Comment by russellbeattie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by russellbeattie | Hacker News Reader

I know this sounds like I'm missing the point, but I'd love to see enhanced clients for chess which graphically pointed out long and short term options for those of us who play casually. That way we could be more like generals choosing among battlefield options, rather than having to memorize openings.

As a somewhat odd example, this would be like the Nintendo DS version of Street Fighter - which allowed you to assign on-screen buttons for common attacks. Rather than having to master a series of button presses and execute perfectly, you could just tap the button and fire off a Hadoken. Would I ever compete at EVO playing the game like that? No, of course not. But it was fun! I still lost a lot, but it was just a deeper game.

I think the same could be done for Chess. Let those of us with mediocre knowledge and skills play the game at the level the masters play at with the help of some AI. Rather than handicapping with time or giving up a piece, let the other player have options to get help from the AI once in a while - say 3 times during the game. Or have it set to not allow blunders without confirmation. There's a lot that could be done to add pleasure to the game.

Forgive me if I sound harsh, English is not my language, but it is an uninformed point of view. 3 AI hints are unlikely to improve your experience of the game, because you probably would have FUBARed your position before. Position is precisely "master level play".

At low level, you don't really need to memorize a ton of openings. As White, you can use an opening that has few possible continuations for the Black, or specialize in weird and perhaps lesser-known opening (Bird, Sicilian first for instance). Whether or not they are viable at high level is not relevant at all. You can have fun with "your" opening - and maybe learn a second one when you are bored of it.

As Black, you might already have guessed that your "strategy" will be a bit different - cause White can throw anything at you as I've explained (that's another reason to choose a weird White opening yourself - at least you know how to answer to that one). With Black, focus less about rote memorization of the opening moves and more on the general principles that guide the opening (control the center, mobilize your bishops and knights, care about your pawn structures, castle quickly). Evaluating your moves and your opponent's according to those criteria is the really interesting part.

In other words, despite all the folklore around Chess, it is not a memory game - not until a high level - but a game in which you interpret general principles (judge a position) all while attacking or defending.

> rather than having to memorize openings.

> those of us with mediocre knowledge and skills

Don't worry about openings yet, at all. Practise basic tactics (pins, forks, skewers, discovered attack, overloading, interference etc) until you almost never fall victim to them, and can spot it quickly when others do.

I'm one of the mediocre players and what's helped tremendously for chess tactics is the book "predator at the chess board" (it's available online) and lichess's puzzles.

> Let those of us with mediocre knowledge and skills play the game at the level the masters play at with the help of some AI.

Correspondance games on lichess.org give you an opening explorer which shows you what masters have played before. (Click on the microscope, then on the book icon.)

Here's what it looks like: https://i.imgur.com/Hj5Rt0b.png

If you really want to play with AI assistance, look for cyborg/centaur/advanced chess.

It looks like there's a lichess group for that, but it doesn't seem active anymore: https://lichess.org/team/cyborg

You can do this in any chess app. Undo moves, adjust level, etc.

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