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Post by Ozymandias on Dec 19, 2022 16:57:44 GMT
Chessable? Never tried it,TBH.
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Post by matejst on Dec 19, 2022 17:36:02 GMT
Chessable? Never tried it,TBH. From what I know, most of these courses are useless for players of our level. Some free "community" courses are good (simple enough) if you already understand the openings in question. But if you are a newbie to, let's say, the Semi-Slav, without extensive, adapted commentaries it simply does not work. Old books (let's say, Marovic's ones, "How to play as black", "The QG" or "The KID", or more recently, e.g., Taylors's "Slay the Sicilian" or Davies' "Taming the sicilian") are much more useful.
Modernized, with a pgn, some well presented key variations made easier to learn, they bring more. The worst are the GM courses. The free materials are anti-marketing: bad English, BS explanations, tricky variations where one move leads to disaster...
Edit:
Recently, a young colleague (a Phd of Philosophy, your colleague) and his wife bought me three courses of my choice (some cheap ones, 30 euros all three), and they seemed relatively good -- prepared by a FM, Elo 2100, somewhere at the level I had 30 years ago -- so I found some good things for me. But the whole Chessable site is full of BS. No pgn, no way to work offline, etc. Lots of crap.
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Post by Ozymandias on Dec 19, 2022 18:49:15 GMT
For courses, I always found the chessbase ones to be the most convenient. You have the board, can advance or go back both in the media file as well as in the notation... with arrows and marked squares.
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Post by matejst on Dec 27, 2022 19:51:20 GMT
I played my first game on Lichess. A very weak opponent (Elo about 1000), but overall, I am satisfied. I missed a few better moves but nothing critical. I saw the tactical threats, did not left any piece hanging, no blunders.
Completely different from facing a computer opponent. Much more focused and nervous.
Lots of work to do still.
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Post by Ozymandias on Dec 27, 2022 21:50:22 GMT
Time control?
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Post by matejst on Dec 27, 2022 22:30:44 GMT
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Post by Ozymandias on Dec 27, 2022 22:35:47 GMT
Good sparring TC for getting rid of blunders.
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Post by matejst on Dec 27, 2022 23:05:06 GMT
Good sparring TC for getting rid of blunders. That was my main concern. I did not want to lose focus when I saw that my opponent was way weaker. I made a few sub-optimal decisions, but I saw the computer best moves from the post-mortem, and I was always less than a point in the eval in a clearly won position.
But then, I missed a forced mate in six. I saw the check, but I could take the Q and still had mate threats.
I forgot how stressful playing OTB was.
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Post by Ozymandias on Dec 28, 2022 6:15:35 GMT
Well, if you missed a mate in 6, I'm manually demoting you back to patzer. For the record, the most I ever calculated (in a sparring game) was a mate in 8, way back when I was half my age.
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Post by matejst on Dec 30, 2022 8:12:24 GMT
I played several games against CM yesterday. One at LTC and a few blitz.
LTC: I feel OK. No blunders. Playing against a ChessMaster personality is easier and harder at the same time than playing against Maia. CM will blunder than play a sequence of computer moves. That was the case yesterday: it played two bad moves giving me a winning attack, but then, a sequence of very good moves, where a man would simply fold. Positionally, I play well -- very happy with that. Tactically -- the essence of chess -- I remained in the range of 3-4 moves, missing completely 1/3 of my opponent sensible moves. It is not good. The personality had an Elo of ~1800.
I then played blitz (5'+5") against an opponent with an Elo of 1150 and lost the first game where I had the advantage of a bishop. I focused afterward on my clock and just trying not to blunder. I am too slow and tactically I don't see enough to attack at blitz. I am not Morozevich.
The positive thing is that I was tense and focused just like playing real OTB games.
In general, I am slowly improving, but improving nonetheless, especially in my understanding of chess. But... A few days ago I played against Kasparov Gambit (engine: Socrates) a game without time controls. I achieved a winning position, and then... lost all my advantage in a short sequence of moves, choosing a bad, tactical plan when I should have just focused on positional aspects, hurrying to win when patience was required. Of course, I had the impression I played relatively well until I analyzed the game with a modern engine -- the winning moves were so simple, so obvious. Patience is the key.
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Post by matejst on Dec 30, 2022 9:33:17 GMT
BTW, do you use chess aps on your phone?
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Post by Ozymandias on Dec 30, 2022 10:15:24 GMT
I don't even use Google Play. I don't remember when it was the last time I downloaded an app, probably when I switched back to the old smartphone I currently use (after the new one died in 2015/2016). I was trying to make the most out of it, but over time I got fed up with just how slow the processor is, so I gradually stripped it down and is currently nothing more than a 90's mobile phone with a touchscreen.
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Post by matejst on Dec 30, 2022 14:06:58 GMT
I installed four chess apps: fishdroid (I don't use it), Scid on the Go (the only I use on regular bases), Opening tree (it's ok and useful), and recently Lichess (nice interface, I use it to play against SF at very, very low levels).
In general, I prefer to use my laptop. It is as slow as your phone, I guess, but I am slow myself, so go figure.
I played one game on Lichess, but still haven't found the courage to register there.
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Post by Ozymandias on Dec 30, 2022 14:15:47 GMT
Come on! You sound like McLane's grandpa. BTW, I uninstalled it years ago, but back in the day, the one I used was this. |
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Post by matejst on Dec 30, 2022 16:18:59 GMT
Come on! You sound like McLane's grandpa. BTW, I uninstalled it years ago, but back in the day, the one I used was this. McLane's grandpa came back alive...
Sounds like an interesting application. Is it free? Without publicity?
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