What's The Most Fun Chess Program Out There These Days

kcdusk

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Hypothetical: in an even game you have a chance for some exchanges. In the exchange you loose a two pieces (combination of bishop and knights) but win a rook and a pawn. On paper, 6 pts won and 6pts lost. But your down a piece and up a pawn. Would you make the exchange?
 

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Hypothetical: in an even game you have a chance for some exchanges. In the exchange you loose a two pieces (combination of bishop and knights) but win a rook and a pawn. On paper, 6 pts won and 6pts lost. But your down a piece and up a pawn. Would you make the exchange?
Generally a rook and 2 pawns is considered an OK exchange for two pieces. It really depends on the position of course. If the exchange gives me two bishops in an open position for the rook then it is good; two knights in a closed position may good too. You have to evaluate all conditions but I usually prefer to exchange my rook for 2 pieces.
 

peterk1

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Depends on whether the pieces are strong or weak. If your rook is able to make a capture like this, then it is already strong because it doesn't have any pawns on front of it and is commanding a rank. The enemy knight and bishop would have to be quite active for me to initiate this exchange. It might make more sense to wait and bring another piece to bear in this area.
 

kcdusk

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Just finished a 5 minute blitz game against ChessMaster. Drew after having a winning position. Loved the analysis of the game though, a series of 8 or 9 moves in succession!

White Ugh!
Black uh-Oh!
White Ouch!
Black Missed mate!
White Ugh!
Black O-oh
White Danger!

I've heard people say they dont like Blitz because the games are of an imperfect quality, but i say it gives everyone a chance ... and most of the most fun games are not masterpieces.
 

Brittany_Spear

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My first Chess program was for a 2nd generation video game console in about 1984; took up to 2 hours for some turns. I think my second was "Battle Chess" for a 386 processor PC clone. The increase in processor speed did not improve my own chess game enough to notice the difference in the computer's game.
 

Brittany_Spear

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You still play?
After unhooking the console upon leaving mom's basement, my interest sharply declined.

I think the interest in battle chess was mostly a vicarious and futile hope that the King would get the Queen to shed her robe in some lascivious fashion. I was never good enough to make that happen and lost interest when I figured out my true motives.
 

Scott Tortorice

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Heh! :D

Well, if you ever want to play again (clothes on), there's a bunch of us here willing to give you a game. We all play over at Chess.com.
 

kcdusk

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When two players get together to play a match (series of games), is there any rule for who plays white first? Challenger? Champion? Random?
 

peterk1

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I don't think it's written in stone. It will be set by the match organizer and may even be negotiated between the players before they sign their contract to play.
Typically though the reigning champion would get his choice of color in game 1.

Just wondering about how the fast chess is going after a year? Are you seeing an overall steady improvement in your game? I think my theory last summer when we were talking about how to configure our CMs was that fast chess wasn't as good as slow chess for improving.

I'm coming out of retirement after a few months off and have started playing my nightly game against CM. What a great piece of software. So elegant and never seems old or obsolete.

I've started doing a fun little chess/memory puzzle in the morning. I'll play 5-6 moves against the computer with my morning coffee and then adjourn the game to go to work. And then at the office, during slow moments (waiting for things to compile) I try to reproduce the board position from memory and bring that back home with me and check it in the evening.
 

kcdusk

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1. Games on chessdotcom, with 14 day time turns (normally making daily moves) i'm doing OK.

2. Slow games (10min a side) not so OK. For one, i've had so many games at chessdotcom verse people i havent had time to play much CM. And when i have, its gone poorly.

3. I think i've gained more chess knowledge in the last 12 months (noice nook at chess cafe & Irvig Chernovs Logical chess move by move) than ever before. Once my last 4 games at chessdotcom are finished, i aim to play allot of short games (10 min a side) to try and apply allot of what i have learned, and get a feel for what is and isnt working. Then do some longer games concentrating on what i'm not doing well. I want to start and finish allot of shorter games to build up some proper match practice. Then see whats next.

4. Chess motivation at the moment: 8. But i need to get allot more games under my belt, which even with daily moves at chessdotcom's not doing.
 

Scott Tortorice

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We've played a bunch of games together over the years, so I can say that I've noticed a definite improvement in your play during this tourney.
 

kcdusk

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I waited around with my family to play a game. The guys and girls playing were .... probably homeless. They'd just started this game so they were aways from finishing. My family humoured me by feigning interest, but we had to move on. I would have been happy to blow $5 playing someone.

____

Just finished playing about 12 rapid games over the last couple of weeks. Man, shocking results. Hard to play quality chess with a 10 minute limit. I used all my time up but by the end was making some less than optimal (read: crap) decisions. I knew going in that playing rapid would probably mean poor chess. But i learnt enough about what is and isnt working for me to play some slower chess games and i know what i'm going to spend the next few weeks looking at to improve. So playing and finishing lots of games in a short space of time was very worthwhile.
 

kcdusk

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I havnet looked at any openings for Black and just run with general opening principles. But i'd like to look into an opening or two that i could spend a short amount of time on, and have something to fall back on if required. I'm looking for an opening for black. Anyone recommend an opening for black, for a beginer, thats aggressive and goes for the win? Happy for something to be little played (not popular). Or even a gambit. Anyone want to recommend me an opening, with a short description, and maybe some overall general princles of what its trying to achieve???
 

kcdusk

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I've had 3 games in the last 2 weeks where both sides have ended up with no major pieces left (king and pawns left for both sides), and i was thinking all 3 games were evenly poised. Except, a move or two later and i could see that in each game, doubled pawns, passed pawns or the advantage of a single pawn (5 pawns v 6 pawns) was going to be enough to win/loose each of the games and basic play would see an easy victory or loss for the side with the advantage.

Most of my games have been won or lost because of one side getting a piece or two up. But these three games have really been the first time i've seen very small advantages end up being huge in the end game.
 

peterk1

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You've just discovered the easiest way to beat Chessmaster. Mind you, you still have to play very solid defense after getting the pawn advantage to get to that simple endgame.
It also works against less experienced players who rarely get to pawn endings in their own games. Just exchange, exchange, exchange destroying the opponent pawn structure with each switch. Your opponent is happy because he thinks he's staying even, but you actually have an easy and comfortable win coming up. You'll probably now start being a little afraid of castling because the pawns and pieces in front of the king are very vulnerable to this sort of thing.
I think your game just jumped up a level thanks to noticing this nuance. Congratulations!
 

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I havnet looked at any openings for Black and just run with general opening principles. But i'd like to look into an opening or two that i could spend a short amount of time on, and have something to fall back on if required. I'm looking for an opening for black. Anyone recommend an opening for black, for a beginer, thats aggressive and goes for the win? Happy for something to be little played (not popular). Or even a gambit. Anyone want to recommend me an opening, with a short description, and maybe some overall general princles of what its trying to achieve???
That's a tough one to answer. Much will depend on your personal preferences as to the type of openings you like or feel most comfortable with, such as wide open tactical fights, slow closed positional build-ups, somewhere in the middle. It also depends on if white starts with a king or queen side opening.

The next consideration is how much time you will have to devote to learning the defense. Some popular, or 'fad', defenses have massive amounts of data compiled on them along with numerous pitfalls and traps and are constantly evolving as new tournament experience becomes available. If you want to avoid these well trodden paths that your opponent is likely to know far more about than you then steer clear of the Sicilian, Ruy Lopez, Caro Kahn and French against the K side openings - unless you have some obscure but playable lines in them that may not be well known anymore. Against a Q side the Slav, Queens Gambit and main Indian openings like the Nimzo Indian, Queens indian and Kings Indian are also analyzed to death.

Personally I always play obscure lines as I don't have the time or inclination to study so much of this stuff. Against a K opening I play the Nimzovich or Alekhine and sometimes a Scandanavian. Against a Q side I may play 1...Nc6 and let my opponent take it where he wants, like a Chigorin or Bozo-Indian. They often answer 1.d4, Nc6 with 2.e4 and then ...d5 is a standard Nimzovich again. I also like the Budapest and will often play the Hippo as well.

As a final rule of thumb, if your opponent is not too highly rated then he may not know that much about the popular well analyzed openings either and so you could experiment with these lines to see how you like them without fear of being immediately crushed by an old vet with these openings
 
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