Any Chess players out there in DU land?

[The Straight Story]

I started playing when I was a kid. I sucked at first.

One day I got a book from the bookmobile, a Fred Reinfeld one, and played over some master games. They were a thing of beauty. A few years later my friend Andy in school introduced me to James, who was in the chess club. James beat my butt in the school library. It was an awful game. But from that day on I decided I would be better.

James and I became best friends, and we played 8 hours a day in the summer, often sitting on the phone for hours at a time discussing chess openings, master games, etc. We went to the local chess club, played in tournaments, and went to the library. We wrote a chess program on an old trs-80. James and I are still best friends (I am 39 now, we met when I was 13).

For many years I didn't play chess at all, and have now gotten back into the game. Have a new USCF membership, tournament board, will be helping out at local chess club and tournaments, have a new chess clock, and so on.

So, what do you use computer wise for chess? Here is a brief rundown of some things on my side:

4 processor sun server running gnuchess 5

Laptop running gnuchess and Fritz 8 (and google it if you don't anything about Fritz - it is absolutely awesome for learning and master strength games and beats gnuchess in games I have them play against each other)

Soon to add a dedicated system to just chess software and analysis. So much to learn.

Do you have any chess stories, memories, ideas, favorite openings, etc? Feel free to post it all here!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. I sux but I'll play ya on Yahoo or wherever.

PM me sometime

[The Straight Story]

5. Are you hooked up with playchess.com?

it is about 25 a year, but free for a year when you buy Fritz 8.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Maybe I'll just buy Fritz 8 then. Is it a good program, and is

playchess.com a good site?

[The Straight Story]

8. Indeed, it rocks.

http://www.chessbase.com/fritz8/
Check out the links for it there
Amazon has it for $29 btw

I just had it play gnuchess 5 in a blitz game (fritz won). I then clicked deep analysis and it went through and analyzed the entire game and inserted comments.

Here is some info on it:

The Fritz 8 is identical to the one that fascinated the world in the man vs Machine duel against the human world champion. Millions of chess fans watched the games live on the Internet – the match ended in a 4:4 tie. “Deep Fritz is stronger than Deep Blue,” said world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who had carefully studied the program. But don't be afraid, Fritz is not just a chess playing monster. It is a friendly chess partner for beginners and amateurs. It will teach you to play chess from scratch, and can automatically adjust its playing strength to suit your needs. It will warn you when you go wrong in a game, giving you hints on how to play better.

In any position it will explain all possible continuations to you in plain language, and it will display all pieces that are attacked, defended or “hanging”. Afterwards it will analyse your games and point out mistakes and blunders. It has many handicap and friendly levels. In the sparring level the program will actually set up tactics for you to discover, teaching you to keep a lookout for opportunities throughout the game. Fritz has a photo-realistic 3D chessboard and will chatter humorously during the game.

It has a giant openings book with a very wide repertoire and full statistics on every move. It has a built-in database with half a million top-quality games and is the companion and analytical partner of top players all over the world. Even Garry Kasparov admits: “I use Fritz regularly for my analysis.” Fritz is also the only chess program that has been in space.

[Zomby Woof]

2. I love chess!

I don't have any computer programs, however, but would like to.

I do have a nice wooden board with wooden pieces, and have enjoyed many games on it. I consider myself only a fair player - .500 if I were a ball team, lol.

My earliest memory is my Dad teaching me on a board with pieces he had had since he was a child. I was 4 or so. It taught me patience and logic at an early age.

I admire your dedication to improving your game. :toast:

[The Straight Story]

4. free chess program here for windows and unix

http://www.tim-mann.org/gnuchess.html

[Telly Savalas]

3. Some guy has been posting results from the Linares tournament..

in the Sports forum. You might wanna check that out.

I'm a total patzer. I used to do tournments frequently a few years back, but then grad school and family have kind of forced it into the backseat.

I still play occasionally on the Free Internet Chess Server. I think humans tend to be more interesting opponents than computers of equal strength, but computers can be awesome educational tools.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I am a complete potzer at it...

but I do enjoy a few games occasionally, as long as I don't bore the good players.

I tried Go a few tmes, and I suck at that, too, but played with others who suck at it. What intrigued me was the apparent lack of a need to memorize all those openings and midgames chess masters have to know. Personal experience, sizing up the opposition, and instinct are more important.

[Robeson]

9. I enjoy it, but I'm not that good. I try not to get to wigged out about..

...it, but just enjoy sitting around with the wife, a beer, and playing a relaxed game.

[On the Road]

10. I Played a Lot in High School

I was in the Chess Club and on the chess team. I played second or third out of five boards against other high schools each week. It was a lot of fun, and very valuable personally because I was quite shy.

I also went to an adult chess club at the Cincinnati YMCA one evening a week with a friend. I was in several tournaments and was ranked about 1650. I was probably a bit better than that at my peak, because I remember beating an older player in the 1700s when I was 15 years old.

A best friend and I became estranged in the 10th grade and I gradually stopped playing. But it's a wonderful obsession.

[Paranoid_Portlander]

11. Excellent website at...

www.caissa.com You can play against Caissa, which is their chess server, or other players. For an annual fee of $50, you can record 250 of your games and other features. I have been playing for 55 years, starting at age 6. I make lots of mistakes because of lapses in attention. The game seems fresh and novel even after 55 years.

[RagingInMiami]

12. I play chess

I have two chessboards, one I bought in Mexico that places the Spanish conquistadors against the Aztecs and one I bought in Colombia which places the Conquistadors against the Andean Indians.

But other than my neighbor, I can't find anybody to play with so I mostly play on www.pogo.com.

Shall we start a chess DU group?

[ralps]

13. A relaated question: Are there any good Chess programs for a Mac?

I noticed that the Fritz 8 program was a windows program.
:shrug: :hi:

[The Straight Story]

14. gnuchess here (for free)

http://www.tim-mann.org/gnuchess.html

[ralps]

16. Thanks, I tried downloading it but it requires mac classic

which i no longer have. I am running mac OSX 10.3.8 again thanks anyway:shrug: :hi:

[Twillig]

17. Here's a link to a bunch of links for chess on the Mac.

http://dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Recreation/Board_Games/Chess/Macintosh/

the best in terms of strength is the tandem of http://www.hiarcs.com/mac_chess_hiarcs.htm">Sigma Chess and HIARCS. To get the full features you gotta pay for both.

Another good tandem is the database program http://www.exachess.com/index.html">ExaChess with Crafty. Exachess has a 'lite' option and crafty is free and very strong.

[MrOctober]

15. i play occasionally

and i suck.

i learned when i was 6.so 14 years ago.

i was in the chess club in elementary and middle school, but havent played seriously in like 8 years.