losing would have been a nightmare against a blitzer :-) He could be a very well player, but I think that’s his way, he probably would make the same moves after long consideration (except blunders). When playing against a blitzer, you know that their game might not have too much depth…
Computers are good at using the opponents time for their brute force method… maybe he was good at using my time too…
Are there any QT3ers on www.gameknot.com playing correspondence chess? My handle is brof…
I still have account Miramon on chess.com, but lately I’ve only used it to look at their lame chess problems.
Gameknot has some nice chess puzzles… tjohn, challenge accepted!
What I like about league games is that you do not know your opponent usually. How strong is he, what’s his style… I am looking forward to see what kind of player you are, tjohn.
I had the idea for a chess comic for at least 2 years… but I did not know what to do with it. I think I’ve found an interesting form to publish this comic as a game mixing comic and chess puzzles in an interesting way. If you have an iphone/ipod, let me know and I will provide you with a promotional code… or you can enter the contest below
looke here
Hey, guys. I played this game as black recently:
I have learned that the ability to make a move using my phone leads to extreme carelessness.
Hey, tiohn. If you beat me in our current gameknot game you get a promo code for Magnus.
Btw. do you know the nickname of Magnus the Small? No? well he is called Blunder, James Blunder… I will use your game as an example, I think I own 50 % of the moves :-))
p.s. don’t use a computer!
tiohn, great game! I thought I did pretty well until I lost… do you have an iphone/ipod?
Ah, this brings back memories!
I used to play chess at a fairly competitive level (~USCF 2300 was my top rating), and I sure do miss it.
The fun thing about chess was discovering first the power of pattern recognition as a heuristic for making good choices, and then later realizing that the combination of pattern recognition with brute force analysis was the path to mastery. I.e., all players above a certain level know certain patterns/structures are advantageous or disadvantageous, but the master-level player gets them by finding the exceptions to those patterns with deep analysis. This is how you get players to go for positions that “look” good based on the patterns, but actually aren’t good.
You played a great game. I was sweating towards the end and nearly wet myself when I saw that last fork.
I do not have an iphone or ipod, but I appreciate the offer.
and then later realizing that the combination of pattern recognition with brute force analysis was the path to mastery
yeah, that sounds fun… ahh, the fun days of combination and pattern recognition, I miss them too :-))
That’s a really good way to describe the strategic game. Thanks for that!
(and a very humble description of your rating,too :) )
I read the thread - a lot of it’s over my head obviously.
Put yourselves in my shoes. For some odd reason I’d like to learn to play but I admit I have a lot of competing interests going on right now (other games, for instance).
Is there a good either PC, or Iphone (heck even PSP or DS) game that would teach a newb like me the rules, and also allow me to ease in to the game by playing against the AI in the program?
I did some searching on my own, but ran into quite a few comments about how the Iphone games were crashing, or wouldn’t save, or a call (multitasking) would blow the game up you were playing.
I don’t want to read about it yet - I’d like to learn by playing. Think of me as a child, really, I know a lot of kids learn the game, probably in the womb!
Thanks for your help and suggestions!
I believe that Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition is what you’re looking for. The game features some very good tutorials hanging from the absolute beginner topics (teaching how to move the pieces) to some more advanced stuff (tactics, strategy and so on). There are also lots of AI opponents for you to play against so that you can learn by playing as you said.
I was on a big chess binge for a few years of my life. Had a regular playing partner. At one point we used to play about 8 hours a day, pretty much every day, and drink a lot of coffee. That abruptly ended when I read “Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess” and never lost another game to him lol.
That book is amazing, so simple, and so perfect, I learned a ton and it made me view the game completely differently.
I also love ‘watching’ replays of old game moves on my computer. There are some really amazing sacrifice games in the Morphy era.
Yah, I like chess.
2v2 chess is actually pretty fun if you have 4 players of equal skill (or 2 pairs of players of equal skill). Of course it can lead to a fool’s mate if your partner happens to be a girl who didn’t even know she owned a chessboard, but having to appraise a brand new situation every time it’s your turn (because you don’t control what your partner is doing other than stopping them from making fatal errors) is kind of cool.
If you’re looking specifically for an iPhone app, there are free chess apps of course and you might as well try them first to see if they offer what you want. But if you’re willing to spend $8 give tChess Pro a look (there’s also a Lite version for $1, I think the main difference is it’s limited to the lower skill levels and that won’t matter to you right away if you’re just learning chess). Simple, clean interface and I’ve never had it crash since you mentioned that as a concern. It also features a tutorial for learning the rules + basic strategy though I haven’t used that part.
What I like to do is play rated games against the AI. Whether the rating is accurate or not doesn’t matter to me so much, the point is that once you’ve played a few games to establish a rating you get matched up against AI opponents of similar playing strength so the games will be competitive. And it plays reasonably on lower difficulty levels which a lot of chess programs get wrong (a sequence of master level combinations too deep for the average player to find, followed by an essentially random blunder to compensate (as if there’s a “blunder frequency” parameter and that’s how the algorithm lowers the difficulty), is not a good way to approximate how a weaker player would actually play but it seems like that’s all some chess programs do on the lower levels - I haven’t run into that sort of weirdness with tChess).
I just saw that Shredder Chess is on iTunes as well, and the Lite version is completely free. Will have to try that one.
on the DS I have Chessmaster (by UBIsoft) for my kid. It has many chess related mini games,puzzles, tutorials and opponets from weak to strong… For learning chess it is great…
I have to agree on that book - I’m surprised I haven’t pimped it here, earlier. It’s the perfect intro to chess.