For The Chess Geeks: An Interesting Position

As I have said before, I am currently working on programming projects. One of the projects that I am working on is a chess engine. Making a computer program that plays good chess (Its in the 2000-2100 ELO points range). I started this project a long time ago, around ninth or tenth grade. It was a great project that I worked on until I finish school, sometime before getting into university. For the past three years at university I halted work on it. These days I reopened that old file.

In order to test the strength and shortcomings of the chess engine, I put the engine to play against human players on the internet. I can't play chess well, so I can't judge it myself (I am in the 600-700 ELO points range)... I need other players to play with it, who can exploit its weaknesses. Some people would think that to make a chess engine you have to be good at chess. Although at some point I didn't suck at chess, I do now. But I don't have to be good. Computer can do what we cannot do. Do you think that whoever designs calculator can find the square root of a large number manually in a second? Probably not!

So now getting to the point of this entry, while watching my chess engine play, it got itself in a bad situation... It saw its own demise, until the opposite player (on the black side) committed a mistake that turned the tables, and switched from being doomed to having the upper hand.

EPD: 8/4rp2/1p6/1qp2kNQ/7P/2P5/1P3nP1/2K4R b - - 0 34
Black To Move


The player continued by playing NxR (f2h1), oblivious to the fact that by capturing the white rook he turns the tables from winning to losing. As the saying goes, greed is no good.

The correct move for the black is: Nd3 (f2d3)
[+] Show\Hide Move

PS: If anyone is interested in additional analysis - just ask in the comments

Lack of Motivation

Everyone of us has a load of things on their daily schedule.... The question is whether those things are for our own amusement or simply things you have to do, you don't know another way to go without doing them!! (Almost) Every other fucking day, I have to wake up to go university... Thats one thing that I have to do everytime whether I like it or not... The question is, WHY?!

Most students as I am have university take up a large part of their time... Its a no joke, its lots of time... And to think that someone is taking the effort to do something so often, you would think: They must have a damn good reason to pay all that effort! We all are full of shit about how much our "future" depends on this... But what the hell is this future really is?! Seriously! I am god damned 22 years old, and still have no idea what this "future" is!!

Future, what an absurd word.... But the question is, what kind of future am I expecting?! I have to admit it, I am clueless! Someone would be a smartass and point out: Your future as an engineer! Thats fucking stupid... A job is not my future... My job is how I "make a living"... Sure "making a living" is supposed to mean how I make money! So we go to work to support our living... But its not "living"!! Its just something you need to do, to keep up living...

So our future is not synonymous with what we do for a living....

So I am working to be proficient in something that I can use to keep on living... I am going to be an engineer, but for what?! I honestly fail to see something worth fighting for... I am going through everyday trying not to feel bad... It just doesn't seem to pay off!!

No Motive, thats what I feel everyday... When I wake up, I tell myself: "Today I am waking up, going to university, attending lectures, and working hard because....", and then I simply can't finish the sentence...

The consequences are obvious... In one subject, we had 20 marks for 10 homeworks, and how many homeworks did I deliver? One. Another subject with a project as a group, how much was I useful? Negative, I actually blew up the things when I worked on it. And today morning, I had a final exam, and what happened? I didn't go to it. And why is that? Because I forgot that I even had an exam! And what did I do? I called a friend, got out and had a few smokes...

I know that alcohol costs money, but I don't need a fucking degree in Computer Engineering if all I was going to do is get drunk until I pass out!! And the shit is, I don't see anything more interesting that I can do with my life...