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Subject: Re: useful info for the no so intellectual chess p.c. user!

Author: Bella Freud

Date: 13:31:05 11/15/99

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On November 15, 1999 at 16:16:43, liam hearns wrote:

>would it be asking to much to ask the members to submit hints on how to get the
>best out of the various programs so that the ordinary joe soap can understand
>and benifit.unfortunetly i find most of the info is either beyond me or of no
>practical use.sometimes it sounds like intellectual muscle flexing.i like many
>have a chess program and would like to use it for general fun and analysis but i
>am sure there is a lot more to the prog.dah!

Programs usually output a "best line" and a score for the best move.

If you understand chess ideas then you can play out the best line in your head
or on a board and try to visualise the sequence that the program is suggesting.
Remember that the deeper into the line that you go the more dumb will be the
moves that the program suggests.

This can give you a clue as to the style of the program and its evaluations. If
the line really gets dumb at depth (it might show a capture sequence but miss a
mate in one withing the sequence), then you can get an idea of what
understanding the program has been given at various tactical and positional
levels. This understanding might lead you to question the score associated with
the best move.

On a more positive note you can use a chess program to make tactical checks on
your own game. Most programs are good at finding tactical sequences that many
humans overlook. Thus you can get a program to find situations where you might
have won a game, or can tell you which move you made was immediately losing.

For this type of tactical analysis a fast program is usually best. Unless you
really try and get deeply involved in chess computer ideas, and there are very
few that do, then a slower program that has more positional understanding might
be more helpful. But you would still probably hard a hard job trying to
understand why it chose particular sequences.


Bella








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