Hello, i am new to chess and I use a software and it printed out my game with these notations attack…1. e4 +0.00 c5 +0.48 2. d4 +0.08 cxd4 +0.35,etc…my question is what does this mean? and how do u get these values please help!!!
The numbers are part of the evaluative system the program uses to determine if a player has an advantage. For example, if the program says +.35 it means that it assesses White as being slightly ahead, maybe three tenths of a pawn. If it says -0.10, that means that Black is slightly ahead. I wouldn’t worry about these smaller numbers too much. However, if the program evaluates the position as +2.5 or higher, then a more substantial advantage has been obtained, probably from winning a pawn or two or a piece. When the program whines, grovels, or freezes, you know you are winning.
Thank you very much that help me alot
If your new to chess, a computer analysis isn’t going to help you much. I hardly bother having a computer analyze my games, since they end up showing you tactical misses. A Grandmaster can have Houdini 3 go over his or her game and it will still show how weak the GM is.
The July issue of Chess Life has an interesting article, and the first game given on the how baffling chess engine moves are in an “engine to engine” game… and the article is done by a GM!
There are plenty of excellent books and programs out there to help new players learn stuff like strategy and tactics. If your REALLY new to the game and doing little more than random moves, I’d actually (if its in print still), recommend “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess”, which wasn’t written by Bobby Fischer, but still a good way to ease yourself into looking at a chess board with a more critical eye. Even though its primarily Mate in X positions, a lot of the position are from middle game or late middle game and some end game positions, so it gives you practice looking at the entire board.
Although nowadays, its not exactly what I’d call great advice, but adage of developing your middle pawns, knights and bishops first is still solid for early development.
Still, a decent beginner’s book is vital, cause it can give you some insight as to what your early moves are doing. For example, explaining about weak and strong squares, diagonals, open/semi open/closed files, etc.
Remember that those evaluations are either for the whole board at the time of the analysis and for the depth (roughly the number of moves ahead) the computer has run so far.
While modern engines have ways to concentrate their study on promising lines of play (and thus the rest of this sentence is no longer entirely true,) it does you absolutely no good to have the computer tell you that you can be ahead in material ten moves down the road if you’re checkmated in twelve moves. Or the engine gives an evaluation advantage to a player when the position is dead drawn and there is no way to convert the advantage the computer perceives.
Engine design is a complicated art, but it helps very much to realize that engines still do not think. They only engage in number crunching which, taken in completeness, produces very accurate results.
Also, most engines give their numerical analysis in terms of advantage for White being positive and advantage for Black being negative. (i.e. Score of +3.00 means white has a likely winning advantage, and score of -3.00 means black has a likely winning advantage.) Some engines and interfaces may assign the score on an absolute scale. Your example, if it is accurate, appears to be of this type.
In any event, learning how to use a computer for analysis is not thought of as a beginner’s skill. You would be far better off going over the game with a coach/teacher, or even just reviewing it with a stronger player. That said, I use the computer for two reasons: It can show me in my losses where I started wandering off - but for the hard part (figuring out why and trying to learn something about it) the computer is not helpful. The second: Even in my wins, the computer will sometimes reveal to me where the opponent could have flatly killed me but neither of us saw it in the game. But again, both of these can be done by a helpful stronger player.
I sort of disagree with the above.
I view it as very much a beginners skill, though you can’t get the full benefit.
Even in my very first rated, i had a position that was even, went to +5 or something after my opponents move, and then went back to even after my move when I analyzed it. This clued me in that I had missed a tactic.
From there, it’s easy to go back, and in most cases the tactic is only 2-3 moves deep, and by playing varaitions you can see patterns you missed. The positional subtelties of two tenths of a pawn might be flawed and or limited with a computer, but for avoiding gross blunders and/or missing a tactical shot a computer is huge, and at least at the start, tactical shots decide alot more games than you’d think.
By all means you can disagree. You do have a point, that an engine can see missed tactics. I don’t want to minimize that.
However, an engine cannot explain to you if the sequence leading to that shot is reasonable. It cannot make informed guesses about why you missed the move. It can’t remember your prior games and draw conclusions about patterns in your play which could be corrected. It cannot outline for you why you should be targeting what in a given position, it can only calculate the optimum line(s) in a position. And in the case of spotting tactical shot blunders, studying only with computer analysis could lead into a pattern of “hope chess” thinking - I won’t consider my advantages or how to get them at all, but just wait for my opponent to blunder.
This is where computer analysis, especially for a beginning player, fails: It can point out lines and shots, but it is far inferior to a stronger player in helping a player in how to think. For computers do not think.
Are any of these universals? Heck no!
But if a ‘beginning’ player (which is certainly a term begging to be unpacked,) asks me if they should buy an engine or download a free one, I’d suggest, “Not before you establish a relationship with a good teacher for your playing level.” Which is advice I wish I’d given myself years ago, because it becomes harder and harder to follow. In fact, I’d look for guidance on how to best use a particular engine from a teacher as well - one experienced with that particular engine, rather than try to puzzle it out on my own. OK, no I wouldn’t because I’m a technogeek… but I still think that’s good general advice. (Worth exactly what was paid for it, anyway!)
uscfsales.com/bobby-fischer- … chess.html
Perhaps, some of the discussion at Subject: book recommendations? would be helpful.