rofl this topic turned out funny.
I am a "power" gamer, i played so many kind of games and became good at them, well not all of them obviously!
I always took my kick at "killing" cheaters every ways possible but always without cheating.
Now thats said, i play chess since im about 12 old and i never was really good at it, were getting beated by most of my friends even those with much more difficulty at school and learning in general. SO i never played a lot although it was a game that stimulate my intellect a lot.
Couple years ago i found Chessmaster, i think it was edition 2000 or alike.
I started the lessons over the chessmaster tutorials and when i finished em i bought the latest chessmaster i could find and breaked trough all the tactics and new lessons and informations it was filled with.
Ive started playing again with friends and co-workers and they really dont like to play with me anymore. Ok thats not only the engine that has showed me everything i know on chess.
But before i got that engine, i didnt know that my favorite opening always been called the bird opening, in fact i thought i had invented it! Id probably would never know if i had bought multiple book on chess not concerning the bird opening, chessmaster told me at my first game...
This engines has gave me thousand of games now and i have re-learned to play chess.
When i play against chessmaster, i do use chessmaster engines to show me the 10 best moves but i dont just pick a move in there, sometimes i even play moves he dont show me because i believe my position is stronger and i need to explore it.
Anyhow i have played only a couple games here and i really believe what did up my gameplay was chessmaster. Not that i used it while playing here! lol
I even played a game on rhp wich i will remember each position for ever because i felt so strong achieving a double check so early in the game profiting of a simple situation, i believe my opponent wasnt very strong to let me do that but that showed me how much my level had increase. I
I probably will never be abble to see as many shot ahead as a gm but now i can position myself to attack, counter attack and even defend myself, i understand the base of chess much better because i were abble to use database even dating of before 1900... I had the pleasure to study every games of bobby fisher at home and i were even abble to play some of those game sequence per sequence in some of the trainings.
Anyhow thx to chessmaster for helping me develop my chess play by constantly chalenging me with higher difficulty levels.
Books are good dont get me wrong but a good chess engine will bring you much more then just books. In chess you need to analyse your own games constantly to develop yourself as a player, a chess engine can only show you the other possibilities you didnt thought of and some engines will even show you what this or this GM would have played.
Off courses bots and human dont play the same ways, i make mistakes and chessmaster doesnt... It is a pretty good teacher in my opinion if you can follow him and understand what he is doing...
Ok its enuff that was my not-paid rant against all of you who fear new technologies!
Originally posted by PhaserI feel a sudden urge to buy chessmaster 🙄
rofl this topic turned out funny.
I am a "power" gamer, i played so many kind of games and became good at them, well not all of them obviously!
I always took my kick at "killing" cheaters every ways possible but always without cheating.
Now thats said, i play chess since im about 12 old and i never was really good at it, were getting beated by most o ...[text shortened]... g...
Ok its enuff that was my not-paid rant against all of you who fear new technologies!
Originally posted by greenpawn34instead of the good ol' days when sweaty more or less drunk & pasty-faced middleaged guys crammed themselves into a room with poor ventilation. 🙂
...I think OTB chess will eventually
die and we will be left with pasty-faced individuals who never go out
playing games over the net and sleeping with their engines.
I pretty much agree on the computers though. not entirely, as there are things on which they shine. I would guess training blitz against computers would teach a great deal about making tactically safe moves. and I guess that's one of the reasons why nakamura can be seen almost daily playing against computers on icc. -as it's not like there wasn't a bunch of strong humans to choose from at any given moment.
but as for learning from comps how to conduct your game beyond simple tactics, totally useless.
Originally posted by wormwoodWhen analysing your completed games with an engine, don’t you find it can help with examples such as: knowing if/when to open/close the centre; maintaining the bishop pair or not; ways to activate your pieces better; highlighting methods of attack and defence that you didn’t consider; illustrating excellent endgame technique (e.g. how to convert wins); etc. ?
but as for learning from comps how to conduct your game beyond simple tactics, totally useless.
Engines like Rybka are well capable of great positional chess. The downside is that we have to explore lines and try to figure out the “why’s” for ourselves since they don’t explain their reasoning.
Quote:
"Ok its enuff that was my not-paid rant against all of you who fear new technologies!"
Glad it worked for you and gave you the confidence to get out there
and play humans.
It is infact OK and if this worked for you then brilliant.
But think how better you would be if you had a human coach.
Lot of fact in what you say about databases.
I did not know I actually had a 100% record with the Grunfeld as Black
till I eventually got around to entering my then 700 odd games
into a DB. P7. W7 I usually threw up a Grunfeld because I felt the guy
was perhaps to booked up on the KID.
RYBKA - "great at positional chess??"
I have played it and it is better than Fritz - but I had it falling for
a Fritz trap within a few games. And it repeats (it does not learn)
so 1.e4 e6 I should beat RYBKA 100% (never bumped up levels
so it may differ at higher levels).
But it's OK and it was the first computer I've seen that came close
to attempting a swindle. But it did not quite actually reject
a strong move to set it.
other than that, it is what is - a toy.
It's only great if you let it play great.
I know a few good human players who are great at positional chess.
You can ask them questions. They can give you feedback.
Originally posted by Varenkawell I don't know have rybka so I can't say much about that. but I sure wouldn't take advice on keeping the bishop pair from any engine. defensive/attacking tricks would of course fall into engine's strengths (excluding material traded for strong endings), and maybe pawn breaks (which I'm terrible at evaluating). I do train endgame positions against engines, but I can't see how you could extract the knowledge required for the solution from the engine. how would you for example learn a KNB mate playing it against an engine? you'd probably never figure out the strategies needed. where as a human can teach all that in half an hour.
When analysing your completed games with an engine, don’t you find it can help with examples such as: knowing if/when to open/close the centre; maintaining the bishop pair or not; ways to activate your pieces better; highlighting methods of attack and defence that you didn’t consider; illustrating excellent endgame technique (e.g. how to convert wins); etc. ...[text shortened]... lines and try to figure out the “why’s” for ourselves since they don’t explain their reasoning.
so I don't think you can really learn endgames from an engine, but it's of course a great and tireless sparring partner. you'll just have to pick up that required knowledge somewhere else first.
Originally posted by greenpawn34And it repeats (it does not learn) so 1.e4 e6 I can beat RYBKA 100%
What opening book was Rybka using and was the book set to learn? I guess this was the problem and nothing to do with the Rybka engine. The engine only plays once the book is finished. They need to be considered in isolation.
It's only great if you let it play great.
Sure, so let it play great. It proves nothing to play repeatedly with a weak opening book.
You can ask them questions. They can give you feedback
But they're not available 24/7 to analyse my games. 🙂 I have also used human coaches. Each approach has its advantages, so why not use both since it doesn't have to be one or the other.
Originally posted by greenpawn34I really doubt if you can have 100% result against engine who could beat GMs (like Jaan Ehlvest) without using any opening book. So probably you need to correct settings to configure your Rybka.
Quote:
"Ok its enuff that was my not-paid rant against all of you who fear new technologies!"
Glad it worked for you and gave you the confidence to get out there
and play humans.
It is infact OK and if this worked for you then brilliant.
But think how better you would be if you had a human coach.
Lot of fact in what you say about databases.
...[text shortened]... are great at positional chess.
You can ask them questions. They can give you feedback.
Originally posted by wormwoodI sure wouldn't take advice on keeping the bishop pair from any engine
Why? I’m not saying you have to blindly accept their recommendations every time but they’ll get such decisions right much more often than you or I.
I can't see how you could extract the knowledge required for the solution from the engine
I analysed an endgame that I lost. The engine said I could have drawn it. So I compared its lines with what I played. A common theme in its lines was that it activated its king and rook more that I did. Instead I was too materialistic. So for this specific case I learned not to underestimate the importance of active pieces in the endgame.
how would you for example learn a KNB mate playing it against an engine?
I agree that a book would be more effective for this example. But if you got the engine to play the stronger side, don’t you think you could learn some aspects of its technique? Put alternatively, do you require all GM game moves to be annotated in order for you to learn from them? Or are you sometimes capable of figuring things out just from high level moves alone? I appreciate annotations but I can also sometimes derive things myself.
Originally posted by Varenkawell to begin with, I think the whole notion of the advantage of a bishop pair is a very patzerish thing (not unlike the notion of doubled pawns) on our level. well at my level at least. 🙂 -because we're still so bad at evaluating the importance of activity, pressure, tension and general plans. it's something everybody "knows" to be an "advantage", but when it comes to specific positions, we simply don't know.
[b]I sure wouldn't take advice on keeping the bishop pair from any engine
Why? I’m not saying you have to blindly accept their recommendations every time but they’ll get such decisions right much more often than you or I.
I can't see how you could extract the knowledge required for the solution from the engine
I analysed an endgame that ...[text shortened]... gh level moves alone? I appreciate annotations but I can also sometimes derive things myself.[/b]
then there's the engine view on the same thing, which is "a bishop pair = 0.5 + compound value of BB-controlled squares." which is just a numerical way of saying "a bishop pair is an advantage" without any relation to whether there actually is something to be done with that pair. it's a general, averaged statement, which is useless on any specific position.
I'm not saying there aren't uses for double bishops. but I'm quite sure players of my level will far more often not understand it's relation to a specific position. they're chasing ghosts, while the opponent can even press such a player into giving up something far more tangible and dangerous like piece activity, only because the player thinks the bishop pair is an advantage.
if you can't find out how to exploit an 'advantage' or a 'weakness', it isn't there. no matter what the engine with it's limited and sparse search tree claims. it's right on average, but that's how all general statements work. in a general case, I'm pretty sure any BB considerations which are not based on the direct effect of those bishops as a singular pieces, are well beyond the engine horizon. they're just making a general guess, which might or might not turn out to be true.
on the endgame, I'm sure you already 'knew' (in a general sense) that the more active your king & rook in the endgame, the better? and maybe being too materialistic was a direct consequence of learning with engines? 🙂 that said, I know next to nothing about endgames, and shouldn't be listened to in anything but specific, concrete lines which can easily be found correct or incorrect, or maybe not even then. 😛
on KNB, what can the engine really tell you? it has only one piece, so it has to move it somewhere every move. how can you differentiate between pointless time wasting moves which rise from your pointless moves, and strategic 'best defense' moves? how will you find out that the best defense is 1st to stay in the centre, and 2nd head to 'wrong corner'? if you haven't heard about those from elsewhere, there's no way you gonna extract that from a series of random king moves.
and on a defending side, without prior knowledge, you won't be able to figure out in a hurry that the mating algorithm is pushing you in certain direction. already the shortest mate with best defense will easily break the limits of your short time memory and visualisation, so you won't be able to get a picture of what the hell even happened there. it would take ages to figure out any real knowledge about KNB. you can't extract those things out of the engine play, you'll have to hear about them elsewhere first. and even then it's hard enough (at first).
okay got into a bit of a rambling mode, the football is beginning, and I'm not gonna check what I wrote. I hope at least some of it came out like I meant. 🙂 and remember, never listen to me about endgames. 🙂
Originally posted by wormwoodwormwood (1959)
well to begin with, I think the whole notion of the advantage of a bishop pair is a very patzerish thing (not unlike the notion of doubled pawns) on our level. well at my level at least. 🙂 -because we're still so bad at evaluating the importance of activity, pressure, tension and general plans. it's something everybody "knows" to be an "advantage", but whe ...[text shortened]... and remember, never listen to me about endgames. 🙂
rybka (blah mhz)
good matchup. and i'll be listening to wormwood on his endings.
Originally posted by wormwoodwhich is just a numerical way of saying "a bishop pair is an advantage" without any relation to whether there actually is something to be done with that pair
If Rybka suggests a move to conserve the bishop pair then Rybka's search will then consider the specific play that could happen following this decision. Remember, if Rybka is suggesting keeping the bishops at move 1, then it's search will go to, say, 20 or more ply. That's a lot of specific play before it applies a general evaluation function.
they're just making a general guess, which might or might not turn out to be true
They don't search millions of positions per second in order to make general guesses.
I'm sure you already 'knew' (in a general sense) that the more active your king & rook in the endgame, the better
Yes, along with the other thousand general principles I'm aware of. But the question always exists: what is most important in a specific position? Engine analysis often helps here.
on KNB, what can the engine really tell you
Nobody has ever suggested learning endgames by examining tablebases (which KNB is), especially when books, etc. cover these exact endgames. But when I play a more involved endgame (e.g. lots of pawns each) in one of my games, can you point me to a book that covers those specific positions? No, and that's the difference.
Korch Quote:
"I really doubt if you can have 100% result against engine who could beat GMs..."
10 minute game - advance French (Milner Barry Gambit).
It takes the Gambit pawn - Goes astray by allowing too much
counter play for the pawn. Beat it with same line again and again.
Also knocked off book mode:
Well it's opening database has been written by a human.
I'm not allowed to look at printed matter - why should it.
Plays OK but sometimes gets wretched position in Petroff
3...Qe7. White sacs a pawn and again it cripples itself trying
to hold pawn.
It's certainly the best of the bunch I've met so far.
Found a very deep 23 move trick V Pelican which I am waiting
to spring on someone OTB. The funny thing is it started off going
to win a dodgy pawn. As the critical position appeared and it's
horizon deepened it ignored the pawn and went for the shot.
I was impressed.
Have only GROMMIT which I play against. It plays like a human.
I use it as a punch bag.
Do not hold much stock in games GM lose to a computer. So What?
GM's tire, GM's do lose games.
Next time around friends house will save French Game and publish.
Still of opinion if players Morphy to Fischer did not learn anything
from computers. Then you can do without them.
Also suspect they can do more harm than good, especially to
an inexperienced player who can only play on a monitor but
cannot read a full sized set.
I appear to be in reverse. I sometimes struggle with tough nut
monitor puzzles. I need to set them up on a board.
Finally: (original thread)
Am convinced that cheats do not learn anything.
You can only learn from your losses, they hurt more than winning.
PS.
57 on the 30th June - wants Happy Birthday email.
Originally posted by greenpawn34You use opening theory from your memory. So it should be allowed to use opening theory from its memory too. There's no printed material involved during play. But I do accept that a computer's memory is a lot more suited to this task. 🙂
Also knocked off book mode:
Well it's opening database has been written by a human.
I'm not allowed to look at printed matter - why should it.