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Subject: Re: Analysis - A database or is the chess program enough?

Author: margolies,marc

Date: 21:44:59 01/01/04

Go up one level in this thread


Hi Alan,
I am not sure that you are asking the right question to improve as a 1500 rated
player. Because I do not think that it is an issue of what you own or buy-- It's
an issue for me of how much you want to improve -- and how that translates into
a commitment of time and effort.
Once you have answered that question (for yourself) then you will have a compass
towards what you want to do and how to spend your money as well. The best advice
I can give you is to try and keep it fun or you will quit.
Engines-- free ones like Crafty-- and ones with the elaborate friendly playchess
interface of fritz-- cannot teach you how to play chess nor tournament chess.
What they can do is point out your tactical boo-boos-- and that's it. It's a bit
like having a Parent who always says "No!"
If you are serious about going over yor own games, maybe like doing it with a
friend, then a tactical tool can speed the process up. But if you want the
computer to do your thinhking for you then you are trying to hatch a dead egg.
Databases have a certain research purpose because these can show you what
stronger players did in similar positions. studying such relevant data can help
you understand the positions and their ideas, but you still  need to know what
you are looking for.
All the good databases come with an analytical engine or two. ChessAssistant
comes with tiger -and does blunder checks of your games. Alternatively Chessbase
 can run crafty for free and analize positions in your games although you would
also need shredder or fritz to analyze an entire game in their system.
A training disk like Tactics3 or Strategy2 from convekta will probably give you
the most bang for your buck and time.
And at your level, going over the games manually without assistance for a while
may make you stronger than buying an expensive analysis toy, as enticingly
simple as that sounds. Also once you start deeply analyzing your own games, you
may have a clearer idea about how to spend money to enhace your ability to do
that.
Just a thought.


On January 01, 2004 at 17:21:35, Alan Grotier wrote:

>
> Does a chess player rated around 1500 and playing mostly against chess
>engines,need a chessbase "X" or a Chess Assistant "X"  etc to obtain the variety
>of analysis features that seem to be offered by these databases or
>does a standard chess engine such as Fritz 8 offer the same analysis features?
>
> I will not be competing seriously and just need to examine my own mostly lost
>games.But want the best analysis features available at this time.
>
> Alain



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