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United States1865 Posts
Are you playing your friend online? Because I am 100% positive he did not beat the Chessmaster engine, so either you used an incredibly weak version or he is also using an engine on you, there are many that are stronger than Chessmaster.
Try playing this guy in person and see if your practice pays off more.
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The other thing is that if you're only 1450 on chess.com that means you're probably about 1400 max in real life, and a 1400 player is duck soup to beat if you know even a slight bit more tactics than they do, no matter what opening they play. Strategy only matters at the master level, until you're 2100 it's tactics, tactics, tactics.
I mean, think about it this way. You're playing a TvZ and you outmacro your opponent with the perfect build order and just when you're about to break his sunks, he takes his lurkers off hold position and kills all of your m/m. You just lost to a tactic. It didn't matter what his strategy was.
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I would love to be good at chess. But I always play my dad and ragequit.
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(Langan is a 200+ IQ guy, reputed to be the smartest man currently alive, but overall is far from a "successful" person; he is a farmer/rancher) Thinking you could do better with someone elses talents doesn't make them unsuccessful.
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Also did you study the openings in depth or do you just know what they look like? Do you know what the key moves are, where all of the important sacrifices are, how to deal with different variations of moves that the opponent can play, the thematic ideas behind it, etc.?
For example, I play the french defense as black, and i like it when opponents play the advance variation against me, but what happens if they play the tarrasch? It's similar but because you're forced to play Nf6 you lose the exchange. Same strategy, different lines, different thematic moves. How much did you study and how much did you practice?
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On December 23 2009 11:41 gyth wrote:Show nested quote +(Langan is a 200+ IQ guy, reputed to be the smartest man currently alive, but overall is far from a "successful" person; he is a farmer/rancher) Thinking you could do better with someone elses talents doesn't make them unsuccessful.
Sorry if I phrased it wrong, but what I meant that compared to his potential, he couldn't flourish as one with his talents could've. Read Outliers. Malcolm phrases this far better than I can.
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On December 23 2009 11:41 gyth wrote:Show nested quote +(Langan is a 200+ IQ guy, reputed to be the smartest man currently alive, but overall is far from a "successful" person; he is a farmer/rancher) Thinking you could do better with someone elses talents doesn't make them unsuccessful.
Plus the fact that he is basing success off of all the wrong things. For a man like Langan, do you HONESTLY believe he measures success by his wealth or position? Clearly not, or he would have achieved it already. Bad example imo. He has written many ridiculous papers that I'd implore you to look at before you venture and call him unsuccessful due to being a farmer (if I remember correctly farming is actually his passion, so even more LOL)
Wealth/position are easily attainable and are the layman's excuse for success. Intellect DOES limit you. It's that simple
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Yes, Langan says farming is a passion, but imagine the things he coulda done had he been born, say, to parents who were doctors/lawyers. Odds are he woulda become a college professor, done even greater philosophical, scientifical work.
Btw, when did I mention I based success off how much dough or social status someone achieved? I'm saying Langan coulda achieved an even higher level of intellectual development had he been more fortunate to meet decent parents.
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On December 23 2009 11:23 Atrioc wrote: Are you playing your friend online? Because I am 100% positive he did not beat the Chessmaster engine, so either you used an incredibly weak version or he is also using an engine on you, there are many that are stronger than Chessmaster.
Try playing this guy in person and see if your practice pays off more.
I entirely agree that someone who doesn't play chess at all can't be beating that engine without cheating.
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Why do you think that him doing things as a doctor or a lawyer or a college professor is any more important than feeding the population?
And he could have achieved a higher level of intellectual development? The man has the highest recorded IQ in the world!
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On December 23 2009 10:44 Pawsom wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2009 08:07 Athos wrote: One time, about a year ago, I got so frustrated playing him that I tried sicking the chessmaster engine on him. He somehow smashed right through the engine and won the game while playing white.
According to the November 2007 Swedish Chess Computer Association (SSDF) rating list, Chessmaster 9000 has an estimated Elo rating of 2710 on an Athlon-1200 PC.[2] Chessmaster 9000 defeated then U.S. Chess Champion International Grandmaster Larry Christiansen in a four-game match held in September 2002. Source: Wiki Sorry but your friend does not play GM level chess with no formal training.
There is no way around the fact that your friend cheated. Want proof? Ask him to play against the computer face to face with you making moves for the computer. Then sit back and watch the program own your friend as many times as he cares to play.
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On December 23 2009 12:20 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Why do you think that him doing things as a doctor or a lawyer or a college professor is any more important than feeding the population?!
You've completely missed my point. Please read my post again.
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You've completely missed my point. My point being, don't be put discouraged by talent. Would reading it without the "put" give the right meaning?
Effort and a dose of luck is more important IMO, though having talent is always a plus... I don't think I'm arguing against your point. Just your measure of success.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan
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Thanks for all the responses. I should have clarified a few things. Thing is, he does play chess but he has no formal training, he's never been coached and he's completely self taught. He used to play on yahoo chess for a while, and he's admitted to playing roughly a thousand games on zone.com so I guess he's had his fair share of practice. However, there's no doubt in my mind he is talented. It just always came of as weird to me that he never bothered to learn formal openings or chess terminology, I guess everything he learned just came from playing the game.
As for him beating the chessmaster, I don't think he cheated because he's played the same we he's played in every game. It was definitely not set to full power on my old crappy computer and I was just using the instant recommended move. I think I could show you guys some games I've played against him, and maybe from that you can figure out how strong he is.
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Double post--
In regards to the topic, though, can you post a game of his so we can analyze it? We'll tell you what level he's at roughly if you post a few games.
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On December 23 2009 12:37 win8282 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2009 12:20 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Why do you think that him doing things as a doctor or a lawyer or a college professor is any more important than feeding the population?! You've completely missed my point. Please read my post again. Why did you put an exclamation point on my post?
I must have missed your point, what was it? I thought it was that he might have done something "greater" as a college professor. Clearly, you've never been to college.
On December 23 2009 12:12 win8282 wrote: Yes, Langan says farming is a passion, but imagine the things he coulda done had he been born, say, to parents who were doctors/lawyers. Odds are he woulda become a college professor, done even greater philosophical, scientifical work. Also, "scientifical" is not a word.
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I think the point was that talent isn't a good determinant of likelihood of success.
But it got muddled with bad examples.
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he obviously needs to be introduced to go.
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On December 23 2009 12:12 win8282 wrote: Yes, Langan says farming is a passion, but imagine the things he coulda done had he been born, say, to parents who were doctors/lawyers. Odds are he woulda become a college professor, done even greater philosophical, scientifical work. So your measure of success is how important his existence is to mankind? I would say that a successful life is a life where you are happy with yourself. It doesn't matter what your "potential" is, just because he is born a genius do not mean that he should be forced to work hard on things he don't want to do.
But if we measure success as as in how much others envy you, I bet that he is still more successful than you ever will be and also more successful than most college professors. Newspapers very rarely writes about professors unless they win the Nobel prize and even then it isn't as as much media attention as this guy have gotten.
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Are you sure you're not sharing the same friend with this guy? (http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=108386)
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