Have computer engines destroyed chess?

I mean, pretty much all people do now at the top level is run powerful engines and try to come up with ways of getting an early advantage against a particular opponent. Often the winner of a game isn't the one who's better at chess, it's the guy who can memorize the most crap from a computer.

And where's the sense of accomplishment? I don't use computers before a game, only after. And so many times I analyze a game where I thought I played brilliantly only to find out I blundered twice and made four mistakes. And even at the top level it's pretty much the same, only slightly less so. You can put a Tal or Fischer game on an engine and find mistakes and innacuracies every time with the occassional blunder. It's like, you can't even be proud of your performance anymore because the computer always shows you up. It's gotten to the point where I cringe when putting a game I'm proud of on an engine.

I personally think computers have takenthe soul out of chess. I think they should be banned. You can't even have adjournments anymore because of them. They've completely ruined chess in my opinion.

As a class player, engines have done nothing to destroy chess at my level.

And how would you suggest one go about doing that?

Now you have 1200 players watching the GMs shouting that they are playing garbage because their pet engine reckons GM made mistake.

Respect has gone,   and as for online sculduggery, you not even allowed to mention that, but now when you lose to great play you cant help but wonder

Now with the engines you can figure out all the mistakes made during the game.

And despite openings are important, nearly no game is decided only based off it.

Engines show the beauty of chess variations, to a lot of people they've made chess more interesting, not less.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that chess, for me, is about art and beauty. Computers have made it about nothing but brute force and cold, dead mathematics.

Just take a Tal or Spielmann game and put on an engine. It just sucks the beauty out of it and reduces it to nothing but numbers. It takes the human element out of chess. It's a crime.

err .... mathematics is not cold and dead , its alive and beautiful .. its just not many people have the ability to see it . 

mathematicians see and experience its beauty . your not seeing it , doesnt mean its not there

if you can see beauty in mathematics then its a pleasure to meet you KenGeneQ but i must disagree on one point ( with greatest respect for you sir/madam) .. which is that  "reducing chess to numbers is crime ." and chess turning into mathematics is wrong thing to do "

   who has decided its wrong ? 

mathematics is the language in which this universe has been written . there's maths behind everything . these numbers hold greatest fascination for those who understand them . studying chess mathematically is just another way for satisfying the thirst which mathematicians feel .

         those who say its crime to study chess mathematically and reduce it to numbers  don't  understand the beauty of mathematics . i concede that non-mathematicians have the right to state and hold their point of view against mathematics but kindly do not force us ,the  mathematicians , to stop 

I HAVE FOUND THE ANCIENT BOOK THAT DESTROYS COMPUTERSSSS. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHHAHA AHAHAHA

I agree with you.... it's a crime. This is why I don't use engines. Just let it be art and beauty.

Take it like this:

If I threw an empty tin can at you, would you say that it is the can's fault? Not exactly, after all, I threw the can at you. The tin can is not to blame.

Similarly, it isn't necessarily an engine's fault that chess players are abusing the power of it. The engine is not to blame. It is up to us chess players to limit or restrict our use of chess engines, and/or use it properly. If we can't follow simple rules such as "Do not use chess engines to cheat during live matches", I daresay that the engine is causing the trouble.

You do have a valid point, but in my opinion, engines should not be blamed for something humans are the cause of.

#savetheenignes

very well said Fancy-Pants-Orange .

BRAVO BRAVO !!

nicely represented argument

They are certainly destroying some live analysis of top level games. Much of the commentary offered during games is spoiled in my opinion by reports of what the computer says. I like that old school sense of surprise when a player finds a brilliant move that the commentary team hadn't considered (but which a computer might well have discovered).

No, it's not a nicely represented argument because it just completely misses the point I'm trying to make.

I'm not blaming computers or people. I'm just saying that computers have taken something away from chess. Regardless of who is at fault. The fact that you can take one of Tal's best masterpieces, put it on an engine and find that he made three errors and a blunder, it just cheapens it. It's like taking a person and reducing his/her worth to nothing but their chemical composition. Computers have taken the human element, and the art, out of chess.

And it's why someone like Carlsen, who isn't even 1/4 the chess player Tal was, is World Champion. There's nothing beautiful about Carlsen's play at all. But he happens to have a brain big enough to calculate 30 moves ahead and memorize tens of thousands of moves of opening theory. That's the chess age we're living in. A materialistic, vain and dead world where things are relegated to their objective value in numbers. Nothing more.

 If we want to judge the use of engines in the opening part preparation and guidance to the middlegame we can safely admit that at least classical chess it's up to an end. Professional chess players already admit that ( Nakamura-Topalov-Kramnik ) and seconds. The problem is not that you can't anymore play White pieces with advantage, that's a fact, the problem is that even in the open games it's hardly impossible to find new creative ideas. Classical chess has become a game of memorization and brutally concrete. No one dares to innovate a potential new idea because he's/her engine is there to say : Hey! Don't retreat your Knight back, because after this pawn push you are worst!

 The OP is right! We don't need engines to enjoy the game. They are telling us a truth we don't like it and if anyone things that because he/she will analyze 1000 games with an engine and one day will wake up playing like Stockfish is the biggest sucker ever exist! 

 Here! enjoy your achievement humanity...

Question: How many chess rounds between human chess grandmasters feature more than a couple quantifiable blunders that seemingly go unnoticed? (E.g. Black player moves Knight to a square that allows white to play some tactic that wins one of Black's minor pieces in 4-6 moves but White player fails to move accordingly, and then another oversight either analagous or vice-versa some moves later; may be a tangible positions blow rather than material-based as well).  Specifically, how many times on average by side per round does a GM make a move that reduces an engine's evaluation by 3 or more points, and how many of these errors are honestly discernible by human intuition or calculating abilities (without aid of computer software)?

 Tal is notorious for cunning sacrifices as White that l led to victory despite the dubiousness of many such moves under idle analysis. Many of his positions were in fact at a great quantifiable disadvantage which would have allowed his adversary to come out victorious if said opponent had accurately capitalized on it but instead fell victim to the Great Attacker.

Similarly, a lot of top human-vs-human chess matches feature an engine evaluation that sways by as much as -1.8 to +2.1 or so despite ending in a draw. While a -2 Rybka/Stockfish/Houdini evaluation does not automatically indicate a Black victory with perfect play nor +2 a White one, this fact certainly does shine a broader perspective upon human play, even though many of these top-level human inaccuracies are from oversights of lines twelve-plus moves deep with accurate calculation. Many errors, however, are discernable at half that depth, albe not immediately noticable during the live match position-by-position.

Or similarly..  how many times does eval shift from -0.5 to +0.5 back below 0?  How often rapidly so (within a few moves, implying inaccurate play)?

Computer engines didn't destroy chess, chess destroyed computer engines!

Every time I look at my opening manual and play a game I am in awe of how much different of a direction a game can go. That is, when the opening allows for variation. Engines may help refute lines, but there are so many, who can memorize them all? You have to know strategy along with tactics, pawn formations and many other variables. If I could look at all the greatest grandmaster games for each game I played during the game I'd be a great player too (knock knock computers playing).