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recently i've been thinking of taking up Chess
of course i know "how" to play, but i'd like to elevate my game and play with an educated basis instead of just "winging it"
the thing is, i don't know if Chessmaster 10th Edition is better than Fritz 8th Edition for the purpose of teaching skill at Chess
do any of you play these games?
the things i've read elsewhere seems to suggest that Fritz is the better overall program
any comments from you guys who've played Chessmaster and/or Fritz?
I play chess, it is great fun especially when you get someone with whom you can smack talk. :furious3: Yes smack talk and chess, strange isn't it?
Chessmaster 10th edition seems to be very good, I have a demo and the opponent I get to play Bobby Fischer, rating 2950 or something is impossible to beat, 60-80 losses in a row 0 victories. In the full game there are more difficulties, and it has a teaching section.
you might also ask Puzz3d here on this forum. he's a chess guy.
K.
I played online at this place for a little while:
http://www.redhotpawn.com/
Its pretty good, especially when your at work where the firewall stops a lot of stuff, plus its free. Ive found its easier to learn from just playing people.
Also played at the Yahoo site for a while which is good too. Certainly cheaper than buying a chess program and more fun than playing the computer ~D
Im not a fan of computer chess, Im a reasonable player (played for Guernsey jnrs when i was 11) but i find that reading peoples reactions and just watching eye movement helps you in forming plans, you dont get that with a PC version
If you want to learn how to play decent chess, you should do some searching for some beginners books. I would not start with the PC as a teacher. Modern PC chess software can be frustrating for a begginer because they can be so strong. It will make a decent opponent as you study. What you really need is to study the basics. Don't be fooled by me referring to "beginner" books, this doesn't mean simple books for a child, much of the mainstream chess literature is very, very deep written more for expert or master level.
Look for books that describe and have examples to work out of the various tactics (pins, skewers, forks, discovered attacks, etc.) as well as combinations. A good beginners book should also have some basic opening theory, discussions of strategic issues such as open and closed positions, and endgame study. You will probably want to get a decent book on openings as well. Once you learn how to properly deploy and counter you will find your play is much better.
I play best with a board in front of me. I can visualize things better that way. I haven't played tournament chess in years though, when I did it was mostly correspondence and was eating up too many hours each week.
I use Fritz but started up at the school's chess club...even on easy difficulties Fritz will thrash an amateur...
Maybe we should have an .org Chess competition, to determin the orgs 'grand master' Just a bit of fun, and can help anyone wanting to get into the game to learn some rules and tactics of the game.
I'm up for a first round loss your highness
I will certainly play if theres gna be an online chess tourney.....chessmaster 10 demo is getting boring now....
hey ah_dut since you use Fritz can you please answer this question for me?
can you manually adjust the board size with Fritz? i want a big huge full-screen board. i don't want a small board that only takes up like 1/3 of the screen in order to fit into a whole bunch of other windows
that's one of the reasons why i don't like some other chess programs, because the boards are too small for my liking
IIRC you can but I'll have a definitive answer tommorow as I'm tired and need to dig it out again
What a brilliant idea about having a chess competition, Im in ~:cool:
As for what Chess program is best, I have 'Chessmaster 10th Edition ' and I really like it. I play a lot online - mainly at a chess site called
ChessWorld.net
well worth a visit and spend about 2/3 hours per night playing.
Drop me a line if you set a tourni up.
i went and got Chessmaster 10th Edition and played it a lot yesterday. so far i have only realized one thing with certainty: i really suck at Chess! LOL. even the 1009 AI players were massacring me. funny thing is, i know i used to be way way better when i was a kid in kindergarten. how sad is that.
i watched much of the tutorials and i totally couldn't follow it. that young grandmaster talks way too fast for my liking (i must be getting old or something). after watching his tutorials all i can think is: "huh?"
i especially didn't like his opening tutorial. he basically only gave the following practical advice: "always open with your King's pawn to E4"
"then your next move should be Queen's Pawn to D4 - oh, that is unless your enemy has moved a central pawn out to challenge the square!"
the problem is, every enemy player does exactly that! hence i am clueless as to what to do next since the Josh guy does not explain how to counter that.
he says "develop the center, bring Knights out before Bishops" etc. etc.... well that's just great except i don't know how i can do that without blocking in my own pawns and Bishops and Queen - because he doesn't tell ya how!
the openings tutorials don't seem to go far enough to explain this either. they usually only explain one or two moves to do at the start, and that's it.
btw for those of you have played it, is there any way to MAXIMIZE the Window of this game to play it in FULLSCREEN mode? from what i've noticed i can't get it to stop playing in a windowed mode :dizzy2:
and how come the AI in this game can call on rules like three-time repetition draws and 50-move rule draws, yet if YOU want to call that against the AI you are not able to do it? what the heck?!
for all you Chess gurus:
1. can you please explain what the proper way to open is after King's Pawn to E4, so that i don't block myself in?
2. why is castling considered "protecting" the King despite the fact that it moves the King to the very side of the board and bottom rank (which is where you wanna force the enemy King to go to get mate for yourself anyhow) and boxes him in? i've been mated a lot with a Bishop/Queen against my H2 pawn while i'm in a castled position. or Rook/Queen. or a whole whackload of other stuff. i am truly bewildered as to why castling "protects" your King since it seems to get me mated more often than not.
3. how can i be sure to develop the center enough without having to move my Bishops or Knights backwards in order to avoid an attacking enemy pawn? it seems a lot of times this screws up my plans. yet if i don't move my Bishops and Knights as far into the center in the first place, they don't get developed
long, highly-detailed answers to these questions would be most appreciated
Right then........King's pawn to E4....that opens up A LOT of openings.....the riskiest one is if the enemy counters with Their King's pawn to E5, you bring up the Kingside Bishop to F4......now that is the Kingside Gambit.....you'll almost NEVER see that at the top level for the simple reason that it leaves the kingside wide open to attack. Try the 4 Knight's Opening where you move your knights to F3 and hte other one to C3. This allows for the bishops to be brouhgt out. Now the White Square White Bishop is the ATTACKING BISHOP for white as it can hit the Black King's original square. The other one is the DEF BISHOP as it can block the opponents attacking bishop. Keep that in mind because you WILL have to block one at some point in the opening.
There's also the most played opening in the world - the Ruy Lopez or Spanish Game. it is in chess notation : 1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. Bb5 Now there are TONS of variations on this but this fiurst 3 moves are always the same. Try looknig for a beginner book to openings in your local libary or have a hunt online. The online stuff is a lot more compliacted as it assumes you have a pretty good hgrounding in chess terms.
I myself prefer the Queenside Openings, I favour the English Opening with an aim to set up a variant of the King's indian Defense.
Castling is protecting the King because since all of the pawn mmvoes are in the center it can leave a lot of open spaces with pawn chains moving about constantly, by moving the king away from it, you are :
1: Putting a piece between the King and enemy pieces.
2: Moving Him away from where the enemy is trying to break through.
Now if you are continuously getting mated on H2, then i suggest you look out for queen moves, pins and the such when you're playing. If a piece such as the bishop is attacking one of the 3 pawns in front of the king then be careful that you have them guarded when at least when there is a major threat about, even if the main action is elsewhere an sudden swithc can leave you in th cold completely.
There are some times where you'd want ot castle and some where you wouldn't, (ie when the kingside/queenside has taken a battering) you have to make a choice yourself on whether it is better to.
Also try and look at things from the otehr player's point of view.........would you want to put a piece next to the 3 pawns which are covering all of the squares in front of them just so you can attack the king?
thx for the tips, i just watched the Ruy Lopez opening
what i don't get: isn't the Bishop to Bb5 a waste of a move since Black is just going to push him back and hence violate the Chess principle to not move just one piece more than once in the opening?
the Josh tutorials said not to do that ~:eek:
Yes, I'm not surprised that you found the PC opponent tough on easy levels. It takes a little while to get it sorted and the computer most likely is still using its strong opening book, so that you will be starting out on the wrong foot.
Don't take the "rules" of chess openings too literally. They are guides and eventually you will understand when to ignore them and when to obey them. One of the things the Ruy Lopez does is to force your opponent to respond to your aggressive bishop move. Pinning a piece to the king is aggressive and no idle threat. When black moves the pawn he has also "lost a move" and at the same time altered his pawn structure in a way that creates a hole that might later be exploited, so you aren't really violating the guideline either, but you are forcing him to commit.
The guideline is to discourage you from taking a tour with a piece, a common weakness in beginners (as we all once were.) The idea is to be efficient with your opening moves and not to "waste" any. If your opponent is staying in reactive mode *without* gaining an advantage, then the move is not wasted. I was never a Ruy Lopez player and I don't have any of my opening books with me at the moment. I usually played queen's pawn opening as white as my style matured. However, king's pawn openings are a good way to start, since they tend to be more straightforward in their logic (except when your opponent counters with something like the sicilian defense.) As black I usually played the sicilian defense vs. King's pawn and tried different variants as my style matured. I disliked locked symmetrical centers. (The computer's book will be very, very deep in the Sicilian--and my opening books were deeper, sometimes taking me well over 20 moves/40 plies deep before we left the book in correspondence play.)
I just dont like moving my king's pawn away from the king, I still try and lock out the center as black whenever possible as I hav always found tht i can usually generate mor space than White, who is looking to attck me, this usually ends up with White throing his moving first advantage away and letting me to dictate the play a bit more.
But i agree, even on easy the computer's opening books are very complex, especially if you play one of the more popular openings.
i was trying to study some more of the Josh tutorials tonite
he was teaching about Skewering, Pinning, Removing the Defender, and Sacrificing
i can understand these ideas as concepts, but i don't forsee how i'll ever be able to see these moves become available to me during an actual game
when i watch how he does it, i think: "wow, what an amazing move!"
then when it comes time for me to do something similar and he says "pick your best move", i can hardly ever figure it out
he was doing stuff like sacrificing his Queen, and then not getting any material back for it til like 3 - 5 moves after the sacrifice.
i'd love to be able to do things like that. but when i look at the Chess board, i feel impotent. i can not visualize the moves in the way that people capable of performing these techniques can. i find the board very intimidating and confusing.
i understand what having skill is all about, but i can't put the theory into practice
do any of you have any tips on how i can make all the techniques "sink in" to this thick skull of mine to the degree where i'll actually be able to see those moves during a real game one day?
i am also curious:
1. how many moves ahead can the average Chess player "see"?
2. what is the ELO rating for an average Chess player?
3. should i quit now while i'm ahead? i want to be competitive at Chess. i don't want to play like an average joe nobody forever. is Chess a type of game where one just has to be naturally gifted at the game, or can normal people decipher it too (at a highly competitive level)?
I see about 3-5 moves ahead usually but I play every week for an hourQuote:
1. how many moves ahead can the average Chess player "see"?
no IdeaQuote:
2. what is the ELO rating for an average Chess player?
You can get a hell of a lot better very quickly, and it's a little about natural talent but if you play a good few games regularly, you will ge much better NavarosQuote:
3. should i quit now while i'm ahead? i want to be competitive at Chess. i don't want to play like an average joe nobody forever. is Chess a type of game where one just has to be naturally gifted at the game, or can normal people decipher it too (at a highly competitive level)?
For learning how to apply the lessons, work "chess problems." I'm not sure where you can find these online since I've never been an online player. You should be able to find some with "mate in three" or "win in two" etc. where the win would be a decisive gain in material such as winning the queen or a rook or piece etc. With these you have definite "right answers" and it excercises your mind to recognize the positions where specific tactics should be applied.Quote:
Originally Posted by Navaros
1. There was a world champion many, many years ago who answered the question about how many moves ahead he could see and his reply was something like, "Only one...but it is the best move." It depends on the position and phase of the game. In some endgames I might see 8 to 10 moves ahead since the position is much simpler to analyze to completion and many moves are essentially forced. Complex middle games with lots of possible combinations makes 3 a challenge at times. More typical for me when I was playing was about 5, but remember that this is seeing what I deemed the "most likely" moves, not necessarily what happens. So whenever my opponent surprised me with a good move that I didn't anticipate you could say I saw zero moves ahead...
2. I don't know about ELO, the typical rating systems I've seen give the "average" level player something in the 1500-1600 range. 1700-1900 is journeyman tournament players. Around 2000-2200 you get the expert players and around 2300 you reach true masters.
3. I have no idea really, we are each different. I think it takes a certain level of natural talent to be competitive at the higher levels. It also takes a lot of hard work, time, and concentration. I don't know that I had the sufficient natural talent, but I did get to expert level and won an expert correspondence touranament after a steady rise from "average" over about 8 years. At that point it was taking a lot of time and effort (these folks were good.) I thought I might be able to make master if I worked much harder at it, but it would have required much more time than I had available, so I took a sabbatical from it. Try it for awhile, if you don't feel like you are making any progress you can always stop.
One thing you might do for learning to visualize the board is to try playing some by notation alone (no board in sight.) This is very difficult, but forces your mind to recreate the whole position and become less dependent on looking at the board. When I played correspondence chess I knew all of my current positions, so that when I picked up a card with just notation in the mail, I knew the position and ramifications and often knew the response before I sat down and rebuilt the position (although I still often spent quite a bit of time reanalyzing everything.) I typically had 20+ games going at a time and knew all of the current postions. I think this was the norm for good correspondence players.
I thought the Chessmaster 10th Edition demo was excellent! Limited to eight hours play though. Ack! But I did see an improvement in my game in those eight hours.
I bought the 9th edition in the bargain bin, figuring it was just as good, but I just don't like the setup as much and I never play. Going to have to buy the 10th edition.
I almost always use the B&W 2D board. Very classic.
i think Red Harvest is right in that 10th Edition AI players play a lot better than they are "supposed" to given their numerical rating. every time i do something, the computer does the "anti-_____" counter to whatever it is that i have done! i can't make any progress. my men are almost always tied up behind my own pawns. part of this is because i'm not good at Chess, but a big part of this is also because the computer sees what i did, then follows the books to perform it's anti-whatever-i-did pattern. it's not exactly fair. i'm not learning anything at all by getting beat by the computer.
Is this chess competition going to start or what? :duel:
Send me a pm i'm willing to enter. :charge:
Al
I would be willing to organise one but not untill after the Christmas period is over as Im just too busy at the moment.
If King Edward is willing to organise this let's start by creating a list of players here:
I'm in
Al Shama'ar
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PS: Copy the list and add your own nick
PS2: This is not against forum policies, is it? ~:confused:
Al Shama'ar
King Edward (.Org Grand Master elect ~;) )
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Not that I know of, and I don't see any reason why it would be. Organise away. ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Shama'ar
You could post a few advert topics in the other forums so more people have a chance to enter. I know there are many players scattered around here. It might even be possible to get an advert on the org front page; I can inquire if you like.
I think it best for now just to sound out numbers as as I stated above I'm a bit stressed for time at the moment but if people wish to sign up or leave comments and suggestions about structure and format for the competition go ahead!! or PM me. ~:cheers: