Author: Stephen Ham
Date: 13:35:46 12/08/02
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"snipped"
Anatoli: So, it sounds that cor.
>players do not analyze their positions together with Fritz anymore, but they
>only use it afterwards to check their possible blunders ! What a nonsense ! You even found another excuse – after the blunder check you sleep better! From a
>medical point of view, what can be better then a peaceful sleep. You provided
>here your way to use your Nimzo, but I don’t believe it. You mention that first
>you find a move, and only then then you check it with your chess engine ! It is
>amazing! Do you call it as a blunder check? But if your Nimzo shows to you, that you indeed lose a piece in 2 moves ? So, you turn your computer off , then
>return back to your chess board and keep looking for another move ?! And you are not curious what Nimzo propose you instead of your blunder? How many times do you have to check your blunders and walk up and down between your chess board
>and PC ?
Stephen: Dear Anatoli, I expected that being on the honor system (claiming to
not use any computer aids in my match games versus Fritz 6a and Nimzo 7.32) that
some cynics would publicly accuse me of cheating. To my surprise, you are the
first I've seen! That's OK. But since I'm a 2500-rated player anyway, I might
expect to do better than lose my matches with a score of 1.5-2.5. Also, you
wrote that you followed my games. Then I'm certain that you must have seen
multiple examples of my human mistakes. For example, I was blowing Fritz 6a off
the board tactically in Ham-Fritz 6a. Then I overlooked a neat defensive
maneuver that Fritz had in the King's Indian Defense (A maneuver that I use
myself as Black in a Yugoslav Dragon Sicilian. I still can't figure out how I
missed this. Maybe in being on the White side of it, I psychologically just
never saw it.). Had I been using a computer at just that moment only, that
defense would have shown up and I would then have adjusted my attack and quickly
defeated the machine (see my notes for the proof). Since I missed Fritz's
defense, the result was a draw rather than a quick victory. Another example of a
human error: this time caused more by late night fatigue, was in Ham-Nimzo 7.32.
I failed to see the point of Nimzo's locking up of the pawn wall. As a
consequence, I worked out a nice technical win for myself in one line. Instead,
had I had a computer turned on at just that one moment only, I would have seen
Nimzo's defense in the game line and adjusted my technique to win via another
route. The result again was a draw when I should have won. So rather than being
2-0 with White, it was 2-draws. Then as Black, I was blown off the board by the
tactically superior Nimzo 7.32. Had I had a computer switched on, I'm certain I
could have done better. Still, Nimzo's play was brilliant. In Fritz-Ham, I had a
superior endgame in which I erred and a draw was the result. So Anatoli, had I
had a computer tuned on just once, at the right place in each game, the result
might have been 3.5-0.5 or 3-1 in my favor. But since it was just me, without
any computer help, I lost.
Anatoli, you asked what I would do if a blunder check revealed a blunder. Good
question, because it's yet to happen, although it surely will some day. I hope
to find a replacement move on my own. But, it's possible that I might find a
replacement move while the computer is still running and make a computer
assisted selection of a replacement move. Still, I'd certainly only analyze the
subsequent tree of analysis for that move on my own. Anatoli, I only play CC for
enjoyment, since there's no money and no adoring fans or groupies out there for
CC winners. Since there's neither fun nor intellectual challenge in winning when
the computer does the work for/with me, I won't do it.
Anatoli: Stephan, you played against Fritz and Nimzo for a few months. Did you
use an engine for your blunder check? After each move you published mountains of
>analyzes. Were they the results of “blunder check”, or you set up chess pieces
>on the board and found those 10-15 move lines yourself ?
Stephen: No, Anatoli, I did no computer blunder checking during that match.
Again, that would have been a violation of the rules. Some proof of this is seen
im my all-too-human play (see above) which resulted in a lost match for me.
Also, all the analysis ("mountains") I printed out during the game were 100%
human. I've subsequently tested that analysis with Nimzo 7.32 and Fritz 6a
(which ChessBase USA gave me after the match) and found plenty of errors and
second best moves in my notes. Please keep in mind though, that I played these
games at the sprinter speed of one move/day! That's exceptionally fast. I don't
normally play at this rate, but there was a huge audience watching and I enjoyed
that. I wanted to keep that audience watching and felt they'd get bored if I
played at my normal speed of about 3-5 days/move. So playing at this rate of
speed affected my play and certainly affected the quality (or lack thereof) of
analysis I generated. Please don't think that I'm mentioning this as an excuse
for my loss. Instead, it's meant as an excuse to explain why I think my printed
analysis wasn't up to my normal level.
Anatoli: And last thing. You are going to play on by correspondence. You still
have just Nimzo 7.32 and this is definitely not enough to compete with the other
ICCF players. You have to invest in new Fritz 8. All IM and GM use high speed
PC andif you are too honest, you have very little chances in this struggle.
Fritz/Tiger/Shredder is getting stronger and stronger and PCs are more and more
powerful. It becomes very difficult for a busy person to play cor. chess in
these conditions. It is a must to have a good PC + fritz on it, if he wants to
reach a sort of success in these new conditions. It is very difficult to
sacrifice a pawn for an unclear initiative to say nothing about a piece. Your
opponent will switch his “blunder check” on and fritz would show him in 5
seconds how to kill your initiative.
Stephen: Anatoli, thanks for your concern, buddy. Chances are that as the
computers and programs get stronger, my rating will drop...unless I can get
stronger myself. Already my rating has fallen from 2508 to 2492. Is this the
reason? Maybe, maybe not. But I don't care about ratings and I won't use
computers to analyze current game positions. I have subsequently purchased Fritz
7 (from ICD, naturallY!), but use it only to test my opening ideas against. I'm
truly a computer dummy and so I like to keep things simple. I find Nimzo 7.32 to
be the most tactically skilled program I have (my perception only, although it
clearly has the most erroneous evaluation function!) and so it's my choice for
use in blunder checking. My games tend to be far more technical and stategic
than tactical (the exceptions are when I get to play the Sicilian Dragon) so I
doubt that chess programs would be helpful anyway in the positions that I like
to play.
Anatoli: We have IG Tunc ( I forgot his surname)from Austria at CC Forum.
According to him, he plays dozens of games at the highest level and he found a
lot of spare time to arise different discussions. It is impossible for a busy
cor. player, who doesn’t use fritz, to have pastime like this ! Each position
requires a few hours of hard work and he has dozens of them. So, I check his
games together with fritz . Try, Stephan, you will have a
>lot of fun !
Stephen: Yes, GM Tunc (pronounced "Toonj") Hamarat, who's playing in the current
World Ch Final with expectations to win it, admits to using computers for move
generation and analysis. This is true for MANY strong players. For example, IM
Kenneth Frey admits to having 7-computers going at any given time, analyzing his
games. My reply: Good for them! I thinks that's perfectly fine...for them. Maybe
if I ever make it to the World Ch. Finals, I might do that too. After all, their
goals are different than mine are presently. At that level, the score and the
result is everything, and so if these tools help them, then I think that's 100%
acceptable. There's nothing morally wrong with that. But I'm not at that their
level...so I just play for fun. Anatoli, you said you checked Tunc's games with
Fritz and I presume that you found a high corelation of computer moves. OK, I'll
trust you there. But even with OTB GM's, surely the majority of their middlegame
moves will be found by computer too. If you have the time, please look at my
4-games versus the computers. I'm curious to know if a similar number of my
moves are found my your machine.
All the best,
Stephen
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