Chess Program per Skill Level

Open a dictionary, little boy.

Yes, it IS all about you

PS Do the daily puzzles on this site. Most of them are Queen sacrifices leading to mate

Unless, that queen sac is easily seeable. So easily seen that even a patzer from chess tempo, that only has a tactucs rating of 1300-1400, can see it in a matter of seconds.

Little boy, I read your posts a day or 2 ago about all the cheaters on this site. Anyone who beats you must be cheating was the inference.

Look at your rating... about 200pts below average. At least 2/3 of the players here can normally beat you. You blame it on engines.

Look at it objectively. If the place was overrun with cheaters, I wouldn't win many games either. But I do, and I know that Chessmaster etc can easily beat me. So there can't be a lot of cheaters here.

You make a lot of noise, like little boys everywhere, and you demand a lot of attention. What do the Freudians call that? Anal stage, little boy

Sorry, little boy, have you been missing the attention?

Anyway, I have some books to read by Carey and Murakami. I liked Carey's early stuff, but I went off him, then reading "My Life as a Fake" got me reenthused. Murakami has always been there, of course. Remember "Kafka on the Shore" ?

So I'd suggest you shut up until you have something worth saying. Didn't anybody ever tell you that empty vessels make the most sound?

You're only a fat cretin after all

Back on topic ...

Most chess engines use opening books to begin games, so openings are still human experience based.  They also use tablebases for endgame play since they typically do not play efficiently in some endgame situations.  They are, however, essentially flawless in combinations and most tactical situations which is where they beat human players by brute force.  So the only way most of these engines seem to be adjusted down to human level for opponent play is to cripple them in some manner - force them to make mistakes.  In doing so, you lose the advantage of playing against them when you force them to make poor moves.

Unless you do not have regular access to web sites such as chess.com, I cannot see any advantage to playing against a chess engine.  Even Nakamura, who claims to study with engines, does not likely play against them.  He simply uses them to analyze and find new ideas or continuations to positions.

It has been interesting and instructive these past few days watching the Candidates matches.  Virtually all analysis is done by GMs, and often they do not agree with the ChessCasting computer (reputed to use the Houdini 3 engine) on positional advantages.  Likewise, in post-game interviews and analysis, the computer opinion is often dismissed as not relevent.  Reliance on computer analysis has been noticably reduced as the tournament has progressed.  Interesting ...

i think it depends how you approach playing computers, from 1999 up to 2007 the only opponent i had was a saitek purpose made computer, cuz i was too lazy to go to a chess club, and it brought my progression to a stand still, no moving forward, managed to come out the stone age in 2007 and got online, and bought fritz 10 and got a year on playchess.com and it was a god send, was offline between november and january there, so had to resort to playing chess engines, but not taking the games serious like you would with a human, i usually play an engine with fritz interface in "sparring mode", it will present tatics a some point, whether you see them thats the question, and of course for using for analysis, which is helpful to all players, so i wouldnt write off using engines, just how you approach the games against computers

I disagree. Once upon a time before the internet all I had to play against was a chess computer I got from Radio Shack. I set it at a very low level and played several games every day and I believe I did learn some things. Then I began playing in Washington Square Park and met a "master" who for a few dollars a day gave me lessons. Now I use the internet and go to a chess club. Playing humans is the best idea but if you truly love chess and want to play every day and have no alternatives, there is nothing wrong with playing computers. I believ e one can still learn from playing computers by setting the computer to the highest level, it will beat you of course, but it will show you what not to do, since if you make the slightest mistake, it will annihilate you.  

I know that for older PCs (no newer than windows milenium, but if you have Mac, you can use VMware Fusion) There is Majestic Chess, but it is a game that doesn't analyze your moves, only helps me make my pieces work better together.

Well, I just got back to check this topic, I've had quite a laugh reading through the bickering, thank you to everyone who posted, your information was much appreciated.

Some points I feel are too extreme ( such as not using engines at all). So no matter what I will play the engines sometimes because I enjoy it and I can learn from it. I heard chessmaster would be fun to play against, with lots of puzzles etc. I particularly wanted to be able to set up a position and then compete against the engine, which I was told you could do with that program. I also come from a background of competing at a high level in another sport (or game or whatever you call it) so I understand fully the value of analysis, goal setting, training with better players, etc.

On a side note, I play the computer sometimes because a frustrating trend occurs on this site: I attain a winning position, or a material advantage of sorts, and the other player lets his timer run out instead of continuing to play. I suspect this type of shenanigans occurs less frequently as you play better players, but for guys in my range it is the run of the mill. All in all, I don't see how playing against the computer or using it as a training tool is harmful. The pitfalls of using a PC seem pale in comparison of the value it can offer, even if only by pointing out blunders and " wish I wouldve thought of that" lines. I also got some books to read, so if anyone has recommendations of that as well I will gladly accept, thanks again to all who posted.