<Don't waste time calculating moves of your opponent!>

In my experience Rybka gets into time trouble fairly often. It seems to take an inordinate amount of time early in the game and, if the time control does not allow for time extensions per move, runs out of time at the end and (like humans), plays weaker and weaker.

Amen

The reason why many elite players don't play it, is precisely because of its dicey and dodgey nature

One has to have a certain temperament to play the KID, and have a feel for these positions

Many 1.d4 players believe what Viktor Korchnoi (one of my personal chess heroes, btw) said....That the KID 'loses by force'

And yet it has stood the test of time...And the slings and arrows of its detractors

KID players are a strange breed...'True believers' some call them....'Delusional'...'Fanatics'...et al

We believe in the inherent creativity and dynamism of black's possibilities, in the face of all current theory and comp evals

When you play the KID, you are a man of faith....You do as my friend from Spain told me (apparently, it's an old Spanish saying)

He beats the world champion, and you say "that shows he's out of form." Thank goodness he didn't lose!>

I am not arguing from the result but from the blunders. Here is a short version of the game:

Nakamura played several bad moves in the opening (14. ... f4?, 20. ... cxb6?) and Anand had an absolutely winning position from move 21 until he blundered with 29. Nc4?? which makes the game equal. But Anand follows up the blunder with a series of bad moves (30. Bd5?!, 31. Rf2?, 33. Ra5?!) after which Nakamura is winning. But this is not the end of the story, Nakamura blunders with 37. ... a5?? after which the game is equal again but Anand plays 40. Rxa5?? and Black is winning again. You might argue that the last two blunders happened in time trouble but the appalling quality continued after the time control as well. After 42. ... Bd4?? 43. Rd5! White can look forward to a draw but Anand committed the final blunder by playing 43. Bd1??.

See my post above in response to <Marmot PFL>. Although I must admit that I didn't see the computer running Rybka sweat.

So as far as I'm concerned, they don't count

I want everybody to put away their comps, analyze the position and play it through THEMSELVES, then come back to me with the 'series of blunders'

ANY game...Including some of the most 'Brilliant of All Time'.... Would probably just be a 'series of blunders' to a comp

That's the problem with chess analysis and evaluation these days...Everybody uses their comps, instead of their own brains

riverbeast, maybe you should consider some more concrete lines first - modern chess is very concrete, also when played by the elite gms.

also a line doesn't stop counting because it happens to be found by an engine. only when the engine is wrong (which it can be) or when the line is of a kind that normnally isn't "realistic" for a human (on the elite level) does it make any sense to disregard concrete lines (found by engines).

In my opinion, comp lines should be disregarded much more often than not

Because they are almost completely irrelevant to the chess game at hand, and the HUMANS playing it

I'll give you a perfect example

On certain chess sites, while Anand was considering his 20th move, all the comp assisted kibitzers were screaming for 20. bxa7

According to the comps, this move led to a +1.4 or +2 compe eval...Maybe more

The point is, no human would ever consider 20. bxa7....And I don't care what your rating is, I still think you should understand why....On a very basic, gut level

Vishy's 20. Nb5 looks much more accurate to most human players (including the WC)

Plug in 20. Nb5 on your comps and see what its eval is....Compared to 20. bxa7

I'm guessing the comp probably says 20. Nb5 is a 'blunder'...or a third or fourth best move??

Comp chess and real, human chess are really two different games....You may as well be comparing chess to go, or checkers, or tiddlywinks

I realize the benefit of comps for analysis...For finding the truth in a position before or after the game....Mostly before (for preparation) or after ( to see where you may have gone wrong)

well, i must prefix with your intro - no disrespect to anyone - but watching chess on icc, my impression is that most kibitzers <with> engines are even more lost, because they now think they have a clue about what's going on when they clearly don't.

but i agree about your main point, badknight - using engines wisely, if you can, is better than some extreme "denial mode".

to me riverbeast's point of view sounds a bit too radical, and this paraphrasing of anand - <comps don't tell you everything you need to know...> - implies that they can tell us a whole lot. not that they should be turned off most of the time.

from practical point of view, in the early middle gamne many top grandmasters strongly preferred white side. if computer evaluation is not good enough then this is good enough for me to conclude that white was much better.

The truth is, I'm a fish compared to most GMs

Most GMs are fish to the Super GMs

The World Champion, apparently, is a complete fish to the comps....Because he made a 'series of blunders' this game!

Capiche?

My question is, what does this have to do with the game at hand? And more importantly, our own (real) understanding of it?

Nakamura said he did not think he was objectively lost....Even though the comps did

Well, he won the game anyway....Despite being 'lost'...Against the best, or one of the best, human players on the planet

So who was right? The comps, or Nakamura?

I have a question that I'd ask Nakamura if he were here, but since he's not I'll ask you. Supposedly the engines had Nakamura's position down the equivalent of a rook at one point. What if instead the engines declared, in the middle of that insanely complex middlegame, the engines declared a mate in 45 for White? Would Nakamura still say he wasn't "objectively" lost?

<btw, no strong engine gave a +5 eval for White for more than a brief time.>

<What if instead the engines declared, in the middle of that insanely complex middlegame, the engines declared a mate in 45 for White?>

Let's take both questions separately....Because they really are separate questions

If a computer has you at -5, I guess you are 'objectively lost'....Same as -1, or -2

In other words, if you are playing Rybka, you have no chance

But these evals are based on some strange considerations

And if you are a KID player, you realize how strange...and almost irrelevant....Some of these evals are

Another example: A lot of KID players willingly sacrifice the exchange, just to get white's dark square bishop off the board

Here, the comp would probably have black at -2....And the comp would probably win every game

But the KID player sees dynamic potential on the dark squares....And thinks he is at least equal....If not having the 'better half' of the draw

Maybe human chess is more a question of perception...Instead of cold calculation

Which brings me to your second question

If a comp saw a forced mate for my opponent in 45 moves (I don't even know if a focced mate in 45 is possible, so lets say for arguments sake it was 25), I still probably wouldn't think I was objectively lost

I would have to see the specific position, of course....

But if it was a forced mate in 25 (in an otherwise relatively balanced position), I probably wouldn't see it, and probably wouldn't think I was lost

And unless my opponent was chipped...or some kind of Super-Genius...He or she probably wouldn't see it either....And therefore probably never thought they were 'objectively winning' (even though they were)

There was a player I knew who got to master level and he had to win every point in analysis. Psychological, objective, you name it. It just wore you out and things got to where I wouldn't analyze with him any more.