Hard is a challenge though. But, I also tried a few Stockfish games in lichess.org, to get a better "scoring" since it has 8 levels instead of
just 3.
So the current stockhish in lichess level 4 is trivial. He makes way too
many mistakes, so up to level 5.
Level 5 starts to give me tough resistance, and I can play it to a
stalemate if I'm overly cautious, but winning is harder. The problem is
that it's not subtle with its mistakes at times. So if I take it slow, I might end up with a stalemate if he plays good... BUT, from time to time
he makes something crazy, and as long as I notice it, it is pretty easy
to capitaliaze on that mistake.
So the key to beating stockfish level 5 seems to be to take it easy and
wait for one of its "crazy moments" and then just capitalize on it, and
then simplify the game by regular exchanges, which then gets you an end
game with a piece up or a pawn majority.
I've read online that level 6 is the same, although you have to wait
longer for the mistake to happen, which means that I would also not have
to make a mistake for longer.
It is kind of sad that the methodology to win against stockfish level 5
and 6 is to wait for an obvious mistake, but that could also just be a reflection of less than optimal skills on my side.
So what do you think?
game with a piece up or a pawn majority.
I've read online that level 6 is the same, although you have to wait
longer for the mistake to happen, which means that I would also not have
to make a mistake for longer.
Fwiw i am unable to beat fairy-stockfish (14) level 5 on Lichess.
Four was tough at times and took ages to conquer consistently - with
level five i just can't do it.
It is kind of sad that the methodology to win against stockfish level 5
and 6 is to wait for an obvious mistake, but that could also just be a
reflection of less than optimal skills on my side.
So what do you think?
I think i am not good enough !
So what do you think?
Is that how you beat chess engines such as stockfish? Do you have any other >> favourite strategies for beating them?
I am prone to blunders nowadays. But if I avoid those, level five is easy to beat positionally, and six not that hard.
I always play black. I will eventually transpose into the modern defense, Pirc, hyperaccelerated dragon, grand prix attack or king's indian.
With most of these the strategy is to hold the centre and expand on the queenside. This will be an attack on the king sometimes, but usually it is just pressure down the c or b files, weakening squares like c4, c3, etc, and a winning endgame. Occasionally you can set up a standard sac on b2 or e4 and win more quickly. I have a tendency to miss those.
With the KID we have the usual attack if it plays d5, which if you don't blunder you can always win, as it wastes time with irrelevant moves, only rarely pushing its queenside attack with the necessary speed.
At level seven the tactics are so accurate that I have only drawn with the KID. I get winning positions, but can't force the win.
Note that Stockfish does not always play at the same strength. Depending, I suppose, on server load, level five can play like four, and six like five.
I've posted here on threads in the past couple of years some silly games I've won at these levels, where Stockfish was clearly not at its best.
The challenge now is to beat six tactically, without the advantage of memorized tricky openings (luckily I have none of those, so they're easy to avoid). It's just a matter of arranging a position where you can look deeper than stockfish, but my creaky old brain is having some trouble doing that very often.
Personally, one problem with the C-Z I have identified is to identify
exactly when to break on C4 or when to initiate a king side attack with
Ng4. I find that sometimes I wait too long and either make a mistake, _or_ >> I wait too long and the game gets locked into a very solid pawn structure
where neither player feels that he can make a profitable break.
I thought that the classic break with the Colle was e4.
In the games where I _do_ get the attack timing right, it's usually quite a >> quick win, or rather, I know exactly what to do to win, so I can play it
more or less automatically, even though it might take a few moves here and >> there to alingn pieces rooks etc.
Sometimes you can set up such a positional plus that all tactics work for you and you can win with natural attacking moves. Analysis generally reveals, however, that faster wins were available.
Wishing you a pleasant evening!
And to you.
William Hyde
D wrote:
On Wed, 13 Nov 2024, William Hyde wrote:
So what do you think?
Is that how you beat chess engines such as stockfish? Do you have any
other favourite strategies for beating them?
I am prone to blunders nowadays. But if I avoid those, level five is easy >>> to beat positionally, and six not that hard.
You are strong with the force William! What was your peak FIDE rating?
I grew up in an area which was a chess desert, relative to most of Europe. Never played in a FIDE rated event. My top OTB rating ever was 2254 USCF, based on very few games. My final rating 100 points lower.
I was never 2200 FIDE. I played 2300 FIDE players and they were not merely 100 points above me.
Given my tendency to blunder, I shudder to think how low I would be rated now. But while age has taken away the ability to focus, I know more about positional play than ever.
At age 84 Kortchnoi said that he understood chess better than he had when he played for the world championship at age 46. He just didn't play as well.
At a vastly lower level, that's the case with me.
I always play black. I will eventually transpose into the modern defense, >>> Pirc, hyperaccelerated dragon, grand prix attack or king's indian.
But what do you do when you have to play white?
I generally play the Reti, but it can transpose into the Catalan, neo-Catalan, English, or even the Queen's gambit.
One of the reasons for playing the Reti, for those who unlike me are booked up, is that black often allows a transposition into a very favorable version of one of the above openings, something that wouldn't happen if you played the opening directly.
I play it because:
(a) I am a fanatical hypermodern (1)
(b) It's the best opening to play if you are too lazy to learn openings.
If I am playing someone known to be an expert on the Sicilian I always play e4. I don't know why. It usually results in suffering.
(1) One should never become a hypermodern before one has been a fanatical classicist. Regrettably I did not follow this path.
What about performance enhancers such as coffee or tea? Do you find that
it improves your chances?
Only when you are very tired. Otherwise best taken in moderation if at all. Once, playing in a very hot venue, I drank my first coke in decades. The caffeine and sugar had me jumping up and down in my seat and I lost badly.
This is the truth! Sometimes things just fall into place, and it feels
like some black magic has been performed!
After posting this yesterday I played a game against five to create an example.
First I should say that my c5 is a poor move, and d5 is also bad, and I would never play these in an important game. As you can see I won, but as I said above the computer reveals many wins that I missed - as well as the time I threw the win away. At one point I am even losing.
https://lichess.org/zVTqqVIc#53
I would be unlikely to get away with that at level six, and playing that opening against seven I would inevitably lose.
William Hyde
D wrote:
On Thu, 14 Nov 2024, William Hyde wrote:
Given my tendency to blunder, I shudder to think how low I would be rated >>> now. But while age has taken away the ability to focus, I know more about >>> positional play than ever.
That is a nebulous concept.
The best guide to positional play, or at least part of it, that I have seen for under 2200 players is a slim book by Max Euwe "Judgment and Planning in Chess".
Rather than discussing positional play in the abstract, it chapter by chapter illustrates various positional ideas. Chapters include the use of the distant pawn majority, exploiting bad bishops, using strong squares, open files, the queen side attack, and attacks against the king. Yes, positional play includes attacks.
Edward Lasker's "Modern Chess Strategy" is also excellent.
The story goes, and it may be false, that over a hundred years ago a non-English speaker wrote a language guide for his countrymen entitled "English as She is Spoke". So when I talk about positional play, keep that guy in mind.
I will be keeping in mind a lecture I heard a 1200 player give to an absolute beginner about the style of Spassky ("As a player he always went for the big cheapo in the middlegame").
Positional play is about maximizing the opportunities for your forces, and minimizing the opportunities for his. Both aspects are important but the first is easier to grasp. Like most dictums about positional play, I know this sounds uselessly vague.
Enhancing the mobility of your pieces is positional play. Gaining (if you can keep it!) a space advantage is positional play, controlling the centre (again, if you can keep it) is positional play.
The reverse also applies. Try to restrict his pieces (beware of making time wasting or weakening pawn moves in the process), make sure you have a liberating move if he is likely to get a space advantage, attack his centre.
Weaknesses are crucial. If your opponent has a weakness his pieces will be constrained to defend it (providing, of course, that the weakness cannot be sacrificed for play elsewhere - tactics always come first).
You may never capture the weakness, but the mobility advantage you get may allow an attack elsewhere.
Keep an eye on latent weaknesses. The pawn on c2 is not weak, but if the d pawn advances, black's c file is half open, and black moves his b pawn to b4, suddenly the c pawn is weak. Making this happen is a positional plan. Though no doubt white has plans of his own.
Em Lasker had a gift for taking perfectly reasonable looking pawns and making them into weaknesses (or "Targets" in the language of Soltis's book "Why Lasker Matters").
Obviously, we all want our rooks on open files, but a good positional player knows when an open file is useless, and where and how to create another open file for his rooks. We all want to put a knight in the centre, but a good positional player knows that if he has two knights, only one can occupy that spot. Trade off the superfluous knight. there are many similar rules, all of which have exceptions, of course.
We all play positionally, whether well or not, whether we know it or not. Standard openings are based on positional ideas as well as tactical ones.
But then there's Tartakower's definition:
"Tactics is what you do when there's something to do. Positional play is what you do when there's nothing to do".
I'm currently reading Russian Silhouettes and I have to say I am very much >> enjoying the personal angle of the book and the characters! Kortchnoi is
not covered but he is mentioned, naturally, several times. I find the book >> an excellent break from the more on topic teaching style books!
I love that book, and the companion volumes. Irving Chernev wrote a number of books which are a mix of chess history and games, also worth reading.
Ahh the reti! The IM recommended it to me, but I never got a long with it
and just felt cramped, so after reviewing the best opening summary I've
ever found on the net, I settled (for the moment) on Colle-Zukertort for
white and a little bit of Scandinavian for black.
Always play an opening that suits your style and/or temperament. If you are uncomfortable with the large center black sometimes gets with the Reti, then do not play that opening.
Really? Even easier than the London or Colle or C-Z? I would argue that
those are all way more energy efficient! ;)
The problem with those is that you often run into people who know them well for black. The Colle was popular in Texas and it didn't take me long to learn an anti-Colle system that worked rather well.
You will almost never run into an opponent who knows the Reti better than you do. If so, he'll probably be 300 points higher rated anyway.
The Reti is so flexible that there is no anti-Reti system to worry about.
This I read in the excellent book Mental Toughness in Chess by Werner
Schweitzer. This is great if you want to improve your "meta-chess" by
looking at how to practice, train, visualize, set goals, deal with
frustrations and emotions, keep motivated etc. It's an excellent and short >> book which I highly recommend.
Three books by Kotov: "Think like a Grandmaster", " Play ..." and "Train ..." are relevant here but are for strongish players. I used to do the puzzles from the first while on a run, but I can't say I was really strong enough to get full benefit from the book. It was an amusing read, though.
Nimzovitch said that in chess it helps to have an enemy. By which he meant that his drive to disprove the maxims of Tarrasch caused him to work harder at chess than he otherwise might have.
Decades ago a FIDE master friend of mine decided to determine whether the Queen's Indian defense was sound. Of course it is, and he was never going to find a refutation. But he did learn a lot in the pursuit of this goal, and when someone dared play the QID against him in a Toronto championship the hapless opponent was wiped off the board rather rapidly.
Obsession can be good, even if its not objectively correct. Just don't overdo it, Weaver Adams style (Mr Adams wrote a book arguing that 1e4 wins in all variations but, not satisfied with that, wrote that black can win against any other opening move. He was a strong player, but as his opponents always knew what he was going to play his results suffered).
William Hyde
I had a quick look and definitely not for me. Too many moves and too
little text and "entertainment".
I still think you could learn from it by merely browsing, not actually setting up a board and playing it over. For that matter some of the positions are given on lichess so you can use the engine there.
A master I spoke to last night recommended Pachman's books on strategy....
Interestingly, his definition of positional play was even worse than mine. His skill is largely tactical, as I recall.
What is your check list for rooks on open files? There is a common
situation that I see fairly often when the king can cover 3 squares, so
the rook can move to another file.
I have no check list. Perhaps I should. World postal champion CJS Purdy created a checklist to be used at every move ... but he admitted that he seldom remembered to use it. I think chess is too complex for that.
I think that was a very nice way to put it. Tactics are somehow easier
to grasp, since there is often one or two "obvious" moves. Positional
feels more like trying to tilt the odds in your favour.
Long ago I was, as usual, defending a bad position against a superior player. At one point he started a long think, looking for the killing move. We both thought it just had to be there, but the best either of us could find led to a marginally better endgame for him. Running short of time, he took this option and I had no problem drawing.
I've lost several games by getting into time pressure looking for a tactical win that just wasn't there, while all along a quiet positional move existed that would have won without too much trouble.
Yes, exactly! That's another fascinating aspect of chess... how much it
is influenced by the temperament of the player. Some are aggressive,
some like dramatic romantic moves, some like to fiddle around with tiny,
tight moves and slowly maneuver, rather being safe than sorry. I'm that
kidn of guy, and I think that is why I am so bad at blitz. I absolutely
hate having to move withotu being sure why, and having through through
the move and what it should lead to.
I read about a russian master called Geller in the Sosonko book, and he
was exactly the same and was not very good at Blitz.
When I first started playing blitz I got a decent rating for my age. But every week it went down, down to levels that had seem inconceivable the week before. Meanwhile my real rating was getting better.
I eventually realized I had the wrong attitude towards blitz. I allowed minor reverses, like losing a piece, to bother me. Blitz games are always going to be packed with errors. Forget what could have happened if you hadn't dropped that piece and focus on the new position. And if you lose, don't be bothered. It's just a blitz game.
My rating rebounded as fast as it had fallen. And on the way up I won lots of nice juicy class prizes - sometimes as much at $1.50!
So the people I play definitely do not have pet defenses against the
Colle-Zukertort, and actually, the book I am reading does talk about
anti-Colles and how to play against them.
As I say, if the Colle fits your style, play it! It's not a bad opening.
But it's too direct for me.
Interesting! I wonder what that tells us about your psychology? ;)
It tells you that I am lazy. But also practical. Having played the Reti/English system for so long, I probably know more about it than most of my opponents, even though I haven't actually studied it.
Against some attacking players, I would sometimes play the very un-hypermodern d5 against d4. They seemed to have this weird lack of respect for the QGD, thinking that anything would win against it. I got my first winning position against a master that way though, alas, masters are masters for a reason ...
So pragmatism occasionally trumps principle, or even laziness.
In terms of impressing women, which opening would you recommend?
The one that leads out of the chess club to the tennis courts.
William Hyde
But in case you want to check out the state of the art, here's a
youtuber for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaq7hhhbAi0
Very pleasant to look at,
and her mother is a GM I think, and one of swedens most
successful female players.
On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 22:27:22 +0000, D wrote:
But in case you want to check out the state of the art, here's a
youtuber for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaq7hhhbAi0
Very pleasant to look at,
Anna Cramling might be pretty but her YouTube channel is very annoying
to watch. She always gets so excited about everything, screaming about
the simplest of things. She's also banging the YouTuber Wirtual so we
can forget about her popping-in for a game of strip chess anytime soon.
and her mother is a GM I think, and one of swedens most
successful female players.
Pia Cramling
Levy Rozman just beat her in some OTB games in Sweden. Although I think
she went easy on him as he's trying to get his GM norms.
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024, Silver Skull wrote:
Pia Cramling
Levy Rozman just beat her in some OTB games in Sweden.
Although I think she went easy on him as he's trying to get
his GM norms.
True, and add to that that she is quite old. I think, like
most atheletes, she probably was better in her prime.
I think that six generally looks one move deeper than five, and that
makes a huge difference. It also seems to play better positionally, but
that may just be a consequence of looking deeper. I assume that at the
end of each analysis tree a positional evaluation is done.
I have a friend who only plays eight. He gets about a draw a month.
D wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024, Silver Skull wrote:
Pia Cramling
Levy Rozman just beat her in some OTB games in Sweden.
Although I think she went easy on him as he's trying to get
his GM norms.
True, and add to that that she is quite old. I think, like
most atheletes, she probably was better in her prime.
Are we calling chess players athletes now?!
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 15:41:35 -0500, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
I think that six generally looks one move deeper than five, and thatSo what's your favorite server for Stockfish?
makes a huge difference. It also seems to play better positionally, but
that may just be a consequence of looking deeper. I assume that at the
end of each analysis tree a positional evaluation is done.
I have a friend who only plays eight. He gets about a draw a month.
(I suspect most of my chess time over the next 3-4 weeks will involve following the world championship match in Singapore.....)
D wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024, Silver Skull wrote:
Pia Cramling
Levy Rozman just beat her in some OTB games in Sweden.
Although I think she went easy on him as he's trying to get
his GM norms.
True, and add to that that she is quite old. I think, like
most atheletes, she probably was better in her prime.
Are we calling chess players athletes now?!
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 19:40:44 +0000, "Blueshirt"
<blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:
D wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024, Silver Skull wrote:
Pia Cramling
Levy Rozman just beat her in some OTB games in Sweden.
Although I think she went easy on him as he's trying to get
his GM norms.
True, and add to that that she is quite old. I think, like
most atheletes, she probably was better in her prime.
Are we calling chess players athletes now?!
Quite a few national chess federations are associate members of their country's Olympic Committee.
I remember we (Canada) once were able to apply for full membership but
didn't go through with it as we didn't think our masters would agree
to pee into a cup between rounds at the national championship.
(I suspect in my playing days I might have failed my urine test given
I routinely drank 2-3 cups of coffee at the board during my games -
and knew I'd never survive the mocking one would get for failing one's
drug test.)
D wrote:
On Sat, 16 Nov 2024, William Hyde wrote:
On another note, today I very humbly and gently asked stockfish level 6
for a match, and it was a disaster. The best game went on for 16 moves
without any big mistakes on either side, then I made a mistake, and the
house of cards fell.
I think I must reach a point with 20 moves or so without a big mistake
in order to trap level 6 with the same strategy I use for level 5!
I think that six generally looks one move deeper than five, and that makes a huge difference. It also seems to play better positionally, but that may just be a consequence of looking deeper. I assume that at the end of each analysis tree a positional evaluation is done.
I have a friend who only plays eight. He gets about a draw a month.
That reminds me of the Edward Lasker book. He talks about how he sees
chess as a science, with rules, principles, and presumably, check lists,
while some GM:s look at it as art, with intuition, sudden bursts of
genius etc.
Ever since the rules allegedly governing good play were discovered in the 1800s and promulgated by Steinitz and Tarrasch, progress in chess has largely been in opposition to those rules. As Reti said:
"We, the younger players, are not interested in the rules but in the exceptions".
Nimzovich put a different stress on it, promulgating new and improved versions of the old rules (control of the centre is still vital, but control does not necessarily mean occupation with pawn) plus new rules (overprotection, blockade, prophylaxis). Which themselves came under fire.
You can become a very good player by knowing and following those rules, assuming a certain amount of tactical ability, but to be a great player you must know when the rules do not apply. Not something either of us really needs to worry much about.
Yes, exactly! That's another fascinating aspect of chess... how much it >>>> is influenced by the temperament of the player. Some are aggressive,
some like dramatic romantic moves, some like to fiddle around with tiny, >>>> tight moves and slowly maneuver, rather being safe than sorry. I'm that >>>> kidn of guy, and I think that is why I am so bad at blitz. I absolutely >>>> hate having to move withotu being sure why, and having through through >>>> the move and what it should lead to.
Yes, exactly the problem I had. But I came to enjoy making largely instinctive moves, stopping to analyze only rarely.
Do you play often with your children or grand children? Do you let them
win or do you mercilessly crush them? The second option is what turned
me off chess for at least 10 years.
An uncle and a cousin played, the cousin's son became a pretty decent master, but I don't play within family.
Against some attacking players, I would sometimes play the very
un-hypermodern d5 against d4. They seemed to have this weird lack of
respect for the QGD, thinking that anything would win against it. I got my >>> first winning position against a master that way though, alas, masters are >>> masters for a reason ...
Oh the joy of a d5, says the C-Z player! Ideally that gives me the sweet,
sweet, e5 for my knight! =D
Exactly why my opponents lost. E5 is a wonderful square for the knight, but not in all positions.
In terms of impressing women, which opening would you recommend?
The one that leads out of the chess club to the tennis courts.
Touché! But in case you want to check out the state of the art, here's a
youtuber for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaq7hhhbAi0
Very pleasant to look at, and her mother is a GM I think, and one of
swedens most successful female players.
Yes, Pia Cramling is a great player.
William Hyde
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024, Blueshirt wrote:
D wrote:
True, and add to that that she is quite old. I think, like
most atheletes, she probably was better in her prime.
Are we calling chess players athletes now?!
Yes! =) I think that's a fair call. Modern chess makes
enormous demands on your stamina and many of the top players
to work out.
On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 19:40:44 +0000, "Blueshirt"
<blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:
D wrote:
True, and add to that that she is quite old. I think, like
most atheletes, she probably was better in her prime.
Are we calling chess players athletes now?!
Quite a few national chess federations are associate members
of their country's Olympic Committee.
So what's your favorite server for Stockfish?
D wrote:
Sweden is not a chess nation as far as I know,
On the contrary, Sweden punches well above its weight in chess. Not as much as Iceland, but let's not expect miracles.
Gideon Stahlberg was a very strong GM in mid-century, winning games against pretty much all the greats and qualifying for the Candidates twice. A certain nervousness in tense situations held him back a bit.
Ulf Andersson was another leading Swedish player, very strong in the 70s and 80s.
And the country's done reasonably well in Olympiads.
William Hyde
I suspect most of my chess time over the next 3-4 weeks will
involve following the world championship match in
Singapore.....
The Horny Goat wrote:
So what's your favorite server for Stockfish?
Stockfish can be downloaded on to any PC/mobile device from the
Stockfish website. There's no need for third-party servers.
https://stockfishchess.org/
Are we calling chess players athletes now?!
Quite a few national chess federations are associate members
of their country's Olympic Committee.
It doesn't make chess players athletes!!!
Dear rgcm:ers,
As regular readers of my posts know, I've entertained myself with the Colle-Zukertort for the past week or so. It's a system, easy, and a
fairly safe way to get past the opening. On the down side, it's not the
most aggressive opening, but I find that it suits my lack of time, and
to a certain extent, my personality, since I do not like breath takingly sharp games.
With that in mind, I have quickly read through the book, and played
through some games, and now I'm taking a break to play some engines, to
test the ideas, and see where I have problems.
I first tried Crafty and Xboard on my local computer, and both are
trivial to beat on "Easy" (they have 3 levels, Easy, Medium, Hard).
On medium, it's more of a challenge, and I need to be a bit careful,
however, here the first disappointment shows. They are no very creative!
=( They might beat me once or twice, but, I learn from that. And since
the engines tend to repeat themselves, if becomes trivial to beat them
on medium as well, once you play a couple of games, since they both tend
to repeat their moves way too often.
Hard is a challenge though. But, I also tried a few Stockfish games in lichess.org, to get a better "scoring" since it has 8 levels instead of
just 3.
So the current stockhish in lichess level 4 is trivial. He makes way too
many mistakes, so up to level 5.
Level 5 starts to give me tough resistance, and I can play it to a
stalemate if I'm overly cautious, but winning is harder. The problem is
that it's not subtle with its mistakes at times. So if I take it slow, I might end up with a stalemate if he plays good... BUT, from time to time
he makes something crazy, and as long as I notice it, it is pretty easy
to capitaliaze on that mistake.
So the key to beating stockfish level 5 seems to be to take it easy and
wait for one of its "crazy moments" and then just capitalize on it, and
then simplify the game by regular exchanges, which then gets you an end
game with a piece up or a pawn majority.
I've read online that level 6 is the same, although you have to wait
longer for the mistake to happen, which means that I would also not have
to make a mistake for longer.
It is kind of sad that the methodology to win against stockfish level 5
and 6 is to wait for an obvious mistake, but that could also just be a reflection of less than optimal skills on my side.
So what do you think?
Oh, had no idea! Ulf Andersson does ring a bell, but no clear memory
surfaces. It will be interesting to see if The Queens Gambit will have made >> any impact on the next generation in a few years!
I do know that in norway, chess has boomed due to Carlsen.
Before Carlsen there was his coach, Simen Agdestein, grandmaster (rated over 2600 at one point) and professional football player.
Finished second in the world junior and won a match against Shirov.
William Hyde
I'm not clear on these levels because I play against Stockfish through a wrapper app called Simply Chess. I know what you mean at the lower levels about waiting for a mistake, such as the opponent undervaluing the queen and taking a knight next to a pawn that can get it (something crazy). These mistakes rapidly disappear as one climbs the levels.
A good feature of Simply Chess is its enforcement of touch move. A few of the national sites also do that like the FIDE chess site has touch move, but usually in online multiplayer that rule is overlooked.
There have been occasions in chess history when a player has uttered j'adoube (adjust) suspiciously late. It is possible a late announcement of an adjustment can be used after starting to make a losing move in order to retract it, thus avoiding the touch-move rule. Such behaviour, when intentionally used for a retraction, is regarded as cheating. The Yugoslav grandmaster Milan Matulović was nicknamed "J'adoubovic" after such an incident.
On Tue, 19 Nov 2024, Jhulian Waldby wrote:
I'm not clear on these levels because I play against Stockfish through
a wrapper app called Simply Chess. I know what you mean at the lower
levels about waiting for a mistake, such as the opponent undervaluing
the queen and taking a knight next to a pawn that can get it
(something crazy). These mistakes rapidly disappear as one climbs the
levels.
So tell us a bit about you? What level do you play? What's your
favourite opening, and why? Are you a professional FIDE player?
D wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2024, Jhulian Waldby wrote:
I'm not clear on these levels because I play against Stockfish through a >>> wrapper app called Simply Chess. I know what you mean at the lower levels >>> about waiting for a mistake, such as the opponent undervaluing the queen >>> and taking a knight next to a pawn that can get it (something crazy).
These mistakes rapidly disappear as one climbs the levels.
So tell us a bit about you? What level do you play? What's your
favourite opening, and why? Are you a professional FIDE player?
I've won on level 14 and usually play at 10. As white I often play Ruy Lopez, but am merely temporarily playing 2. Nf3 because I consider it a gimmick that only pays off against inexperienced players. I've opened up my competition to the occasional game against much higher ranks and have also moved up a good 100 points. The competition doesn't play the bad 2. ... Nf6 much anymore. As black, I use more imagination and have adopted King's Indian Defense and Sicilian Defense. King's Pawn feels weak to me. From what I've read it's a more staid approach whereas those two I use are volatile.
Sometime last month I purchased an annual subscription to USCF I think it was. Unfortunately my mail often comes up suspiciously missing and I never received my card or the other materials I wanted.
As for my play, while I can't seem to break the 1500 barrier, I put up a pretty good fight against anyone, even the guy I played recently with 2700 as a score.
All my life I've played too fast. Maybe it's greater interest, but I've started really examining the board and not just throwing my pieces all over without scanning defenses thoroughly enough. This is a skill that needs a name, because now, 5 months later, I'm finding extended benefits. Even if the game looks stagnant or mediocre, I can analyze it for another 30 seconds and usually come up with something that shakes things up. It's about seeing the forest for the trees instead of focusing on maybe 9 squares, checking the peripherals. It's about coming up with numerous options and taking the one that hits hardest. I played a guy that was 2300 for a couple months and he told me that you should re-assess the entire board every 2 moves. It's a strange lesson, but it's polarized enough to where maybe you can find some of the benefits. I don't even want to speculate on the actual reasons behind it, because this guy was GOOD.
Jhulian Waldby wrote:
D wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2024, Jhulian Waldby wrote:
I'm not clear on these levels because I play against Stockfish
through a wrapper app called Simply Chess. I know what you mean at
the lower levels about waiting for a mistake, such as the opponent
undervaluing the queen and taking a knight next to a pawn that can
get it (something crazy). These mistakes rapidly disappear as one
climbs the levels.
So tell us a bit about you? What level do you play? What's your
favourite opening, and why? Are you a professional FIDE player?
I've won on level 14 and usually play at 10.
We are talking about different levels here. If you won versus the level
14 I am thinking of, you'd be a very strong player. If you score 50% vs level 10 you are a strong master, if not an IM>
As white I often play Ruy
Lopez, but am merely temporarily playing 2. Nf3 because I consider it
a gimmick that only pays off against inexperienced players.
Whereas in fact it is one of the strongest moves for white in the game.
Not to my taste, though.
I've opened
up my competition to the occasional game against much higher ranks and
have also moved up a good 100 points. The competition doesn't play
the bad 2. ... Nf6 much anymore.
The Petroff is quite solid. Congratulations on your success against it,
but don't get too confident.
As black, I use more imagination and have
adopted King's Indian Defense and Sicilian Defense. King's Pawn feels
weak to me. From what I've read it's a more staid approach whereas
those two I use are volatile.
More or less. But even 1 ... e5 can be a counterattacking opening for black, playing the Marshall or Schliemann against the Ruy, for example.
Sometime last month I purchased an annual subscription to USCF I think
it was. Unfortunately my mail often comes up suspiciously missing and
I never received my card or the other materials I wanted.
Did they take your money?
up my competition to the occasional game against much higher ranks and have >> also moved up a good 100 points. The competition doesn't play the bad 2. >> ... Nf6 much anymore.
The Petroff is quite solid. Congratulations on your success against it, but don't get too confident.
As for my play, while I can't seem to break the 1500 barrier,
In my experience barriers below 2200 may seem to last a long time, but if you keep at it you'll be looking at it in the rear view mirror before long.
William Hyde
something caused the window to stop responding. Does Stockfish have 100 levels? That would be a quite clear contradiction if it does not.
Did they take your money?
Yes. That should mean that my subscription is intact, even without the card. However, I was also investing in a memoir they are releasing next year and will probably miss out on that. I don't want to, but -oh-, I guess I could go after them for the stuff. The real barrier I don't want to approach is bringing up the subject of my missing mail with the local group; they've already been slippery and evasive on the matter. It's a battle and I've got some hidden assets of my own that I don't want them to garner from the experience.
played a guy that was 2300 for a couple months and he told me that you
should re-assess the entire board every 2 moves. It's a strange lesson,
but it's polarized enough to where maybe you can find some of the
benefits. I don't even want to speculate on the actual reasons behind
it, because this guy was GOOD.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 546 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 16:37:26 |
| Calls: | 10,389 |
| Files: | 14,061 |
| Messages: | 6,416,943 |