Dave (from the UK) wrote:
Patrick wrote:

First off, I don't play against people. I know that may sound weird,
but I'm a noncompetitive kind of guy, and I have no interest in beating
people or being beaten by them. I do all my chess playing against a
computer AI.

I don't know about others, but I feel that playing people gives far more
diversity in games. If you don't want to sit over a board, I think
playing online chess might be a decent compromise. Also, some opponents
will agree to analyse a game afterwards. That is helpful to both you and
your opponent.

I personally tend to blunder more when playing against a computer. I
concentrate far less than if playing a person.

I guess I tend to blunder more too. But for me, paradoxically, this is
part of the reason I so far play exclusively against the computer AI.

My track record in chess is pretty dismal. I learned the game at age
12 (in 1967), and ever since then I've wished I could be a decent
player (i.e., an intermediate-level player). Yet I played very rarely
back then, and when I got to high school I refused to join the chess
club (it was very uncool from my teen POV). Instead I bought books and
studied the game by myself at home, practicing with a book called
"Solitaire Chess."

When I did play a game, what typically happened is that I'd get way
ahead positionally in the beginning (because unlike my opponents, I had
read chess books and understood some things about opening strategy) but
then make one or more tactical blunders and lose.

When the home computer came along (for us it was the late 1980s), I
rushed out and bought Chessmaster 2100, thinking that finally I'd be
able to practice enough to become a decent player. For a while I did
practice, but it seemed there was a huge gap between Novice and
Intermediate levels. I could play a comfortable game and win often
enough on Novice level, but I'd get crushed on Intermediate level
almost every time unless I concentrated *very* hard and took my time.

Being forced to concentrate very hard soon meant (to me) that chess was
all work and no play. All the fun went right out of it, and I got
discouraged.

Yet, my admiration of chess persisted, and periodically my enthusiasm
would return. I bought CM3000 and repeated the above experience. I
bought CM4000 and CM5500 when they were new--and again I had
experiences very similar to the above (though in CM5500 I enjoyed doing
the chess problems).

When I sit down to a game of chess, sometimes I'm up for a serious
challenge. Other times I'm drained after a long day, and I just want
to play at it for fun. At times like those, I much prefer to play a
lower-rated opponent so I can just be amused by his blunders, casually
take advantage of them, and go on to win without having to strain my
brain too much.

I read an article online yesterday (by Dan Heisman, IIRC) which said
that about 65 percent of one's games should be against slightly
higher-rated players, the rest against slightly lower-rated players.
The latter kind of game is meant to give one a break from being on the
cutting edge; it's a reminder to the player that he really is making
progress and has become strong enough to normally win against players
of a lower caliber.

I don't want to get in the habit of just trouncing weak players all the
time, never stepping up to an honest challenge. But OTOH, I do want
to--and *need* to--keep chess fun. As I mentioned above, I have a poor
track record: I keep getting discouraged and losing interest whenever
chess becomes too much work.

And this is part of the reason I don't play against people. In "real
life," I don't know anyone who plays chess anyway (I did have an IM
acquaintance for a while, but he died a few years ago). And my
experience with games I've played online is that they can be *very*
stressful. I haven't played much chess online, but I've played in
backgammon and cribbage tournaments (and even managed first place in
one of those)--and my blood pressure was up and my nerves really on
edge. It was so much more like work than play that I don't relish the
thought of going back to that.

In short, chess is just a hobby for me--a casual pastime; it's
something to kick back and enjoy at the end of a long day's work, or to
spend a few hours on during a weekend. It will be a much more
rewarding hobby if I can make some gradual progress and maybe go from
being a perpetual novice to an intermediate-level player. But above
all, I have to do whatever it takes to keep it fun. If I take it too
seriously and push myself beyond a certain point, I'm bound to once
again leave in a huff and turn to less rigorous games instead.


Another big question right now is time controls. In tournament mode
(for rated games), it doesn't seem possible to have separate time
controls. I don't want to sit and wait a long time for the computer to
make its move, but I don't want to be under time pressure myself either
(I blunder enough without having to worry about that).

I've tried this, by forcing the computer to make moves quickly. I'm not
convinced it is a good idea though. Since you can make use of your
opponents time. For any given time control (say 30 minutes for all
moves), you will play better if you give the computer 30 minutes too,
since you will be thinking during its move.

OK. A few people have said this now, and it's sinking in. With older
chess software, you almost had to adjust the time controls. (In
Zillions of Games, I can't even do that. I set the AI level to
"pushover," and it still rips me to shreds.) Now it sounds like the
program is designed to dumb itself down to behave more like real people
of various ratings.

I appreciate that. I've never cared about time controls at all,
though--never played chess with a clock before. So that'll be a new
part of the experience for me, I guess.

An article I read yesterday suggested playing a mix of slow games and
fast games, so maybe I'll experiment with that.


I believe you would improve more if you played human opponents and
discussed the game afterwards with them. Even if you don't want to
discuss it with them, I still think you should play humans. It is pretty
anonymous over the internet, which may or may not be acceptable to you.

I may get to that point someday. Right now my main goal is to just
stick with chess, keep it fun, and not get discouraged and quit again.
Improvement is a secondary concern (though also important to me).

And I'm not one of those people who considers social interaction a huge
motivator. Quite the opposite, in fact. For instance, my wife and I
are both into physical exercise; but she won't do much of it unless she
joins a gym or has a workout partner or at least follows along with a
TV exercise show--she needs other people involved. In contrast, I've
been doing a daily workout for years--enjoying it and adding variety to
it and improving at it--completely on my own. I usually find the need
to socialize or compromise with other people to be a distraction that
slows me down. I generally prefer to keep goal-oriented activities
separate from my social life. When I'm interacting with people, I like
it to be more casual and unstructured.

--Patrick