CHESS POLL

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Avatar of cheater_1

I'd like to get a sense of the chess players who are on this site. Please respond to the following question:

How long have you been playing chess and what chess programs do you currently use to improve your game or to practice?

Avatar of cheater_1
I'll start. I've been playing chess for somewhere around 30 years and currently only use Fritz and Chessmaster.
Avatar of Reservesmonkey
cheater_1 wrote:

I'd like to get a sense of the chess players who are on this site. Please respond to the following question:

How long have you been playing chess and what chess programs do you currently use to improve your game or to practice?


 I've been playing since Loomis taught me and I use whatever programs Loomis does to improve my game.


Avatar of wetpaste

6 months.

eboard and gnu-chess, but I mostly play real people.

 I also have chessDB but I have no idea where to find a mass collection of games for download to use it with.


Avatar of skeptical_moves
I've been playing off and on for 8 years now, and I've used chessmaster 6500, 8000, and 9000.
Avatar of FTW
Reservesmonkey wrote: cheater_1 wrote:

I'd like to get a sense of the chess players who are on this site. Please respond to the following question:

How long have you been playing chess and what chess programs do you currently use to improve your game or to practice?


 I've been playing since Loomis taught me and I use whatever programs Loomis does to improve my game.


Am I the only one that finds this sarcasm funny?

 

Loomis, what does it take to find stalkers like Reservesmonkey? I can keep a secret if you clue me in...Laughing

Avatar of ChessDweeb

Chess?????? Hmmmmmm.... Wellll..... One time, at band camp there was this chess set and the King was really tall and.... I forgot the rest. Too old. Where am I? this isn't my house. This isn't even my computer. Sorry, bad dream. I was playing Bobby Fischer and he accused me of, whatelse? Cheating. I really wasn't, I was just listening to my Ipod with a hearing aid that receives signals in the restroom where I just happen to have my computer. Know what? I read this one book about 6 months ago, but it was about diving. Anyway, I like monkeys, I don't like cheaters.

Avatar of JuliusH
I've just started taking chess seriously this year, and I've got fritz and chessmentor. Chessmentor seriously is a great program. It will take you from "how to move the rook" to the "nimzo-indian". I've played with the shredder demo available through this site, and I like the interface.
Avatar of Redwall

iv bin playing on and of. Never serious until 5 years ago. Hadn't played for a year wen i spotted chess.com. Have chessmaster grandmaster addition (1 week old). And i lost against the monkey rating 1 (had to force him).

anyone played Spank the monkey?


Avatar of Loomis
FTW, I'm really not sure. Maybe it was just simply being rational and coherent and he found that distasteful in a setting where he was trying to rile up problems. I suppose I should take it as flattery, I just wish he didn't spam the forums to do it since that's disruptive to everybody.
Avatar of Kojon
I think i've been playing for about 6/7 years, but i just started a couple of weeks ago after quitting for about 2 years. And I recently bought chessmaster.
Avatar of cianlloyd

I learned when i was young when my father taught me the basics of the game, picked it back up about 7 years ago but stopped after playing for about a year or so. Started again when i found this site.

I havent any chess books and only just bought chessmaster for the Nintendo DS its ok but no great learning tool.

Have used chessmentor on here and i think its brilliant and will defiantely be subscribing after xmas, funds permitting.

Avatar of Loomis
I played when I was in grade school, but really picked up the game in college. I have found over the last 10 years or so that what helps me the most is being able to play games and analyze with stronger players. Having better players articulate their thoughts has helped me more than having a chess engine to go over my games with (I still use Fritz 8 becuase I don't see the point in upgrading). Lately I've practiced a lot of tactics using the program CT-Art and online tools like Chess Tactics Server (chess.emrald.net).
Avatar of Ricardo_Morro
I played chess in junior high school and I started to get serious about chess at fifteen. This was a long time ago (1963), and there were no computers except in large companies and military installations. Playing games and studying books was all there was, and it was not always so easy to find a good player to play against. The chess club one night a week was pretty much it, and most chess clubs I have known have been rather snobby, with the best players riveted to each other and not giving those lower down a chance to improve by playing against them. You had to go play in tournaments to prove your worthiness. So the ready availability of opponents on the Internet is definitely a great resource today and makes it a lot easier to improve, and a lot faster. I was able to improve my chess mainly because of a handful of chess friends over the years, of whom I may cite the late Bill Adickes, former champion of both North and South Carolinas, Eric Woro, author of the chess/vampire novel "Black Sun," Kansas City Phil, Mark Allenby, and the North Carolina master Neal Harris, who was gracious enough to play me dozens of times. The first computer chess I played was on one of those hand-held portable jobs. It played good tactics but a lousy endgame: its king would always flee from the menace of a pawn about to queen! I called it "Jose" after Capablanca and I finally fried its brain by plugging it in to the wrong adapter. I had another handheld that would always play the French defense and castle into my attack. I would sacrifice my bishop at h7 and win in 17 to 22 moves, as often as I liked. Later on I tried a couple of unsatisfactory programs that played too slow if you tried to play them at a reasonably difficult level. Finally I got online and played some Gnu chess, which I used to beat sometimes until they multiplied its speed by ten. It's only in the last couple of years that I have gotten involved in online chess against live opposition, and I am loving it.
Avatar of checkmayte
38 years, chess mentor, and all the very tuff competition on chess.com