In post 38, Sudo_Nym wrote:I've never found playing against myself to be particularly useful, since I always know what I'm thinking, so it's hard to do so fairly. When I'm practicing by myself, I usually prefer to find a Master game, and play through it- generally, the first dozen moves or so on the board, and then I cover up the rest of the score, and try to think through what each Master will do next.
It's only worth playing against yourself if you're looking through an opening or a specific position. A full game? Not worth it in my opinion. It's *reasonable* for positional play, as long as you are willing to go back through the game and seeing where the side you lost as made errors, then replaying from different points and trying different move sets. I wouldn't say it makes you improve massively but it does give you an understanding of your own weaknesses against yourself and your own lack of foresight.
I like going back and looking through games immediately after playing them, more so than the game tbqh.
My old chess computer consistently gave me a rating of about 1400, but I'm not sure what rating system they used (it was a British machine I think, so FIDE?) and I don't really know what it really means. I won the college tournament last year, they didn't have one this year but regardless I'm not a very strong player, chances are most people on MS can beat me.