dark squared bishop. We could well be at the root cause of some of whites problems here.

I've set it up on a board...I like 13. Be3, did think about 13.d4 for a bit but I like 13.Bd3 because I can later play Qd2 opening up the rooks and with threats along the c1 h6 diagonal, also on the look out for, playing d4 and getting a knight onto f5 with central power and mobility in my favour.