Never Give Up (A story of Man vs. Machine)

Many people often believe that playing against chess computers is counterproductive for two reasons. They believe that playing against computers is a waste of time because the result is an inevitable loss for the human player. The second thing they believe is that playing against computers is detrimental for their game because of the computer's lack of an ability to play in a mainstream manner that is often adopted for use in tournament play. To an extent, these things are true, however, playing against computers is an important part of evaluating your weaknesses (the computer will never let anything slide) and calming your psychological state. Because you know that you will most likely lose, you can go into the game and let your true chess personality be expressed over the board. This is a very comforting thing.

I decided today to play the Stockfish AI level 8 on lichess.org. This AI is equivalent to a 2500 level player on the site, and is thus not perfect, but still makes for an extremely strong and accurate opponent. I went into the game expecting to lose,and quickly found myself in a losing position. However, just as this game served as an important lesson for me, it can teach you to never give up. Even against such an accurate opponent (it made 1 inaccuracy the entire game), I was able to somehow save a completely lost position.