On Aug 22, 4:50 am, Sanny wrote:

So Nomorechess, Taylor Kingston, Bob, Chrisf, Zebediah WHERE ARE YOU.


Okay, so eventually I went and tried to play some
more chess at Getclub.com, and here's what
happened:

After some trouble logging on, having forgotten my
old password, etc., etc., I finally get a game going
under a new handle (help bot). The program seems
to have no openings book, and at move three is
already slowed to a crawl on the second-weakest
level (I had to choose between weakest or second-
weakest, others were unselectable). I took Black:

1.e3 c5

2.Qf3? Nc6

3.Bb5 Nb4

4.Na3 a6

5.a3 axb5

6.axb4 cb

7.Nxb5 Ra5

8.a4 bxa e.p.

9.Nc3 axb2

10.Bxb2 Rxa1+

11.Bxa1 Qa5

12.Bb2 Qb4

13.Bc1

(the memory fades...)

After a couple more moves, I was up a pawn on the
Queen-side and was permanently preventing White
from castling. At one point, White made yet another
dumb Queen move but one which threatened mate on
the move! Nice. I got castled and was about to swing
my Rook to the a-file for a routine King assault (...R-a1,
say goodnight, Gracie) when the program disconnected
me. I checked and there was nothing wrong with my
internet connection. Strange. The program had been
moving at a fairly reasonable speed, though its moves
hardly impressed.

The good news is the program did not toss away
material that easily, and seemed tactically alert. The
bad news is that it plays poorly, slowly, and there
seem to be disconnection issues. The Java applet
took quite a while to load, and only after I had already
given up on it did the chess board suddenly appear,
ready to rumble. Someone with a faster connection
might have better luck than I did in this game.

To sum up, the program is too weak for me, and
the other site issues are not worth all the trouble it
takes to play half of one game, only to get
disconnected at random (or perhaps because I was
winning?).


-- help bot