Chess

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January 04, 2010

Wow - RTFM works!

Along with reading the Ruy Lopez book... I actually started through the Help file tonight. I'm using Fritz 7 - which is way behind the Fritz 12 that is now shipping (according to the USCF email that came today). No worries - the current tools I have are good enough for now. And in some ways, I feel I should *earn* Fritz 12 before I buy it.

So I started looking through the menu options. I still haven't found what I was looking for yet. Or perhaps I stumbled upon it and didn't realize it. Eventually I'll see it --> What I'm looking for is a way to enter a game move-by-move into the engine/database. That way I can see it played out on the board while I'm reading it in the books. That way I can continue on the actual play step-by-step and use the board in front of me to view the variations. Nothing too terribly complex and if this didn't exist, I would just use two boards.

The other thing I noticed is that the books annotate the game they are discussing. There are a number of games in the chess database engine and there should be a way of referencing the game in the book and pulling it up out of the engine. The games used for illustration are not obscure and are 'classics' ... It shouldn't be too hard to accomplish - once I find the right settings. [Or I could enter in move-by-move > once I figure out how to keep Fritz from *playing* the game instead of letting me enter it.]

Back to the Help file -- I found the setting for a Friendly game. It asked for a handicap - and I put a big one in. Currently, my (provisional) rating is in the 800s. No, I didn't forget the 1 or the 2 in front of that. It's in the 800s. So I put that down for a handicap. I figure if this is Grandmaster level, minus 800 - it would still be tough. If the handicap represents the level at which the engine plays, it'll be fine. The Help file mentioned that you can put in whatever you want, but after a number of games, the program will figure out your handicap based on your playing. So I guess the more I use it, the more useful it will be. What a nice idea.

Then I got lucky. I played 1. e4 and the engine played 1. ... c6. OMG! I just wrote about that! It's the Caro-Kann! Granted, I haven't studied that opening much, but I knew my next move should be 2. d4. The game took off from there. I can't say that it was an 'easy' game, but I took my time and didn't rush through it. I thought about each move and made some decisions which worked well for me. I also played a bit more aggressively than normal (for me). However, I didn't get reckless (which was a recent habit). Every time I took a piece, it was either to my advantage or a pretty much even trade. I think I just played one of my better games so far. [Okay, I know it wasn't the stuff to write to Mom about, but for me it was good.] As the middle game played out, we were pretty even on material and I noticed I had a better pawn structure. I also noticed that during the game, I was evaluating things differently. I didn't feel I had to defend against any and all threats. Some threats were idle, some were made idle by reinforcement, and others just weren't even a threat. I felt more focused.

There was a point where we were getting to the endgame. Each side had a few pieces left, there was space on the board and the pawns were few. Black had rooks on a8 and h8 and the king was a bit moved around. My king was nice and tucked behind the rook on f1 with the f2, g2 and h2 pawns in front. I knew that things were going to heat up any second. And I noticed that all this time I had been working my knights and bishops to the bone. My rook on a1 was not doing anything and I thought it should help out. I moved it -- Rb2 -- onto the open file to get involved. That's when the message popped up. I thought I had done something wrong. Instead, it was a message saying that I had done a fine job. WTF? A resignation message... who knew? I didn't - until now. It was quite a surprise.

The only thing that surprised me more was my first draw. I was getting my butt stomped by a 6yr old (who was actually quite good). She had my pawns blocked and the king was trapped except for one direction - and it was her move. She moved and blocked that square too. Now it was my move - and I had no legal move. I was somewhat panicked. My opponent didn't know what to do either. We got the TD - who looked at the board and said congrats - it's a draw. My opponent was disappointed because we both knew she was kicking my tail - and I got lucky. But apparently if it's your turn and you don't have any legal moves (pawns/pieces are blocked and any move by the king would put himself in check), and you are currently not in check, then it's a draw. What a nice way to learn things. I wish all my lessons were that pleasantly surprising.

Posted by BlueWolf on January 4, 2010 11:47 PM