Re: Advice request--classic games

Michael Vondung wrote:
On 13 Sep 2006 08:04:28 -0700, Patrick wrote:

I've had several versions of Chessmaster, but only my last one (5500)
offered much in the way of mentored play.

The latest one, Chessmaster 10th Edition, comes with a very complete
"academy". It features hours and hours of interactive lessons, both for
adults and kids (different ones), tutorials for beginner and advanced play,
and mentored games with actually useful explanations. In regard to chess,
it's your best bet. There's also Majesty Chess, a mix of a RPG and chess,
where you learn chess by doing quests. It's a really cute program and uses
the (strong) Kings engine.

Thanks. Guess I should've opted for CM 10th when I bought Fritz 8
instead.

I actually enjoyed a few of the tutorials in CM5500. It was almost
just what I was looking for, though much of it was at a beginner's
level and repetitious for me. I somehow lost interest when Josh W.
started talking about gaining a psychological advantage over your
opponent. That aspect of the game (or of *any* game) has never
interested me at all; in fact, it tends to spoil games for me.


Go is trickier. I think I have (purchased) copies of all commercial Go
playing programs (available in the West), and none of them really has any
sort of meaningful "mentored play". There is a Windows version of MFoG,
too. My advice here would be to fall back on a book. Janice Kim's "Learn to
play Go" series is excellent and gentle. Paired with the "Graded Go
Problems for Beginners" books, you'd have enough material for quite some
time. Go is best learned by playing against people who are a few stones
stronger than you, though.

I bought a go set in 1975, but it sat unplayed for ten or fifteen years
until I bought The Many Faces of Go. In those intervening years I had
a book but couldn't make much sense of it. TMFoG enabled me to
actually learn how to play. For a game with such simple rules, I found
it amazingly hard to catch onto. I must've played at least ten or
twenty frustrating games before I finally began to get it. Even then,
though, I got ripped to shreds in an online game years ago. Never had
the patience to study beyond the most rudimentary aspects of the game.

About the same thing happened with bridge. Read the rules in my teens
but never played. Wasn't until the home computer came along that I
finally taught myself.

And with all these games, I still don't really have any desire to play
against other people. I'm content to just play against a computer AI
for the mental exercise.

--Patrick

.

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