Author: KarinsDad
Date: 08:18:46 01/10/99
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If you have observed the Soltis Curve (i.e. most chess players do not improve significantly after 8 years of play), you may see that the tools for improving play are basically irrrelevant. It is the determination, attitude, and opportunities of the individual player that are important. Chess programs are appealing since they have the ability to emulate an opponent, a teacher, a guru, etc. However, this is somewhat illusory. Since a human has the ability to quickly acquire good moves from a chess program to a given position, there is a tendency to not sit down and work the position out yourself, but rather to allow the program to do it for you. The chess database programs are useful for quickly playing through the moves of a variation and familiarizing yourself with them. However, when using the database like this, most of this is stored in short term memory and is eventually forgotten. In order to truly store variations in memory, you must first understand the ideas behind the variations (and most database programs fall short there), and secondly, you must repeatedly go over those variations, either in study or play. A good or photographic memory is helpful, but most players do not have that, hence, the ideas must be ingrained. The bottom line is that, although chess playing and database programs have the potential to help improve a given player's understanding and therefore chess strength, whether that occurs or not is up to the individual player. And for most players who have hit their Soltis Curve, it is unlikely that computer programs will help significantly. In some cases, the programs may even diminish the strength of the player due to reinforcing laziness. KarinsDad On January 10, 1999 at 01:39:03, Reynolds Takata wrote: >How many points on average would you say that you(whoever you are) have >increased in strength(if any) since you first purchased a professional chess >program? Answer only if you believe that the increase in strength had something >significant to do with the usage of the chess program. I'm not too interested >as to the effect you think databases have had but that may be of some interest >as well(yeah throw that in too :)). I'm curious also if some statistic or >comonality could be found in those whose strength did increase. This is >suddenly of interest to me because 95+% of all chess players in a 5 year >period(excluding juniors) don't increase their rating beyond the statistical >margin of error(when they do, the rating usually falls right back to where it >started, and no significant change can be seen) > >R. Takata >USCF Life MAster
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