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!
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.
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.
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.
Against some attacking players, I would sometimes play the very
un-hypermodern d5 against d4.-a 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
In terms of impressing women, which opening would you recommend?
The one that leads out of the chess club to the tennis courts.
Touch|-! 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.
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?!
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?!
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.-a 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.
Touch|-! 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 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.)
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.....)
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.
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.
So what's your favorite server for Stockfish?
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.
Sweden is not a chess nation as far as I know,
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.....
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!!!
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/
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?
On Mon, 18 Nov 2024, William Hyde wrote:
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-a 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
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.
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 Matulovi-c 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.-a 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).-a 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.-a 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).-a >>> 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.
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.-a 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).-a 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.
Lopez, but am merely temporarily playing 2. Nf3 because I consider it a gimmick that only pays off against inexperienced players.
up my competition to the occasional game against much higher ranks and
have also moved up a good 100 points.-a The competition doesn't play the
bad 2. ... Nf6 much anymore.
adopted King's Indian Defense and Sicilian Defense.-a King's Pawn feels
weak to me.-a 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.-a 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,
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.-a 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).-a 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.-a If you won versus the level
14 I am thinking of, you'd be a very strong player.-a If you score 50% vs level 10 you are a strong master, if not-a an IM>
-a 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.
-aI've opened
up my competition to the occasional game against much higher ranks and
have also moved up a good 100 points.-a The competition doesn't play
the bad 2. ... Nf6 much anymore.
The Petroff is quite solid.-a Congratulations on your success against it, but don't get too confident.
-a As black, I use more imagination and have
adopted King's Indian Defense and Sicilian Defense.-a King's Pawn feels
weak to me.-a From what I've read it's a more staid approach whereas
those two I use are volatile.
More or less.-a But even 1 ... e5-a 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.-a 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.-a 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.-a It's a strange lesson, but it's polarized enough to where maybe you can find some of the benefits.-a I don't even want to speculate on the actual reasons behind
it, because this guy was GOOD.
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