Playing with a position analyzer

Most coaches and teachers agree that you learn from making mistakes and then post-analyzing your games, especially losses.  But you have to do the hard work of thinking while you play.  If you have a computer doing your analysis in real time, then you are not playing, you are watching the computer play.

I'm not a strong player, but there are some things that have helped me.  Play correspondence games, not blitz.  Keep a notepad by the board or computer and make notes about positions, combinations, tactics, threats, etc.  When you finish a game, then run it through a computer to analyze it from both sides.  Compare the computer analysis to your written notes and see what you saw and what you didn't see.  Someone once said that the games you learn from are those you lost, and if you have computer help during play (not legal here on chess.com unless you play "unrated" with agreement from your opponent) you aren't doing the hard work of thinking for yourself.

This is not removing the chance for error. You don’t get to take back moves and you only see the analysis AFTER the move is made (maybe you didn't understand me?) It’s just to tell you “… Uh.. That was a good move.. ah..  bad move. “ In fact I don’t think you would play any better at all. You would just learn more. And being confused and misunderstanding the position is I think actually bad.  It’s what makes chess fun. But it’s not good for learning. I’m in grade 8 piano, and my teacher freaks out when I KEEP playing the wrong thing over and over. The correct way to learn is to get EVERYTHING right, the first time, so you’re not practicing bad technique. It is detrimental to play the wrong thing over and over. I’m guessing I’ve played the same wrong move 100 times. I will only find out about this when someone capitalizes on it. Why wait for that? Music and chess are different, yes, but maybe we can learn from music teaching.  

I have played with blunder alert against chessmaster 11 and sometimes the blunder alert could not see deep enough to see the move was actually valid therefore this could actually be harmfull to your play.
I used to play for hours against chessmaster with blunder alert on. I could play a complete game without blunder alert but avoided sound moves because I learned they were bad in previous games.

during OTB tournament games it was actually hurtfull because I deep down thought I still had a safety net.

what I've learned :it is better to find out what was good and bad after the game so you can avoid it in next game.

Blunder alert meaning you get to take back blunders? ONE. This isn't about tactics. Tactics CAN only be learned by brute practice. TWO. You don’t get to take back anything. That’s just silly. The only difference between using a computer with it, (how I have explained,) and playing a normal game is that you find out AFTERthe move is made, that it was bad.And you learn.

no blunder alert means that the computer scores the evaluate the current position and if the number drops more than 2 points it warns you that the move must be bad. however since it is instant it doesn't look very deep I think it blunder alert in chessmaster 11 looks 3 moves deep so if you have a combination that wins material in 4 moves chessmaster will still think the move is bad.
I did't take back a move, simply restarting the game since I practiced to play a game without error.

Chess is nothing like piano though in so much as you can't hope to learn it by rote / muscle memory.  Indeed in piano you want to avoid hitting the wrong notes.  In chess dong something wrong (and learning about it afterwards) is how you learn.  There's no such thing as skipping the mistakes and just playing it all correctly.  The mistakes uncover which lessons we need to learn.

I understand you're saying you only see the evaluation after you moved... which means you get to see the computer's current evaluation of the position.  This is important information that shapes  your decision making... if you're a bit worse you know your attack isn't working and so you may decide to switch to defense.  Or it stays high / goes up and you know to switch to counter attacking.  In a real game you have to discover these things through analysis and calculation.  It may seem like you're suggesting something as innocent as a whisper in the ear "hey, that move wasn't good" but it's much more than that.

@bobbyDK, the idea is that you play the game threw even if your losing.

Yes waffllemaster, what I’m suggesting is way more than just a whisper in the ear. It’s a whole new way of practicing.

Chess is more like piano then you think. In piano muscle memory is bad. You only want to fall on it if you don’t have the time to learn the piece correctly. Muscle memory is best used after you have memorized the piece. You don’t want to use muscle memory in piano, or in the equivalent in chess. The chess equivalent being the reflex you have to certain moves in lightning games. I think it would be a bad idea to try and learn these reflexes, though they are what you fall on if you’re playing fast. Just like piano…. See the similarity? For both chess and piano “muscle memory” it is a fall back used in fast situations that shouldn’t be practiced (for the most part.)

And doing something wrong and learning from it is the only way to learn I agree. But you are still doing this when you play with a computer. You make a bad move. The computer tells you. You learn, and live with the consequences.

And yes. There are things that are lost when you use this technique. Namely knowing whether you’re losing or winning, and this is important to know. So don’t only use this technique. I could go back to my metronome analogy but I don’t think you would like that. I’ll try and explain it... You don’t need to be learning all aspects of chess when you play a game. You may learn faster if you hone in on a certain area; Kind of like removing the experimental errors, or getting rid of variables that mess with the equation. Isolate the problem… The techniques I’m suggesting are used in many other areas of life.

I don't think I like the one-move-and-stop solution to learning.  If you find a better suggestion after one move, what is telling you why that move is inferior?  If you do not continue with your intended strategy, which you would not if de-railed by a computer suggestion, you will never learn the hard consequences of that weak move because the long term consequences of your move will have been re-directed to a better line.  You simply won't know why.

Let's go back to the music analogy.  If your teacher stops you after you play a wrong note because it isn't written that way on the composer's score, you immediately stop and re-play with the proper note.  What you will never hear is the long term result of that music with the wrong note inserted and played to the end because you will always stop before the damage is done or the ear assaulted.  Perhaps the note sounds reasonable up to the point of its being played, but unless you know what comes later in the score, you will have no idea how the composer intended it to sound in its entirety. 

 I hear what you are saying. You are saying in order to strategies you need the whole picture. This isn’t for strategizing. It’s for positional understanding.

Taking that music analogy further; I think what you are talking about is composing a piece. You do need the whole picture when composing, but in learning a composition you don’t. You only need note by note instructions. (I am ONLY talking about the notes here because musically you do need the whole picture; I don’t want to complicate it.) In a way you are in a quest to find the only right solution; A quest not to mess up. No other note will do. Learning the notes of a piece is a science. Composing the notes of a piece is an art. Chess is a science.

(key point in bold)

This isn’t about planning. It’s about positional understanding. One thing you don’t know unless you analyses the game is where you were doing good and where you were doing bad. Forget about the planning and stuff like that…Yes it’ll mess you up. But you will learn amazing positional understanding from it. Then you can go back and learn planning with a way better understanding of positions.

I think this idea should be atheist considered. Everyone’s gut response is that it’s a bad idea… but what if it isn’t. Maybe not treating chess so much like an art could be a good thing. I heard somewhere that Nakamura mainly used computers for his studying. Computers are new and not completely tested in chess.  I think, even if it is flawed, it is definitely worth a shot.

Someone please take up my side I g2g

No I think it sounds like a good idea, it's just another learning tool as I see it. I'd like to play a few games with this sort of engine set up as a training method. I would even go as far as taking back moves. For example I might be on move 11 and have three fair looking candidate moves that all look equally sound to my humble eyes. If I could just play each move and note the computer's reaction it would only help to give a general reflection.

Precisely, no.

First and obviously, computers are good for performance (...)

More importantly, it cannot improve your play more than a postgame analysis. Very frankly, I suspect you are just too lazy for making postmortems, and the only use of your device would be to make the postmortem when you are still focused on the game.

All the information it can give you can be classified in two categories :

-the advice that is useless after the move (for example, 'you missed a mate in two, and now there is no way to make it again'), that you could have with at least as much profit in the postmortem ;

-the advice that is useful even after the move ('you missed a mate in two, but if your opponent does not see it, you can play it again next move') which is nothing more than cheating.

So basically, I see your suggestion as a way to cheat with intentional flaws, nothing more.

But what information do you get from knowing a recommended move in a given position?  Positional understanding is recognizing pawn structures, strong and weak squares, good and bad knights and bishops, mobility, imbalances and a host of other subtle factors.  No computer analysis is going to explain why it likes one move unless it simply avoids a blunder or weak move.

You have been beaten up a bit on this idea, I think.  You might give it a try and see what you think (so long as you are not using it during an active game - you can play computer vs. computer elsewhere on the internet at chess2u for example) but if you want to really work on your game, leave the computer out of it until after the game.  You can't use one in a tournament or OTB, so as suggested it becomes a crutch.  But try it and see if it works for you.  Just don't rely on it as a valid training method.

What you need is a chess coach. I used to play chess in Washington Square Park and there was a "master" there to whom I paid a few dollars a game and as we played he explained his moves and told me what I did wrong when I made a bad move.  He wasn't really a master but he was a strong player. Nowadays chess coaches charge a lot of money. If you can't afford that you can use the computer that is provided on this site where after you finish a  game on this site you can go to the computer and it will analyze the game. Or you might try playing "centaur" chess where both sides use computers. That's not allowed on this site as far as I know but there may be sites out there that do allow that. 

I will just say that peole here are generally and literally stupid. I understood TrippedOutGM's point right away after i read his first post, and then i get facepalm after facepalm of some comments from retards here. What is people's problem nowadays, can't you read? I dont know how many times TrippedOutGM had to clearify that the analyzis would be done AFTER you made a move, not before. How stupid are you guys really? (This is not dedicated to everyone, but someone)


As for you TrippedOutGM; I think your idea is pretty good. I like it, and i understand why you would think about it, but it would have some practical difficulties to get it done proper. 

Actually, most of the people got it past the first page.

But as you obviously didn't read it well, I will explain again.

The suggestion is exactly like you have someone looking over your shoulder when you are playing and saying "you just missed a mate in three" or "you blundered your queen" (in such a way the opponent cannot hear it).

On the one hand, this would never be allowed in OTB tournaments (duh) and on the other hand the positive points you could see in it are fully covered by postgame analysis.

TrippedOutGM's suggestion is good only for the people who are too lazy to go over their games after having played them. And only under the (wrong) assumption that knowing the variations of the evaluation after the moves give no indicator about the current position.

Pretty much like analysing a game after with a computer, not really anything new.

The nearest thing I can see to this software is Guess the Move'software, which I can't speak of highly enough of. In Guess the Move you play through annotated master games (a worthy thing in its own right) but get to play your own suggestion. You then see how your move compared with the move in the GM game and the computer's best suggestion. You can also play through other lines at any time before coming back to the mainline. Highly valuable in my opinion.

sounds great...where can you get this ?

It's available via the chess.com downloads. It's free.