Author: Eric Jensen
Date: 21:04:05 07/23/04
I am currently 17 years old, and have been playing competitive chess for a while now, however, it's been mostly a summer hobby for me, with school always during the year. I have a USCF rating, (although I think my membership has lapsed at the moment) of about 1400, but i fancy my real playing strength at about 1700... The last OTB tournament I played in I scored 3.5/5 in the U18 section, with a performance rating of about 1795 or something, and netted the Class D prize, because my rating going in was so low. In any case, my point is that for me, my time constraints and my budget restraints allow me only time for study in most cases. Computer chess for me, began as a quest to really get an opening book down on paper. (Funny that I refer to my own opening repertoire as an "opening book" but I always have) I know many many lines a short way into them, but I wanted to really get a handle on my playing style and what lines that I wanted to play and what lines that I didn't. I turned to Fritz 6 at the time, with its huge database and analysis capabilities. I find myself in this forum for the first time in the past weeks, because I recently switched to an Apple PowerBook G4, and alas, no more Fritz. I searched around for a viable alternative, and was dissapointed to find a complete lack of respectable database software, but here's where the plot thickens... Disgusted I turn back to Hour 7 of my 24 hour cheap teach yourself C course "Working with Loops," and I make a connection in my head... I am in search of a computer program... and I'm trying to learn C, because you see, I'm planning on being a physics and/or computer science major, or at least a Physics major with alot of computer science... and why not?? I can mix my hobby with my career plans! I have my future ahead of me and I have a reason to go to class! I seem to remember a test position in an Ask Evans article that mentioned something about "www.talkchess.com" where programmers always post new test positions... and so here I am, and here I will be for a while, but here, here is also the moral of my story. I don't know how many other young people frequent this forum, but I have a message for any who do, and would welcome any riper perspectives on a bit of 17 year old wisdom. We can't all be GM's by the age of 13. A ticket to Europe for the World Youth Olympiads is not something many of us will get in the mail tomorrow. A career in chess, if you can call it that, is not something that will ever be very lucrative, even if you are an incredible talent, and it's daunting to see the Sergey Karjakins of the world accomplishing more than I could ever dream of against the World Champion, with the black pieces, and then getting a ride home from their mommies. But your hobby doesn't have to be something that you give up in the face of your future. Thinking about your future doesn't mean forgetting your past, and you will be happy when you incorporate what you want to do into what you've already done. Chess is what I know and love, and it will still be that way when I break 2000, it will still be that way when I fall back down below 2000, and it will still be that way when I most enjoy watching computer vs. computer games. For me, I hope that computer chess will be a way to blend the career I hope to enjoy with the game that I love. My last piece of advice to everyone here though is to fall in love with chess again. One way to do it is to check out Anand's knights on the queenside in his last Dortmund game against Svidler... it's beautiful. Or just play some slow games and get back into the swing of things. PVs and search algorithms are beautiful in their own right, but there's a reason you picked this particular project. Don't forget that looking at the process can only help us to understand the end result. And anyone who hated my advice but knows of some really good database software that's reasonably priced... i.e. free...and for mac OSX... I'm willing to accept constructive criticism in exchange for ftp links!
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