Dont we all benefit from chess engines.
Submitted by
on Wed, 05/27/2009 at 3:26am.
First let me define 'benefit from' as opposed to 'using' an engine during a game.
To benefit from is to use analysis done by others or oneself in previous games. Now you might think that this is rare and you would not possibly use a game analysed in this manner. Prior to the 1980s this was largely true.
In the 1980s the developement of the desktop computer gave processing power to anyone who wanted it. Prior to that programmes were the domain of mainframes and not generally available to all.
Since that time every chess book written has had its games and examples verified by a chess engine. This includes books on openings such as MCO. With the widespread use of personal computers all GMs prepare for their matches by having their seconds analyse playing lines using an engine. So if you study master games you are benefiting from engine use. In fact just about anything written, played or analysed in modern chess has the benefit of engine use in it somewhere.
The ultimate example of this benefit is if today i play a game and choose the wrong option between to equal looking moves and lose that game. Afterwards i analyse it using an engine. This shows that had i chosen the other move then i would have won. This game along with the analysis notes goes into my games dbase. Next time i reach the same position then my analysis is waiting to guide me to the correct move. so in practice i am only forbidden to use an engine the first time i meet a new position.
Now i am not advocating the wholesale use of engines during the play of games, (although i do believe that advanced/centaur chess will grow more and more in the future), but i would just like to point out to those who swear they have never used an engine that they are mistaken. Unless they have only ever studied books and games prior to the 1980s.
Even high level OTB games are filled with prepared lines verified by an engine. Whilst OTB is played out just using the brain, that brain is full of memories checked and verified by engines.
So can we just accept that engines are here to stay and have already invaded the whole of the modern chess world.