I think if you're getting beaten every time you don't learn how to press a small advantage, convert a material advantage into a win etc.
Playing a level 10 computer?!
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Personally, I believe both are very important. Your strategy is probably excellent to improve your defensive game, but you miss out on a very key part of chess game development: learning to recognize and exploit your opponent's errors.
What I have noticed with even the most sophisticated engines is that they cannot well simulate the 'human-ness' of an opponent's play. When they 'intentionally' make errors at lower levels, they are often laughably obvious, and when you play against them at the higher levels, it's like playing against a wall in tennis (as Mitch Hedberg said, "The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall."). I'm certainly no master chess player, but for my part, I believe playing human opponents is very important for developing your offensive senses. But record and run all the games through an engine afterward, so that you can still recognize and learn from your mistakes!
Here's a 10 point program for making a move presented in Tim Harding's book, "Better Chess".
1) Assessment of your opponent's last move.
2) What immediate threats must I meet?
3) What tactical blows are at my disposal?
4) Long term positional assessment of position.
5) What moves are suggested by your positional assessment?
6) Compare the 'candidate moves' from steps 2, 3 and 5 and make a short list of say 3 moves to possibly make.
7) Calculate variations based on this short list of candidate moves.
8) Compare these assessments.
9) Have a last look around to guard against traps and blunders
10) Make your move.
Benefit of playing the computer: You no longer play trappy moves hoping for a mistake. You play a move because you think it's good. Great skill for a new player to develop.
Con of playing a computer: You never get the chance to practice how to press an advantage or win a won game. The feeling "my pieces look good, but what do I do with them now?" is a common one. Along the same lines you may develop an overly defensive or reactionary playing style. In real chess you're trying to push your advantages.
So IMO the computer is good if you're having trouble breaking the hope chess habit, but after it gets you out of it, it's better to use self discipline to continue playing moves because of their strength. Play over master games for the good patterns and for your chess games play humans. This way you get both the exposure to correct maneuvers and the full spectrum of practical exercises. Won positions, lost positions, odd openings, psychologically difficult moves to deal with (eg humans get desperate and may find challenging sacrifices) etc.
I believe it was Carlsen who said: Playing against an engine is like playing with an idiot, except the idiot always wins.
Getting beat by a computer time after time won't make a better chess player out of you, because this is a game designed by human beings for human beings. Play some unrated games against people who are several hundred points above you, to learn how to assess the best move instead of hoping to avoid every detectable mistake. The computer has no soul, he can't be fooled, hence no learning process can be achived.
Thanks to all who replied.
Hi all, like many others, I would really like to improve my game. I'm not looking for a quick solution, I genuinely would like to improve methodically. Because of this, I don't like playing with other people rated around the same as I am on chess.com. Without sounding masochistic, I like to be punished for even the slightest mistakes I make, so I play against computers at their level 10. I'm wondering, is this a good strategy? I know computers play like computers and it's not how a normal human would play (and to date I haven't won a single game against the computer), but when I go back and analyse my games, I start to understand (I think) the gaps in my thinking. And I have stopped playing 'hope chess' where I just hope that my opponent overlooks my plans (something I did do before) because I'm very confident that Houdini will not miss anything. On the other hand, I don't know if it's better to slowly play against similar rated opponents, gradually improving my game so that I can be more thorough...?