GNU chess far too difficult

[madsporkmurderer]

I'm not really very good at chess (only play it occasionally), but even with the difficulty set to easy GNU chess tears me to pieces without me getting anywhere whatsoever. Can anyone suggest an easier chess game? I don't want to win every time but want there to be a possibility of me at least lasting a while

TIA,
Mike

[Vadi]

Pychess? http://www.getdeb.net/search.php?keywords=pychess

[craxy890]

I'd say, start playing online. There's quite a few sites that offer games against live players with similar beginner rankings, and offer chess tutorials. Normally I would point to Chessmaster 10, since it does a brilliant job of teaching Chess, but I don't think a linux version was ever created. If you have a DS or PSP, the Chessmaster version for those does a great job though. In any case, playing actual live humans is ideal, since they aren't just canned programs. Check out chess.com or look into other chess sites that offer browser-based chess. It's the best way to find games that actually match your skill level, since you can opt to only play players with similarly low rankings, and learn at the same time.

Update: I found a new chess game that sounds perfectly suited to new players in terms of difficulty.
SilChess
http://gaming.gwos.org/doku.php/games:alphabetical:s:silchess

[jacksaff]

FICS is the best online community but you will probably find that even the low rated players thrash you for a while. The best thing about playing a real person online is that you can chat and they might be happy to tell you how it is that they are beating you so easily.
If you really want to improve your chess (and the more you understand the game the more fun it is), join a club and buy a book on basic chess strategy.

[Proteusiq]

I am not new to chess, played for 3 years, and honestly you are right, normal level is way to high! I hope Chess Master will make one for Linux users!

[Lobais]

As Vadi wrote, the latest version of PyChess (0.10) has put a lot of effort into making the easiest level (of 8) very easy to beat.

[Jion_Wansu]

I'm not really very good at chess (only play it occasionally), but even with the difficulty set to easy GNU chess tears me to pieces without me getting anywhere whatsoever. Can anyone suggest an easier chess game? I don't want to win every time but want there to be a possibility of me at least lasting a while

TIA,
Mike

Just, today I played Gnuchess on my Ubuntu 8.10 and almost managed to beat it on "Hard" level. I was black and computer was white. I set up that black lightning trap where the black queen attacks white's king side and overwhelms white. Gnuchess had to "think" hard to beat me but in the end it beat me because I resigned. It had 2 rooks 2 bishops vs my queen and knight. I got too lax towards the end because I figured I had it in the bag...

Does anyone know how to play Gnuchess online against other people?

[immy123]

I've been playing gnu chess for nearly 2 months at the easy level. Don't want to take too many risks competing at a higher level. :D Have won 9 times and drawn once. But, still that's no way gonna be enough. :(

Hope this advice will be of some use to you guys. Use the queen, knight and the castle as a unit to checkmate 'gnu chess'. It has worked for me about 4-5 times. Good luck! :)

[Penguin Guy]

Dry dreamchess, use synaptic or try:

sudo apt-get install dreamchess Not sure if that code is actually right =/

[MadnessRed]

I'm not really very good at chess (only play it occasionally), but even with the difficulty set to easy GNU chess tears me to pieces without me getting anywhere whatsoever. Can anyone suggest an easier chess game? I don't want to win every time but want there to be a possibility of me at least lasting a while

TIA,
Mike


Put it to easy mode and try this opening, should make the game a bit easier for you from there.


1. d4 d5 2. f4 Nf6 3. e3 Bg4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. h3 Bf5 6. g4 Bg6 7. f5 Ne4 8. fxg6 hxg6 9. Nc3 Nxc3 10. bxc3 e6 11. c4 Be7 12. cxd5 Qxd5 13. Bg2 O-O-O 14. O-O f5 15. Ng5 Qd6 16. Nf7 Qg3 17. Rf3 Rxd4 18. exd4 Qh4 19. Nxh8 Qxh8

Copy the code and paste in the text-box on the link below if you are not confident with pgn notation.

http://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html

[immy123]

my buddy beat it in the hard level. :O

[mister_playboy]

This is a common issue with chess games... it's difficult to make the computer play poorly in a way that isn't atrocious, and the basic programs usually just don't bother trying this to attempt this. If you are a beginner, this makes things impossible for you.

Especially in the endgame, where the number of possible moves decreases, it becomes trivial for the computer to assess all the possibilities. Chessmaster Live for Xbox 360 suffered from this problem. Even the least skilled AI would never overlook a "mate in 1 move" situation... which meant every game had to be won by force because the AI would ALWAYS resist if it had the means to do so. The computer would hand you pieces left and right throughout the game, but would defend the king perfectly at the end. This gets boring quickly, although you learn alot about avoiding stalemates when you have many more pieces than your opponent... :D

[johnzollo]

PYCHESS IS AWESOME!!! MATT AND THOMAS ARE MY FAVORITE DEVELOPERS!!! (Brad too :) )

CHECK IT OUT!!!

http://pychess.googlepages.com/

thanks!

Sincerely,
John :guitar::guitar::lolflag:

[prince_niceguy]

Earlier I used to beat normal some 1 out of 3 games... that too is not happening for some time now.. may be the program got upgraded... or I am getting dumber... :-)

[johnzollo]

Earlier I used to beat normal some 1 out of 3 games... that too is not happening for some time now.. may be the program got upgraded... or I am getting dumber... :-)

It must be the upgrades!!! :D

-John