Is There An Unwritten Rule Against Using A Database

Quoted for truth.

I was rated about 1900 OTB five years ago, always had the worst of the opening. These days, having played something like 1200 correspondence games (with database), I've been rated as highly as 2040. I'm much more solid in the openings, and often emerge better or equal into the middlegame.

There's no need for a player to repeat the horrible moves of the past. Break the cycle, play better moves, and understand why they are better.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

I would not play someone using a database.

I'm no whining, you can tell me to shup up in so many different ways as you want, I will still advance my opinion if I feel like so. Also I don't care for your "pearls".

You already said that in post 9. Why are you repeating yourself? oh..it is very likely that you ARE playing someone using a datebase. MOST do in turn-based chess here at chess.com.

I must admit that I do not use databases very often (but do not criticize my opponents for doing so). But when I do, it is rather to check if the move I intend to play even exists, and its implications on future plans.

If it is a relatively popular line and none (or only a few) played the move I consider, I will reconsider because there is probably a good reason for it - good reason which is almost always present at the end of the rare games that followed it.

I think that you could clean up your language a bit, owltuna, because I understood you to say that people who read books do not think.

I'm autistic. I don't get sarcasm.

You do realize that when you play there is a button right next to the board that says "Explore"?  Try clicking on it sometime.

Is there an unwritten rule that says DON'T click on that button? htdavidht will NOT play with people who click on that button!

There isn't a place where the "unwritten" rule trumps the "written" rule.  If you want to arrange a game with a gentelman's agreement not to use a database/book, go for it.

Part of the beauty of the longer slower game is to learn the openings and see how well you understand them.  Did you find the move that is used the majority of the time?  Did you understand why?  Do you like it?  Do you constantly miss the point in the opening you are playing?

I find that playing through slower games gives me time to think especially due to my hectic work schedule.  But it also gives me an opportunity to actually work on my opening knowledge and understanding.

where can I find a list of the unwritten rules? I would like to print them out.

Thanks,

idiot

I suspect this is just a case where he didn't realize he had the same database at his finger tips as most of us do.  Personally I have books and the Explore and Chesstempo but haven't bought a BIG database through Chessbase.

What he may figure out as he clicks through the list is that the line that  he's following with the high winning percentage can turn on a dime when there's a single move by his opponent that completely changes the evaluation.

Oops.  Now you're in a bad place and you thought the database was going to make it all automatic.  It isn't a computer engine like Rybka or Komodo.  It's just a book without any explanatory notes.

Get a book with explanatory notes htdavidht.  You'll be better off.

exactly, ranx. which is why it is okay to use them, but that they should be used with thought and care.

1-we are not talking about moves, but positions, since there are many possible transpositions. All you need is a DB of all reachable positions with (for each position one) of the winning moves for the winning side or one drawing move for each side in the drawish set.

Of course we are still looking at something gigantic. Giganticly less gigantic, but still gigantic.

2-we could restrict our "database" to positions that are not obviously winning for either side. The problem of course is to define obviously winning in terms that the computer can understand - one more rook in the endgame with no immediate tricks is obviously winning, but a mate in 20 is more obvious for the computer than for the human.

Even then, I guess (but that's of course only a huge assumption) that it would remain way, way, way out of reach if only to store the data.

I'm not sure I follow you. You have multiple ideas mixed in a stew here.

A datbase is going to find mate in 20 moves for you. 

How do you calculate that the gigantic set of gigantic moves is smaller? To some extent you are right, I guess, since there are infinite sets that are smaller than other infinite sets.

The infinite set of all odd numbers is smaller than the infinite set of all whole numbers according to mathematicians.  I'm not sure it makes much difference in practical terms.

Wrong; mathematicians say these are equal in size. However, there does exst different kinds of infinities: the infinite set of integers (or whole numbers including the negatives, as you'd say) is less than the infinite set of reals (including those fractions, roots, pies and e's, and like that).

Irontiger is right too. Clearly the number of positions that are not obviously winning is smaller than the number of positions, because both are finite in size. (If they are both infinite, Irontiger is wrong.)

chaotic be true, math is a science of godmaster and we are here te beat it in chess not in life

You'd best stay away from correspondence chess then, unless you're playing people you know you can trust and who you've made an agreement with beforehand.

I think because of my experience in chess that databases are of limited use in chess. Computers are limited by their maths. [Is the word 'algorithms'?] Chess is more than mathematics.

I think that a bird brain is capable of greater calculations in flight than the best computer we can create, and the mind of a grandmaster is similar.