Ethereal 12 (3400) loses to God! (Most Amazing Game I've Seen)

[chrisw]

Brendan sees the wood, lots of the others only see the trees. Brendan is simply thinking at a way higher level and knows what is to be learnt and understood from this game is not to be found by atomising it into separate moves.

He refuses to see the details that disprove his sweeping claims. That's not higher level thinking; it's just denial.

Also, some of his attacks on those he disagrees with don't even make sense.

I did just write a long text supporting and explaining Brendan, but decided not to press Enter on it. I sense there is no fruitful dialog to be had here in this thread.

Yeah Chris, there's no need, although I appreciate your thoughts.

I am the type of guy who likes to analyze people's motivations (is it my inner INFJ? ), and it seems to me that those who "atomise games it into separate moves" (and rubbish those who don't) instead of seeing the bigger picture/higher value, they are generally not very confident in their own chess, even somewhat insecure perhaps.

So since they are unable to break down the game in clear, everyday chess terms....

Since they actually have no IDEA what they are actually SEEING when the engine is switched off...

They learn to rely on it for everything, they use it as metaphorical life-support for their chess hobby.

These were the guys who, as patzers, gathered at the back of the crowd as the stronger players in the club were analyzing and couldn't follow what they were seeing....sometimes point out a knight fork which others had glazed over and rejected internally several moves ago....only for it to be quickly rejected before the stronger players move on with their analysis - much to the patzer's embarrassment.

Now that they can carry a GM around in their pocket, they still don't understand the moves, but they feel uniquely powerful and like they are able to engage with those "arrogant" stronger players now.

This is what we are seeing in this thread.

Swift quote on the “Confederancy of dunces”

[Ovyron]

It is tough to appreciate a game when there is an engine nagging in the background, and almost impossible to improve your own analytical ability.

Yes, recently Nakamura has been analyzing games from the Magnus Invitational tournament with an engine "nagging" in the background. And it has been interesting to see how he disagrees with some engine's assessments and explains why the engines have it wrong.

Like in one instance where he explains how white has the advantage and black would be insane to play that variation, but the engine shows a -0.50 eval. Then he plays the engine moves and finds an alien looking one that no human would have ever found. Without it black is toast. The lesson was that just because a variation exists and an engine finds it it doesn't mean it's relevant.

If a variation is -0.50 but all humans on earth would lose it as black because the moves you need to find to play it are incredibly hard for a human, it's actually a losing variation and what engines say shouln't be taken as gospel.

For those the engine is deemed to be "too good" for the job (if the engine is going to suggest those suicidal moves, you'd rather analyze on your own.)

[BrendanJNorman]

It is tough to appreciate a game when there is an engine nagging in the background, and almost impossible to improve your own analytical ability.

Yes, recently Nakamura has been analyzing games from the Magnus Invitational tournament with an engine "nagging" in the background. And it has been interesting to see how he disagrees with some engine's assessments and explains why the engines have it wrong.

Sure. Even I have had many moments like this where I'm analyzing with the engine, disagree, and say "bullshit, what if I do this?" *insert move*, only for the engine to abruptly change its evaluation and start to agree.

It is relatively common when strong players are analyzing, especially in attacking positions or when positional sacrifices are possible.

Yet, regardless of this...

...stand by for the "but but but....Nakamura would be CRUSHED by Stockfish...he has no idea" comments.

3, 2, 1...

[Ovyron]

You may not believe how many hundred points I've improved since our last game, but I can say my improvement from analyzing with engines has been 0, while my improvement from watching human commentary of chess games has been immeasurable. Specially when you see a chess idea so awesome that it sticks with you, because the human explains it well and shows the practical implications. And then on a game you see that the idea could work, and it does, and you beat someone much stronger! No engine can do that.

The hardest lesson to learn for an engine slave is that a chess line doesn't matter if nobody (other than engines) can see it. Don't be discouraged if you analyze one of your won games only to find that the engine claims you "blundered", because your opponent had some incredible combination that would leave you with a -2.00 disadvantage, because if not even the world champion could have seen that, then you are safe! What matters is that you understand why you're making the moves that you're playing!

Reading this thread from the outside was actually very funny, I think the top was when jp said using the word "amazing" was fine but using the word "beautiful" wasn't, even though all his posts could have read the same if he had said using the word "beautiful" was fine but using the word "amazing" wasn't

The complete inability of some people to see beauty in a chess game reminded me of this meme:

Hey guys! Look at this beatiful woman: