Beginner's Chess Engine
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I've heard the Mustang engine is quite good for novices/beginners.... which I've just downloaded
It sounds like you're interested in freeware. Just incase you're also considering $, Chessmaster is excellent for beginners. There are a number of opponent personalities pre-programmed all the way from ratings of a few hundred up to about 2000. Plus there are the tutorials.
Yes, Chessmaster is a fine alternative. The tutorials are great.
Yep. I have just bought Chessmaster a couple of days ago. Waiting for it arrive in the post!
However, while I'm willing to pay for something like Chessmaster, I don't think my friend will like chess as much as I do, so freeware would be more appropriate for her.
crafty+xboard/winboard, put the lines "set ply 5" and "ponder off" in .craftyrc (called crafty.rc for windows version) - that'll dumb it down for a beginner
tutorials... i dont know of any free chess-playing program with tutorials --- does anyone?
[chessmaster has great tutorials, I agree!]
I think I've heard of Crafty... I'll keep that one in mind for a try definitely
I've already looked for free tutorials... but there I don't think any exist, except for articles and the like on chess.com (for instance).
So I think the best bet for my friend is an easy engine, and I'll teach her the rules, and point her to chess.com
or since you are going to teach the basics - the small old program "psion chess" - it should be near master-level on present machines...
or arasan, or gnuchess ...
Thanks for the help so far guys! Got a lot of leads!
Gnu-Chess! I have that on my Linux machine... it's great, but I didn't like the Windows version.
Do you know of any chess engine to play realistically? Like a human. The personalities in Chessmaster are far from this: they either play very well (not giving you a chance) or they make huge mistakes (and then they play well). I've never encountered an engine to play almost like a human (at the rating of about 2100).
costelus, an engine like Hiarcs emulates a single playing style better, but I like CM better for human simulation because it can emulate a wide variety of styles.
In CM, at the 1600 level personalities begin to stop blundering material. To find a blunder-free personality, make sure the elo > 1200 and the randomness is set to 0.
costelus> they either play very well (not giving you a chance) or they make huge mistakes (and then they play well).
I assure you the blunder-free personalities are positionally weak and I have no trouble winning against at least some of them. But if you still make occasional blunders they may seem very strong. You're at the 1400 level on chess.com. Isn't, "they make huge mistakes and then they play [reasonably]" a good characterization of your average opponent?
What bugs me about 1200-1600 CM personalities is not how many errors they make but that they occur at random--humans blunder more in complex positions.
It seems people are a little divided about Chessmaster.
As I said, I bought it a couple of days ago, mainly because of the learning features, but after reading this thread I've realised that even if the lower personalities make unrealistic mistakes, that will still teach me, and I will hopefully become a stronger chess player.
I still haven't played my copy of Chessmaster yet. It arrived in the post this morning and I won't be able to play it until a few more days. Maybe after I'd had experience on it I could make a post saying what I like/don't like about it and everyone can discuss it.
Many of the ideas here are good. There are engines that one can customize re ELO level and other parameters using a GUI like Fritz. Delfi is another example of an engine that is customizable like this to set at a beginner level. Ufim as well...
NagaSkaki has its own GUI and uses a multiple personality-level setup similar to Chessmaster.
I also use weak engines when I want to play against a opponent that doesn't make me think that hard. LOL It also permits some tactical experimentation and thereby can improve one's combinational side. For me, these include:
CPP 0.1038
LaMoSca 0.10
NEG 0.3D
POS 1.18
Youk 1.05
I've reconfigured CPP, LaMosca, and Youk to run under Fritz using the Wb2Uci transfer. If you use Winboard-compatible GUIS like Arena, you should have no trouble using these straight-up. They are EXTREMELY weak, so it is a good idea to look into other options to have a wider spectrum of opponents.
Two pluses to using Fritz (I have Fritz 10) are the sparring and friend modes that can help a lower-rated player improve. Friend mode will adjust to a beginner's level, although it will provide a stiff challenge.
Computer chess is a big hobby of mine, so I am learning a lot more about these kinds of things. Having a good GUI like Arena that allows for easy import of both UCI and Winboard engines really helps one assess the merits of various engines in a variety of conditions. It is free and accessible at playwitharena.com .
Russ
I am 1400 at chess.com because I don't play correspondence chess. I tried and I realized it simply takes way too much time. My rating was around 1950-2000 at ICC, with a peak of 2180. Each time I played with a personality in Chessmaster, they were way far from a human player. I've just played with Sven (2500). Every single move he made was agreed by Crafty as being the best, at search depth at least 20. Not a single error, not even in positions where there would be plenty of good moves for a human player. There is also another personality in Chessmaster (don't remember who, but with a high rating) which traded a queen for a rook for no compensation. Of course he lost. But no human player at that level would make such a mistake! My conclusion: computers are not good to play against, you should use them only for analizing games.
costelus> I am 1400 at chess.com because I don't play correspondence chess. I've just played with Sven (2500). Not a single error, not even in positions where there would be plenty of good moves for a human player.
Fair enough. The band of players with randomness=0 but positional weaknesses include John (1576), Tasha (1620), Marie (1645), George (1706), Kenji (1881), Toni (1913), and Jessica (1975). In that same range there are other players (like Josh/1800) that really annoy me with occasional random moves. You are obviously playing CM personalities in a higher rating bracket than I have--I can't comment on 2000+ personalities.
I've downloaded LaMoSca, as recommended by stain, and it's much more my level than LarsenVB. This might be the engine I give my friend as well, unless I can find one easier.
And I have just two more days before I can start using Chessmaster.... I can't wait!
garrettendi wrote:
I've downloaded LaMoSca, as recommended by stain, and it's much more my level than LarsenVB. This might be the engine I give my friend as well, unless I can find one easier.
And I have just two more days before I can start using Chessmaster.... I can't wait!
Cool. You may find that it is best to ensure that the opening book you use is optimized in whatever GUI you use (I use Fritz). Using a Harry Schnapp opening book -- HS-Masterbook.ctg I downloaded at http://tinyurl.com/3j6jtc , I recently played LaMoSca with the book settings optimized.
The engine will ordinarily play out of book very quickly into the game. It does make sense to have the opening book at its top setting because otherwise you might find that it makes a dog's breakfast out of the opening by move six. ;) LOL
As I mentioned earlier, if you see it as an opportunity to brush up on tactics, playing any of the engines I listed can be worthwhile.
Good luck!
Russ
Hi, I didn't know where to put this, so I thought this would be the most appropriate forum.
I'm going to teach the basics of chess to a friend, and I want to set up a good chess engine on her computer, but she's a beginner (I'm a bit of a beginner myself too), so I feel a lot of the engines might not be appropriate.
So does anyone know of a good, low-rated engine that will help her? I could probably use one myself... I still haven't beaten LarsenVB...!