Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
When acquiring a program such as Komodo, Fritz, or any other engine packaged in ChessBase's Fritz interface, one of its great attractions is the ability to quickly get it to analyze your game automatically, and tell you not only where you went wrong, but how you could improve your play. Even top grandmasters benefit from this, since even if they might argue with an engine's evaluation that its move is better than the player's by 0.20 pawns (the engine's measurement unit), if the engine says there was a screw-up worth a +2 or more, then even they just accept it as gospel.
The vision of a super chess-playing computer is very much a reality today, accessible to all,
and can help us reach our own potential when used properly. Komodo won't open the pod bay
doors either though.
Of course, classic learning dictates that ideally we should study our own games in detail, with large notebooks holding all our thoughts and analyses, and while this may all be true, it is a serious mistake to think that having the program digest the game and spit out its analysis is unproductive. You may also wish to avoid this, not wishing to face the reality of the mistakes, or number of them. Allow me to share a 'cup is half full' perspective on this instead:
Learning from your good moves is just as important as learning from your mistakes
We often forget that when a program analyzes our moves and says that we blundered twice in 45 moves, it is also telling us that 43 of our choices were acceptable, and reviewing those 43 correct moves for positive reinforcement is no less valuable. In other words, don't focus only on where you went wrong, but also on where you went right!
Full video instructions on how to load or enter a game and mistakes to avoid. The video is recorded in
high-definition, so be sure to set it to 720p or 1080p and maximize it on the screen.
The complete instructions:
The first step is to have a game ready to be analyzed. If you played it live, then you will need to enter the game manually, move-by-move.
The first problem you may encounter is that if you try this without any preparation, the engine will actually try to play against you after you enter the first move. You have two solutions:
Go to the Engine toolbar and put a checkmark in Switch Off Engine. Now the engine will
stay quiet as you enter the game's moves.
If you want to see the engine analyzing while you enter the moves, in the Home toolbar,
click on Infinite Analysis
There is nothing wrong with this practice, but it will be slower in the long run, and here's why: even if you see the move evaluations, it will not actually record these moves into the notation, so you would need to do this manually. Also, it is easy to get distracted or lost in the analysis and end up spending far more time watching the engine analyze than actually reviewing the game. Let's be honest, we're human after all.
After you are done entering the game, go to File and Save or Save As... before trying anything.
This is not obligatory, but it is always a good practice.
If you played the game online, whether at Playchess or another much worse and far less interesting rival server, you have two options really (aside from entering the game by hand as above):
Open the file where Playchess saves your games by going to the Home toolbar, then click on
the Database button (F12) to go to the Database window
On the right you should see an icon that says "MyInternetGames". Just click on it and the
list of all the games you played on the server will be stored there. Choose the game you
want, and double-click on it.
Please note that if you watched a game, whether played as a blitz, or from a broadcast, you
can click on the icon "MyInternetKibitzing", and it will show all the games you watched.
For Komodo or Fritz to be able to analyze a game from another site, the game needs to be saved in a PGN file. This should not be a problem though, since almost all sites support this, and this is how games played on Playchess on Android would be saved as well.
Go to the Home toolbar, then click on the Database button (F12) to go to the Database window
Now click on File and then Open (the direct shortcut for this is Ctrl-O)
A pane will open, allowing you to locate the PGN file. Before you go to the directory where
the file is saved, click on Files of type, and select PGN files (*.PGN). If you neglect this step,
your PGN file will not appear even if you are in the correct directory.
Now go to the correct directory, and open the PGN file
Continued in Part 2...
Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Windows Vista, XP (Service Pack 3), 7/8, DirectX9, 256 MB graphics card, DVD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9 and Internet access for program activation, access to Playchess.com, Let’s Check and program updates.
Recommended: PC Intel i7 (Quadcore), 4 GB RAM, Windows 8.1, DirectX10, 512 MB graphics card, 100% DirectX10-compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVD-ROM drive and Internet access for program activation, access to Playchess.com, Let's Check and program updates.
Price: €79.90 (€67.14 without VAT for customers outside the EU; $86.62 without VAT). Languages: English, German. ISBN: 978-3-86681-442-4; EAN: 9783866814424. Delivery: Download, Post
