Hi, everyone. I’ve been learning chess with Duolingo for about a month now. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the pros and cons about it. Let me start by saying that I’ve never had any formal training or teaching in chess. I’ve always wanted to be able to play well, but have never had a good teacher. My dad and I used to play during Hockey Night in Canada, and my sister and I played a bit. She was who taught me how to castle, which I thought was an impregnable defence until I played at my school chess club in Grade 8 - my ass was handed to me on a plate a number of times. I was not heart-broken when there arose a conflict between chess club and choir practice.
Pros
Each unit is based on a specific aspect, such as forks, pins, battery, and it lays out the concept quite well. There are also several ‘best move’ puzzles, which are quite good. All in all, I’ve gained a much better understanding of those concepts which it has explained, and I’m hoping there will be more in depth exploration of the details of opening, midgame, and endgame in future units.
Cons -
You get the fewest points for reviewing material, which causes students to get ensnared in learning new concepts without having fully grasped the old concepts. This is a common problem across all of Duolingo.
Some of the problems are just there to teach you a specific concept and are not teaching you good forward thinking. (Well, yes, I’ve done what you suggested, but my queen is now in danger of being captured by a pawn for no advantage that I can see.)
I can’t tell if it’s because it’s ai based, or whether the game has been set up to take it easy on beginners, but I find the matches against ‘Oscar’ are not terribly satisfying. I think it’s letting me win, frankly.
And one of the things that drives me crazy is that ‘Oscar’ does not stick to openings at all. Which leads me to a question below…
I will freely confess that I hate ai in all its forms, and for that reason, I’ll be leaving Duolingo once my current subscription expires. (If Duolingo were to abandon ai altogether, I would be delighted and would likely stick around. I doubt that’s going to happen, though.) Meantime, I might as well use what I’ve paid for, is my attitude.
And a question for the experienced chess players on the SDMB - I’m currently sticking to an opening that gets the two central pawns, both knights, and both bishops into the centre of the board as soon as possible, leaving open the possibility of a kingside castle, and being only one move of the queen away from a queenside castle. Keeping that in mind, what’s the best response when your opponent does something really unusual in the second or third move? Stick to your planned opening and the logic behind it? Change your plan, even though they’ve just taken the game somewhere unexpected? Please pass on your advice, when you get a chance.
First of all, slow down and don’t panic. Analyze the move. What does it threaten? What is its positional purpose? What is the best way to counteract it? Did the move open up a line of counterplay for you?
Many times, the best defense again a move is to make a move that creates a threat of your own.
The general approach I take to “wacky” openings is to be flexible, but stick to your principles (which you stated well: control the center, develop your pieces, prepare to castle, and connect your rooks).
Where the flexibility in thinking matters is that some of these “odd” openings are actually trappy openings. By which I mean there are often two or three spots where a more traditional approach could cost you dearly, and you pretty much need to know them.
Do you have an example of a “really unusual” move that confuses you or throws you off? Are we talking bout pawn sacrifices or bringing out the queen early or something like an early h-pawn push?
Hi, everyone! Thank you for your very helpful comments. I won’t be playing another match against it until later this evening, but I’ll start keeping track of our moves, and I’ll tell you about any that strike me as odd. And yes, I’m fully aware that my knowledge of openings is extremely limited, and it may just be doing an opening response that I’ve never seen before.
I don’t know if Duolingo is going to take me through openings in a future unit…
I’ve done a quick brush up on modern notation - actually, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to notate our matches in any case, just to get into the habit and get fluent. (Yes, I am old enough that I think of one of my standard opening moves as P-K4 rather than e4…)
