Back in the 70s and 80s, you (theoretically) needed an opponent if you wanted to play chess. (I think I’ve read that Bobby Fischer, as a kid, usually served as his own opponent – that’s how he learned.)<\/p>\n
Since the advent of computer chess, however, you can play whenever you want – and even adjust the difficulty of your opponent.<\/p>\n
When I got back into chess about a year and a half ago, I began with GNU Chess, which is convenient to download to a Ubuntu system. (Ubuntu is the flavour of Linux I use.)<\/p>\n
GNU Chess has some great advantages:<\/p>\n
GNU Chess offers three difficulty levels: easy, normal, and hard. I always play as black, so what follows is from Black’s point of view:<\/p>\n
CAUTION: “Easy” doesn’t mean “beginner.” The “easy” setting is not “easy” to beat, unless you’re quite an experienced player. I’ve beaten the “normal” setting a couple of times.<\/p>\n
On the internet I’ve noticed some people suggest that GNU Chess always responds the same way to the same moves. Not true. In my recent experience, White always does open<\/em> with the same move (Kt to C3), but within a couple of moves, White’s can vary even if Black always makes the same ones.<\/p>\n Playing Black, I beat GNU Chess Normal Setting yesterday. It took me about 80 minutes; my brain was mush for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n HTH:)<\/p>\n