How useful is it to play chess against the computer to improve?

I'm curious to know if anyone has an opinion whether it is more or less useful to play chess against the computer (slowly increasing the level game after game) than playing live players on chess.com? I've started using the computer on chess.com and set it to level 5, planning to go up as I improve (hopefully.)

Thanks for sharing your point of view!

The computer's useful to train against at different levels, for sure! But you'll still want to play against human opponents, too.

Human players are unpredictable at times, and are more likely to try dubious things against you that engines won't (like unexpected sacrifices, sudden pawn storms, et cetera...)—and if you want to really improve, you'll want to get some experience dealing with those unexpected situations, too.

A mixture of both human and computer opponents would be your best bet, I say.

It surely IS instructive, yes.  to a point particularly.

the key I think, is to set it to a level that definitely can beat you- but perhaps not to full strength.  computer engines are Best at showing us our weaknesses- and if you set it just above where you beat it.... you can see the bad moves that is keeping you from beating the next level.

The benefits of playing computer chess is obvious.  Unbeatable competition.  But unles you understand "why" you lost, it wont help.  

When I came back to chess after many years away, I felt completely rusty and underconfident, so at first I spent a long time playing only against the chess.com computer.  I thought it was an awesome tool for practice, and for help in trying to understand why certain moves did or didn't work.  I would undo and redo moves as part of that process  I mixed that in with some lessons and some tactics training on the site.

Earlier this year, I started playing people on the site, as well.  This is great fun, too, but different from always playing the computer.  In particular, I learned that human opponents, unlike the computer, were as likely as I was to make mistakes, to make unexpected moves, and to miss things, in the course of a game.  This was quite different from always playing the computer, where every move choice is an algorithm with no human element.

I have to agree that a mix of both is best.  I also have seen that I will need to study and practice more seriously in order to improve any further, instead of always just bashing around the board for the fun of it.

Hope this helps.

which is why I THINK computer chess is best done in limited quantity.

the Point is that there is NO better teacher about how awful your moves sometimes are, and what can happen when you blindly fall into tactical complications.

the "why" can be explored; playing strong players (and asking for advice), book work, and endgames.

but if you never play a strong computer (or strong opponent) you will inevitably not understand how weak you truly are.  

You can use the computer  to get in the game and then switch to the real opponents.

I always do it that way.But a computer is no fun at all.

Good points:
You're less likely to assume your opponent (the computer) will miss a trick. For some people this is good practice for the important skill of working to falsify your candidate move (when they can't help but roll the dice when playing against a human).

Engines help take the ego out of the equation for some people, so they're able to concentrate better.

 

Bad points:
Since you can often assume engines don't make simple mistakes, you have much less chance to develop the habit of trying to immediately falsify the opponent's last move.

You're less likely to get a chance to practice winning a won game.

When engines are behind they don't try to imbalance the game like a human does (humans understand what's difficult for humans).

The engine's mistakes sometimes seem very artificial, mixing hideously bad moves with amazing tactics.

Prolonged play against an engine opponent may have you develop a passive style.

---

Humans are the best opponents.

I pretty much only play the computer. I'm still getting to know this site and, lately, have been concentrating on tactics. I've tried playing a few games against actual people but they all timed out after a move or two! That is frustrating.

I dont' understand what you mean by people timing out.

if people don't play within their time control, they lose and your rating goes up.

whether you play standard or blitz I guarentee you after a few games, people will not be losing because they decide not to play after a few opening moves...

ok I found your timed out games.

yes. you are playing 1 day "online" games.

keep playing.  your still at a pretty low 1200 rating. 

the same thing WILL happen.

the thing is a lot of the new Online players aren't use to logging into chess.com each day.

higher rated players like myself have  a routine.   I almost never time out on games.

I can't play the computer cause I set up a custom position and after a few moves it crashed my whole app. Now whenever I try to use the computer my app crashes. Does anyone know if the is a way I can reset the computer?

If you have access to human opponents, then playing humans is better from the perspective of improving your play.

A case could be made for playing engines at long-time controls, but there are slow leagues on most servers too.

I was playing against engines and thought it was useful. But after playing against people on this site I realised that vs computer you don't encounter weird openings, strange unsound gambits etc hehe.

 

You have to learn to take advantage of your opponent's blunders and refute his unsound openings, like moving too many pawns etc. Not to mention the psychological effect some moves can have, or that they are easy to miss, like discovered threats. Computers are just cold calculators ...

What do you all think about playing against the computers who use neural networks to improve (such as AlphaZero and Leela Chess Zero)? Leela Chess Zero is an open source neural networking chess engine who you can play against at any level (and she plays like a human too!).

I have an old Radio Shack chess computer and I think playing against it is very useful. It's available whenever I want to play. When I make a disastrous blunder, I can just start a new game, instantly. Since I expect the machine to be flawless, on the rare times when I achieve a winning position I feel a surge of pride and confidence.

I saw once a YouTube video from an IM who played regularly against a computer (a device, not so strong as today’s engines, I think from the 1990s). He took the game seriously and got very strong. He didn’t use take backs, and analysed the games carefully to learn from the mistakes.

The advantage of such training is that you can play when you want and think as long as you want. The keyword here is “serious”. Players get strong because they are able to make the best of their training. I have to confess that this is still the weak point of my own training.

If my life would depend from a regular improvement of my chess skills I would take the whole thing more seriously and probably get much stronger. But at the moment I am already happy if I train everyday (and this since almost one year).

Another important thing is having fun when learning.

it's definitely a good idea particularly something like shredder where you can set the level. human games are too prone to stylistic bias.

in human games there will often be situation where both you and your opponent are overlooking the same obvious threat

I think they are helpful.I learned the move-order of troublesome advanced french from computer play(Tarrasch Gui with oepning books).