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Subject: Re: Can I become a Chessmaster by Playing very Strong Engines?

Author: Bela Evans

Date: 16:21:15 07/11/02

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On July 11, 2002 at 18:24:55, John Reynolds wrote:

>
>
>   It has been said that a player must play and beat  Masters to become a
>Master. If that statement is true, can I become master strength by simply
>playing computers alone without any Human interaction? There is a player that I
>know, who was unrated and never played in any tournaments, all this guy did was
>play strong chess computers (standalone), anyway when this guy played in his
>first tournament he came out with a 2265 rating after 15 rated games!!. Maybe he
>had extrodinary talent, or perhaps playing against Programs can make one very
>strong?

Playing strong opposition is only one aspect to improving your game, and playing
computers will not necessarily teach you to think better positionally.  Another
negative to playing computers is that you have to alter your style to meet their
tactical abilities.  You end up being really good at avoiding making simple
tactical mistakes, but you avoid highly complicated positions and stop checking
for possible tactical mistakes by the computer (they just don't make simple
tactical mistakes these days).  On the other hand, you become very tempted by
speculative kingside attacks or sacs that you figure the computer might not
judge correctly.

I think the best way to improve is a combination of playing strong opponents
(both human and computer) and studying the games of strong players.



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