On Mon, 02 Aug 2004 12:24:53 -0500 Damon Butler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > As a BSD user, I can't help you. As a chess player, I will comment > > that there's a certain learning curve involved, and playing against > > random moves isn't going to advance you far along it. I've never known > > anyone to become even moderately facile at chess without getting their > > head pounded in on a regular basis. If you or your son's ego isn't up > > to that, OSB(Other Sports Beckon). ;) > > Point well taken. ;-) But... > It's not that either of us mind losing per se. What I've discovered that > gnuchess and crafty are orders of magnitude stronger than the old > program we used to play against. > > Say you want to learn to play tennis. You're just beginning. Who should > you begin challenging in order to improve your game and enjoy yourself > while doing it? Andy Roddick or the friend who's been taking > intermediate tennis lessons through the city rec dept? In this analogy, > the standard chess engines are Andy Roddicks and our old program was the > intermediate friend. > > My son is just not gonna learn that much nor enjoy himself much playing > against Andy Roddick. I don't want his first serious foray into computer > chess to be *that* intimidating or demoralizing. > > > That said, the MOST frustrating part of learning chess is usually > > tactical, not strategic (inadvertently throwing away pieces). > > That's it exactly. > > > There are a > > number of good web/Java based free chess games on the net - have you > > tried any of them? Many will show possible moves, blink to indicate > > pieces at risk, etc. > > That sounds great! Do you have any suggestions off hand? I thought my > searches were pretty exhaustive, but I didn't come up with anything like > what you're talking about. if you haven't already tried it, visit sf.net and plug 'chess' into the search window. it will probably return a bunch of programs, including some which are java based. fwiw, i thought that gnuchess had level settings. are you certain that even level 1 is too difficult for your needs? > --Damon > _______________________________________________ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
