Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 18:08:42 08/12/03
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On August 12, 2003 at 19:13:01, Frank Nelson wrote: >I am about the FIDE 2275 chess rating at present. I was wondering is it cool to >play gambits against the likes of Hiarcs, Fritz, and ChessTiger. The chess >visionary (late) IM Ken Smith said that gambits is a necessary evil when playing >top echelon chess. But I don't have the fight in me to venture a gambit since I >saw a band of galloping horses so I assume that I was in for a race. >The last time I saw Ken's "Chess Improvement Course" he recommended that you >have a dozen gambits in your shirt-pocket if you know what I mean. Thoughts and >opinions would be appreciated on this topic. > >Frank Nelson, your chessfellow Against a human, I think it's probably good advice. You would have to choose wiesely when to use the gambits of course, but it would be a nice wild card to hold. Against computers I don't think it's such a good idea. Note that I am thinking of gambits and sacrifices as different things here. For instance, it is well known that humans can sometimes sacrifice and weaken the king's defenses and execute a successful mating attack. Unless you are threatening mate, I don't think a gambit will work well. For instance, threatening to sacrifice a pawn or two for increased development isn't so great against a computer. Against a human you can likely build up some significant pressure and it is likely, especially against a weaker opponenent, that your opponent will crack and make one miscalculation under the pressure, and you go on to win. Against a computer there are zero miscalculations unless it is simply beyond the search depth of the computer. That's why mating sacrifices and attacks work against computers sometimes. They don't see the potential threat of mate because it may still be many, many moves away after you've chased the king all over the board. One thing to keep in mind is that a computer only has to find that one saving line. If you have increased development/mobility/space/whatever, and the computer can find one line to "hang in there" long enough to get it's pieces developed, then you're down a pawn or two and have little to show for it. I'm not that strong of a player though, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I only know what I've seen from other players who have played computers (both successfully and unsuccessfully).
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