Re: easier level for children

[Simon Waters]

"Timothy D. Prime" wrote:
> 
> My son is six years old.  To my surprise, he has taken a strong interest in
> chess.  He knows all the pieces and how to move them.

Glad to hear this, it is a great game, and greatly rewards those
who get past the early difficulties and become fluent with
moving the pieces.

Do find a suitable club if possible, and a good book to learn
from (I had Gerald Abrahams 'Teach Yourself Chess', and one
about "Dan the pawn", but six year olds are ever more
sophisticated.

> I have been trying to setup gnuchess to run at a level more fit for a
> beginner. A similar question was recently asked on the "bug" list.  I have
> tried some of the suggestions including "book off" and "depth 0" or "depth 1".

"depth 1", I don't think "depth 0" works (probably my incorrect
answer).

At a depth of one the computer moves pretty much instantly (as
it rarely needs to examine more than a couple of hundred
positions, often only one position for each move available to
it) if it doesn't reply within a fraction of a second the
settings are wrong!

> So far, I am not happy with the results.  It's just too strong.  Are there any
> other options I can try that will cripple the AI?

At "depth 1" without an opening book is about as weak as it gets
I'm afraid, but it will still avoid many one move traps.

At this level it is basically looking one move ahead and
evaluating the resulting position, with some resolution of piece
exchanges.

Whilst I agree this results in surprisingly strong chess, it
falls to any sort of tactical combination, and it is easy to
trap or chase pieces, but you still need to think to beat it
(well 5.05 falls to trivial cheapos in the Alekhine defence).

[Black "GNU Chess 5.05 - depth 1"]  
1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Ne4 ? 3. d4 {the Knight now needs a retreat, but
that requires foresight} Nc6 {this doesn't give it one} 4. f3 
1-0 { I resign on the machines behalf}

Also it won't try and avoid forks, as that requires two moves,
plus captures, but it will apply, and break pins, castle early,
play forks if handed them on a plate, so it's play remains quite
instructive for the beginner.     

Try playing games at "odds" like the old masters did, start with
a position where the computers queen is missing. Capablanca's
first famous game was when he took a game of the leading Cuban
player as a kid, even at "odds" of a queen this was regarded as
notable achievement for a young lad.

Failing that it is back to knocking out terms from Evaluate in
eval.c - but that is just hard work ;-)

 Simon