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Training Game #19 with Turbo Eval + Test Game

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This is the 19th training game I have played against the computer with my newer thought process, Turbo Eval.

Here is a link to my blog detailing my Turbo Eval thought process, for those interested.

Today, I played against the 2600 chess.com bot (again), using my thought process, Turbo Eval. As is the usual, I will show the game against the bot, give some highlights, and state some lessons that I should take away from the game. After all this, however, I have written about a thought process that I thought might be humorous to try out.
Anyway, here is the game, where I am playing black:

https://lichess.org/T6AnqDLM#1

It's weird, sometimes I feel like I'm getting worse over time. In the post game analysis, I had an accuracy of 80%, with 6 inaccuracies, 0 mistakes, and 4 blunders. Highlights are below.

On move 10, I correctly calculated the sequence where I get rid of the dark squared bishop with Nxe3, and sacrifice my knight on b4 to take massive initiative against the computers queenside. The computer ends up being forced to give back the piece and continue on being down 2 pawns. I knew that I was much better after this, and so I did what I do best when I get a better position: I throw it away 10 moves later.

On move 22, I played the move Qb5, seeking to trade queens and use my two passed pawns on the queenside to create a large amount of counterplay. However, I missed that by playing Qb5, I push my opponents queen to the f file, where the computer would have some chances to create counterplay. I am then forced to guard my f7 pawn so no sacrifices are available for the computer, which means that I am losing initiative. Instead, on move 22, I should have played b3, which doesn't waste time, and keeps my threats of making a queen alive.

What most surprised me when I was analyzing my game was that from move 21 to 27, I managed to play 4 inaccuracies, and 3 blunders. I went from -2 to +6.5 in less than 10 moves. I got the majority of the bad moves in the game within these 7 moves, which is just so crushing. So now comes the big question.


What Can I Learn From This?

Evidently, I love to get an advantage, bond with this advantage, talk to this advantage, admire this advantage, take care of it for a few moves, wrap it in a towel, place it in a bread bowl, set it on fire, and run it over with a tractor. It surprises me just how many of my games go like this. Not just the ones I play against computers, but especially the ones I play against people. This must be why I am stuck at 2000. I can always improve my positional skills, I can always learn more tactics and calculate deeper, and I can learn to make it out of the opening with a decent position. But all of it will go to waste if I just love to cut the wire my elevator is hanging from. That is, if I get better positions and always throw them away, can I even consider myself a player of decent caliber?

I'm not sure. I have had many games which I would like to claim represent my true strength, but they are always balanced out by games that I am frustrated to think about. I suppose that this is the life of chess. Either I get over this struggle, and elevate myself to a much greater strength, or I fail to climb, and simply rest at 2000 for a long while. I have tried many things to help, but I would like to ask for a favor from those who actually read my article:

Can you recommend any training ideas or plans that may help me get over this difficulty? You can use the comments or the forum, or just straight up message my lichess account. I'm kind of lost as to what I should do and so I am asking for a little advice.

Anyway, below is the thing that I mentioned in the beginning of the article.


If you have noticed the title, you may ask, "What is the test game?". This is very simple. Turbo Eval has been doing perfectly fine, and I actually really enjoy using it, however, I do find that I sometimes wonder about stranger ways of thinking. One that has made me extra curious has been the prospect of looking for bad moves instead of good ones. This is something that a lot of players (including me) excel at. We are extremely good at finding bad moves, so why not use this to our advantage. Simply a change in perspective should do the trick. Instead of looking for the good moves or the best moves, we look for the not so bad moves or the moves that don't lose. Then from those moves that don't lose, we can do a deeper search for those moves that are less worse than the others. I find that it is easier to see when a move is bad, than when it is good, so why don't I use this to my advantage. I decided that I might need to perform some kind of proof of concept for this idea just because I found it so intriguing. I decided to play against the 2200 chess.com bot. It's not nearly as strong as the 2600 bot, but for testing something that I haven't ever used before and using a frame of mind that is so different from the norm, I figured that a 2200 bot would be a decent opponent. The game is below, where I am playing black:

https://lichess.org/2XWxe7lY#1

I managed to get a post game accuracy of 85% with 6 inaccuracies, 0 mistakes, and 1 blunder. I don't actually think this thought process is that bad, it's just strange to use. There may be a weakness in searching for bad moves however. In a regular search for good moves, you will tend to find moves that are okay just out of the nature of your mindset, but with this thought process, it might be backwards, out of finding moves that are bad and eliminating them, you might leave yourself with bad moves just because you are seeking them out. Maybe I should do some more testing of this.

This about does it for today's blog. I must ask again for some tips and advice for the issues that I outlined earlier, but other than that, I thank you all for your time.


If you are interested in the idea of training to fight against the computer, consider joining The Club of Believers. As I have been posting these games, more people have joined, which is absolutely amazing. The more likely it is that we will uncover new ways to fight back against the computers.

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Thank you for reading, and enjoy the rest of your day!