Author: Laurence Chen
Date: 09:08:34 07/04/99
Go up one level in this thread
My recommendation is to get CT-Art 3.0 for improving your tactics. It's an excellent tactical quiz program which has all the tactical motifs classified. As for chess engines, it's a matter of personal taste. You probably noticed that there a lot of posting about the new Hiarcs 7.32 engine lately. I personally am not biased nor prejudiced towards any chess engine. I have Fritz 5.32, Junior 5, and Hiarcs 7.32 from Chessbase, and Chessmaster 6000 from Mindscape. They are all good chess engines, very strong, each however has its strengths and weaknesses. One major flaw I find with Chessmaster is the inability to create/modify an opening book, also the lack to learn from games. Such can be a big handicap, in my engines matches against Chessmaster, the Chessbase engines learn from the games, and they tend to repeat lines against Chessmaster. And this can be a serious handicap to Chessmaster, it makes me wonder if SSDF takes this into account, and delete these games from their statistics. They should not, its Mindscape design flaw and short-sightness for not thinking about this problem. I like the idea of creating an opening book, such as Chessbase chess engines will allow one to do, because I can gather all the games of a particular opening which I play, and develop a repertore. I can use this special created opening book to practice against the chessbase engines. This will help you understand the opening more deeply. It works for me. Of course, one should get a monograph of a particular opening to learn more about the strategic ideas if one lacks understanding of opening theory. Also one should get good instructional chess books. I would recommend, The Art of Attack, by Vukovic; Blockade, My System by Nimzovitsch, and any Silman's books and also Cecil Purdy's books, he's an excellent chess writer. In the past I used a combination of chess books, and computer chess engines to improve my chess. It helped me to raise my level of play from intermediate player to candidate master in one year. It has been 10 years since my last OTB game. And at that time, the chess engines was not as strong as we have today !!! Due to lack of time, and a very busy schedule, I don't play chess anymore, yet I like to play against the computer because it can fit in my schedule anytime. :) Laurence On July 04, 1999 at 11:26:41, Zachariah Amela wrote: >Dear Newsgroup; > >For many, many years now we have been playing against computers for fun and to >improve our game. My question is this: > >Can anyone give me any pointers on how to improve my chess game with a computer? >Should I study databases of games? Play against a plethra of different computer >applications? What programs would you suggest? What type of tutorials exist >and what ones would you recommend? > >I would consider myself an intermediate level player, so games and tutorials at >that level would be appropriate. > >Lastly, I live in a VERY remote area and becoming a member of a chess club is >simply not an option. Is there any Internet-based you would recommend? I know >ICC and FICS are good, but I have little time to play laggy Internet games. >What type of correspondence chess would you recommend? > >Thank you in advance for any assistance you might give.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.