From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 2 17:25:00 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7EC5B16A4CE for ; Mon, 2 Aug 2004 17:25:00 +0000 (GMT) Received: from proxy.hddesign.com (dsl-194.madison.chorus.net [216.165.159.194]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE51A43D4C for ; Mon, 2 Aug 2004 17:24:56 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from damon@hddesign.com) Received: from [10.0.0.20] (bob.hddesign.com [192.168.1.254]) by proxy.hddesign.com (8.12.8p1/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i72HOrw0065145; Mon, 2 Aug 2004 12:24:53 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from damon@hddesign.com) Message-ID: <410E78E5.1000403@hddesign.com> Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2004 12:24:53 -0500 From: Damon Butler User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040727 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd@pursued-with.net References: <410E5C6A.1090309@hddesign.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-MailScanner: Found to be clean cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: Chess for Kids (and dummies like dads) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2004 17:25:00 -0000 > As a BSD user, I can't help you. As a chess player, I will comment that > there's a certain learning curve involved, and playing against random > moves isn't going to advance you far along it. I've never known anyone to > become even moderately facile at chess without getting their head pounded > in on a regular basis. If you or your son's ego isn't up to that, OSB > (Other Sports Beckon). ;) Point well taken. ;-) But... It's not that either of us mind losing per se. What I've discovered that gnuchess and crafty are orders of magnitude stronger than the old program we used to play against. Say you want to learn to play tennis. You're just beginning. Who should you begin challenging in order to improve your game and enjoy yourself while doing it? Andy Roddick or the friend who's been taking intermediate tennis lessons through the city rec dept? In this analogy, the standard chess engines are Andy Roddicks and our old program was the intermediate friend. My son is just not gonna learn that much nor enjoy himself much playing against Andy Roddick. I don't want his first serious foray into computer chess to be *that* intimidating or demoralizing. > That said, the MOST frustrating part of learning chess is usually > tactical, not strategic (inadvertently throwing away pieces). That's it exactly. > There are a > number of good web/Java based free chess games on the net - have you tried > any of them? Many will show possible moves, blink to indicate pieces at > risk, etc. That sounds great! Do you have any suggestions off hand? I thought my searches were pretty exhaustive, but I didn't come up with anything like what you're talking about. --Damon