{"id":1994,"date":"2008-08-18T22:37:10","date_gmt":"2008-08-19T01:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1994"},"modified":"2008-08-18T22:39:52","modified_gmt":"2008-08-19T01:39:52","slug":"oh-dear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1994","title":{"rendered":"Oh Dear"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>‘ve been playing PyChess<\/a> on KDE (which is actually a GNOME application) and noticed that it’s not too bad of a chess engine (I think the other chess engine is GnuChess). It doesn’t like trading pieces for example but comes up with strong counter offensives so once in a while. Definitely better than Vista’s chess game: The very first time I played against that one, I beat it so hard that I think I heard the computer cry. No really.\n<\/p>\n

Talking about trading or exchanging pieces: at one time we bought a ‘Gary Kasparov’ chess computer (I can’t remember the brand, but the last time I was in NL, it was still working, I think) and we were completely beaten by the thing, even on the lowest<\/em> level. It took a while to adjust to the aggresssive gameplay, which I can only summarize as ‘Trade, Trade, Trade’ (We found out that this was apparently Kasparov’s gamestyle). We were only young then too, but it taught us to go on the offensive right from the start. Hundred years later (haha), I was invited to play chess in a cyber cafe in Truro, for a game against one of the regulars: he was absolutely shocked about my aggressive gameplay and asked if all Europeans played like that. I should have said ‘only the Europeans with a Kasparov chess computer game’.\n<\/p>\n

And now for something completely different, the game that I played against PyChess right below the fold:\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n###pgn###
\n[Event “Local Event”]
\n[Site “Local Site”]
\n[Round “1”]
\n[Date “2008.08.18”]
\n[White “Arthur”]
\n[Black “PyChess 0.8.1”]
\n[Result “1-0”]<\/p>\n

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 {This is my favourite opening when black plays this: the faster I get rid of my bishops, the happier I am} 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. O-O Nc6 6. Nc3 O-O-O 7. d4 cxd4
\n8. Nxd4 Nf6? {Black should have traded} 9. Nxc6 Qxc6 10. Re1 e6 11. Bg5 h6 12. Bxf6 gxf6 13. Qd4 e5 {I was willing to start trading my queen too to simplify the rest of the game and make room for the knight in the center of the board} 14.
\nQxa7 Qa6 15. Qxa6 bxa6 16. Nd5! Bg7 {Locked up bishops are good for nothing…} 17. b4 Kb7 18. Rab1 Rc8 19. Rb2 Rcd8 {Lost the initiative here: why not move the other rook to c1?} 20. Rc1
\nh5 {Black is trying to open up for its bishop} 21. c4 Rc8 22. b5 axb5 {Making room for the pawn on the A line to move forward} 23. Rxb5+ Kc6? {Now, now} 24. Ne7+ Kd7 25. Nxc8 Kxc8 {It’s over for Black!} 26. f3 Bh6
\n27. Rc2 Be3+ 28. Kf1 Rd8 29. Ke2 Bg1 {I decided to sacrifice my H pawn for progress on the A line and to block the bishop’s access to the left side of the board} 30. a4 Bxh2? 31. Kf1 Bg3 {See? Now it takes another two moves to get the Bishop back in action} 32. c5 dxc5 33.
\nRcxc5+ Kd7 34. Rb7+ Ke8 {For a moment I was afraid I was going to lose initiative here} 35. a5 Rd1+ 36. Ke2 Re1+ 37. Kd3 Rd1+ {Yeah, yeah, that’s depair} 38. Kc2 Rd8 39.
\na6 Bf4 40. Rc3 Rd2+ {I’m not allowing the Bishop to get to the diagonal A7-G1 line} 41. Kb3 Rd7 {Black might just as well give up here: Checkmate is coming up in 5 moves.} 42. Rxd7 Kxd7 43. a7 Ke7 44. a8=Q Bc1 45. Rc7+
\nKe6 46. Qa6# 1-0<\/p>\n

%%%pgn%%%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I‘ve been playing PyChess on KDE (which is actually a GNOME application) and noticed that it’s not too bad of a chess engine (I think the other chess engine is GnuChess). It doesn’t like trading pieces for example but comes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[336],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1995,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions\/1995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}