how strong of and engine do I really need?

[hawkeye]

I am an O.T.B player who uses engines to analyse my games and the games of others for learning purposes. My current rating is 2047(USCF). How strong of an engine do I really need for doing this?

[DomLeste]

Well 2047 USCF around 1950 Elo. You always strive to analyse with the best engine out there. It could be a good idea to pick a engine thats reduced in strength that plays similiar to your playing style be it positional, tactical or universal. Have a sparring computer partner say 50 elo's stronger or a few sparring partners with different styles.

Some of the best Human Like engines are ProDeo, Hiarcs, Delfi etc.. Its all a matter of taste and what your looking for.

[Martin Brown]

I am an O.T.B player who uses engines to analyse my games and the games of others for learning purposes. My current rating is 2047(USCF). How strong of an engine do I really need for doing this?

Anything about 400 points or more stronger.

One engine probably isn't enough. They all have blind spots. Personally I like to spar against Shredder10 to try out ideas and find it sees into some positions better than Fritz. But it sometimes makes errors and Rybka can beat it hollow. I find Rybka too hard to follow though. There are plenty of very strong free engines out there like Crafty.

Someone kindly posted a link to an incredibly large number of free? engines in a recent thread about knife edge positions when I asked how to obtain a legal copy of StockFish 1.51 which solved a very tricky puzzle way faster than anything else. I am a bit nervous of recommending that site as I don't know much about it.

You can also trade engine strength for faster analysis upto a point so the strongest engine is usually best. Though choose one which suits your playing style. Weaker players may be better off with a weaker engine - the top ranked programs now are so focused on absolute maximum strength they find it hard to simulate average club level play.

[shiv]

Well 2047 USCF around 1950 Elo.

On a side note, wanted to point out the old formula of FIDE rating + 100 = USCF rating does not really hold anymore. Recently I have seen many people with FIDE greater than USCF. I think the fair measure for today is USCF is within 50 points of FIDE or maybe FIDE + 50 = USCF.

American players are/were typically underrated.

[shiv]

One thing I can recommend if you want to improve at OTB is to analyze the games by yourself as deeply as possible first and only then compare your notes with the engine.

On the choice of engine to analyze your games, I think any strong engine is fine. I do not feel a particular need to use the best engines. The best engines can probably help you more with opening analysis.

[hawkeye]

Thanks for all the replies.I mainly use analysis on my own games where I feel I went wrong or to figure out where I went wrong and to study novelties in the opening lines that I play. Thanks again for the help.


Steve

[shiv]

Another piece of advice after suffering the hard way.

I think openings are not important until much later in chess (ie say titled players). Endgames, Middlegames and tactics are more important. When using engines, the best way is to figure out how you went wrong by yourself and then only if needed compare with the engine.

In my view a good way to improve at chess is by studying endgames and playing endgames against the computer.

[menniepals]

Nothing is strongest when analysing games. Try using any engine to analyse and see how ridiculous some lines are. So come on Rybka 4. How much longer?

[Adam Hair]

I am an O.T.B player who uses engines to analyse my games and the games of others for learning purposes. My current rating is 2047(USCF). How strong of an engine do I really need for doing this?

Anything about 400 points or more stronger.

One engine probably isn't enough. They all have blind spots. Personally I like to spar against Shredder10 to try out ideas and find it sees into some positions better than Fritz. But it sometimes makes errors and Rybka can beat it hollow. I find Rybka too hard to follow though. There are plenty of very strong free engines out there like Crafty.

Someone kindly posted a link to an incredibly large number of free? engines in a recent thread about knife edge positions when I asked how to obtain a legal copy of StockFish 1.51 which solved a very tricky puzzle way faster than anything else. I am a bit nervous of recommending that site as I don't know much about it.

You can also trade engine strength for faster analysis upto a point so the strongest engine is usually best. Though choose one which suits your playing style. Weaker players may be better off with a weaker engine - the top ranked programs now are so focused on absolute maximum strength they find it hard to simulate average club level play.

Martin, if you are refering to this link, http://homepages.tesco.net/henry.ablett/jims.html ,
then don't worry. Jim Ablett is a well respected member of the
computer chess community.

Here are some other legitimate, not to mention well respected, sites
to find chess engines are:

http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/lastupdates.htm Leo Dijksman
http://www.rwbc-chess.de/wb_chron.htm Guenther Simon
http://cap.connx.com/ Dann Corbit
http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=c ... ngine_list Ron Murawski
http://www.playwitharena.com/directory/engines.htm Michael Diosi

[shiv]

Someone kindly posted a link to an incredibly large number of free? engines in a recent thread about knife edge positions when I asked how to obtain a legal copy of StockFish 1.51 which solved a very tricky puzzle way faster than anything else. I am a bit nervous of recommending that site as I don't know much about it.

I find it humorous that people are looking for a legal copy of glaurung when it is open source and by definition there cannot be an illegal copy of Glaurung

Anyway, Jim Abblett's site for windows users is a good place to start as noted. For linux users, compiling it from source is probably the easiest way to go. Wonder if there is a repository for linux engine binaries?

We owe the creators of Stockfish a great deal as they could have easily charged more than $100 or more for the engine.