autochess

[gambitish]

several years ago i actually quit playing chess because i got sick and tired of having to play the stonewall defense as black and even having to play it as "attack" as white too in the end because i never studied 1.d4 defenses and began forgetting all my my 1.e4 theory and had it with creating handrwitten trees to train with and having to manually reset pieces back to move #1 for EVERY position when i knew software could make it a piece of cake to do. having to rewrite your tree constantly too to accomodate new theory is no fun either.

i tried using bookup and despised it! besides working totally backwards polluting an opening book i spent FOUR DAYS building the second i imported my own games to ADD to my theory when that program works backwards making you PRUNE garbage just to get back to where you started. who has time to prune say 100,000 games from a database CD?! books should be "set in stone" and can only be added to with PERMISSION.

i also hated that there's no tree display in bookup (the kind that indents paragraphs for each new line) that you can just point to the move you want to add to another line to and reset the board there pretty much like the MUCH BETTER interface NICbase uses. working with that clunky backwards interface alone wasted about 4x the time it should have because you can't even click on say, move #7 to add a new line with 7... 00 etc.

i've tried to find a useable program before quitting as well as begging and pleading with several software manufacturers to make a good USER FRIENDLY program. if i didn't hate computers so much, i'd program it myself. if i could find a programmer looking for small projects, i'd buy the program myself for $100! i just can't get ANYONE interested as everyone but me that uses chess software apparently is a hacker and can understand hackerese interfaces that are counterintuitive and that hide all of their features where all i want is to just automate stdying my books. that can't be too hard to program. just program a middle widget to manage a database with an off the shelf winboard interface with the ability to edit.

would some PLEASE help me get back into chess again? as it is, i'm getting creamed in the openings against 1000 rated players now because i don't understand position at all when i should be getting back to 1600 with tactics alone. if i don't find a way to learn and build opening with a program that i can actually use, i'll likely end up quitting again as i'm not wasting a full day to study an opening i could easily study in under 1/2 an hour with automation and another few days even creating a book that i could do in just hours with software.

[XsupremeX]

Then you need Fritz Chessbase, the program helps you giving you tips in every move you make, specially if you make a bad move against the computer. Also you can make your own opening chess book using Fritz and study the moves.

[gambitish]

actually, no, i don't need chessbase and fritz as i already have fritz 6 and it doesn't do opening training either.

i want a program that i can enter my book into and then have it run through all of my theory automatically. actually, i just tried and liked chess opening trainer which is 100x easier to use than bookup, but sadly you can see your theory.

i REALLY hate the convoluted way chessbase displays theory and AVOID their annoying hacker style whenever possible. i like the intuitive tree style way, the ONLY way i'll work and that chessbase literally REFUSES to offer as an alternative as i already asked them years ago and got the "who cares what you think, be a hacker or go away & thanks for your $50 heh heh heh" years ago when i bought fritz 6. i just tried to use it now to start studying positions in NICbase's awesome online tree and can't find fritz's STFU button (must be in german) so i can set a position up to ASK him what he thinks along with the other engines.

i ONLY study chess like this (systematic one variation at a time tree style, the logical & clear style)
1. e4 c5
2. b4
2... b6
2... cxb4
the way NICbase does it. i hate computers and i hate clunky anti-human hacker interfaces that hide everything behind secret handshake commands and other abstract confusatrons. that's my point. chessbase is a worst case offender for hostile interfaces as far as i'm concerned and their attitude is do it our way or eff off. they actually got an attitude with me when i tried to learn fritz 6 because i didn't know anything about folders at the time or some other basic windows task that should have been handled inside the program as far as i'm concerned.

i really liked how intuitive chess opening trainer is, but you just can't see your theory tree in it. otherwise, i was up and running as fast as i could play through the few lines i wanted to test with. sadly, i'm roadblocked by fritz now because it absolutely refuses to let me drive my own chess board and set a position up without playing black.

i was just going to juggle NICbase's theory with the analysis i can't get from fritz to hand type a theory treee and enter that one line at a time in chess positional trainer in a way clunkier than needed manner but as always, fritz is fighting me with it's hackerese crap. WHERE IS FRITZ'S OFF BUTTON?!!!

[gambitish]

PS this forum's annoying hackerese hypertext editor chose to reformat my theory tree and hide the spaces i tried to use to give variations the proper indenting they need so you can clearly see where each new line branches more like this
1. e4 c5 2. b4
__ 2... b6
__ 2... cxb4 3. a3
____ 3... d4
____ 3... bxa3

the way that chessbase jumbles variations by hiding them within variations and the way computer software works in general as my names and numbers dyslexia has serious issues with abstractions. chessbase style theory is random babbling that's an abomination to me like it was DESIGNED to be confusing on purpose.

people that program computers really have no clue most of the time how to do so with an ergonomic user friendly interface and really just put a few labels on hacker buttons that make sense to them without whittling it down to a simpler interface that streamlines everything to simple "point & click" simplicity.

i hate that hacker crap so much that for me, it really is easier to just write theory out line by line in a tree as pictured above and study it one line at a time from move #1 every time & having to reset pieces on a chess board. NICbase lets me navigate theory like a breeze, just not train with it. that new training program lets me train, but not see my theory. *sigh*

oh, and fritz won't ever let me do ANYTHING my way.
"you vill do ziss my vay und you vill like it yah!"
LOL

i really do like fritz for analyzing PGN games when i have any to study though. i haven't had any games on my PC in years though and have forgotten how to use fritz anyways even if i had any.

[gambitish]

1,000 apologies if i come off sounding mean to bookup. i've talked to the owner of that program several times and he's the nicest most hands on real customer service business owner you're ever going to meet in the chess world, but his hacker brain and mine just speak entirely different languages. it's rare these days that you can even talk to a human being at many corporations, but to have many long discussions with the head of R&D at any corporation is unheard of. i especially like the transposition seeking of chessbase but just don't groove with the "modular" way it does things and pruning databases is the exact opposite way of building a repertoire than the additive way of doing it from books. i'd only use databases to suppliment theory built from the ground up from books.

i'd like a program that works like a sketchpad where one plays through one's theory from books or game analysis if one choses to study database style, preferably with multiple engines studying the latest position entered (or chosen if pruning) and that lets you go through the lines until you get whatever book or chapter down systematically or randomly.

the program would have to have a "set in stone" filter though so that no database corrupts the books that a user has created. anything outside of one's books' theory is a novelty. my own games polluted the opening book i'd created in bookup once i imported them to study. i'm trying to build a mainline only repertoire for black and white that i can add theory to without any database being studied corrupting the books i train with and to edit my PGN with a tree style text editor where every variation is another indent under it's main line. promoting & demoting lines should be a standard option in any book training program.

NICbase would be perfect if it only added a book editor and automated training feature. their database navigation is a dream to work with. just point and click with your position in the game showing on a clear roadmap tree. the only other thing i could think of to improve that would be the ability to resize boards so pieces are easier to see.

[gambitish]

was just going to see if i could get rebel decade to work for position analysis or at least chose human vs human and see that it has an opening book editor. that might prove handier than writing or typing theory by hand. i played a demo version of rebel that only played full strength on fridays i liked a lot because it seemed to play way more aggressive than wishy washy gambit hating fritz. i don't think i played many games over 25 moves against rebel. that's more of the sort of engine i'd want helping me chose moves in the opening for sure. fritz plays with too much intention just to keep everything in balance, even patient to me.

if i can find a way to train openings that works for me, i'm considering gambit tiger and junior for adding new theory to the gambit lines i play. they seem like the 2 most aggressive engines from what i've read. who cares if my theory can't beat rybka? i'm playing real humans who play goofy out of book random noise. i'm not looking to play solid, i'm looking to get every piece developed asap & start looking for targets. i need opening theory because i'm position blind.