In a SocialChess game I was playing earlier, I left my Queen hanging after one of my moves. I played 17. e5 to attack the black bishop, and open the diagonal for my white square bishop to put pressure on the exposed black king. Here is the position after my move.
[will put image back in shortly]
Yikes. Queen hanging and open to the Bishop on b7. If I was playing a computer then this would be game over. The computer would not miss that move and would take the Queen off immediately. As it should! But I was playing a real human on SocialChess. And he didnt see the hanging Queen. He was more focused on protecting his attacked Bishop, and played 17…Be7. When I got a notification on my iPhone that it was my move I spotted 18.Qxb7 as soon as I opened the app. I did not see it after playing 17. e5. My opponent resigned shortly after. Game details :
[Event “SocialChess”]
[Site “Internet”]
[Date “2014.08.17”]
[White “IanRobinson (1413)”]
[Black “REDACTED (1276)”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “D00”]
1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nf3 h6 4.e4 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nf6 6.Bd3 Bb4+ 7.c3 Be7 8.O-O O-O 9.b4 a6 10.Bb2 b5 11.Ne5 Bb7 12.f3 Nxe4 13.fxe4 Bd6 14.Nxf7 Rxf7 15.Rxf7 Kxf7 16.Qf3+ Kg8 17.e5 Be7 18.Qxb7 Nd7 19.Qe4 Nf8 20.Rf1 Qd5 21.Qg4 Qxa2 22.Bc1 a5 23.Bxh6 1-0
Computers are great for analysing your games after the fact, but playing against a real human is a much more enjoyable experience. Especially when learning and your skill level is low to moderate. Even if your skill level is high I expect playing a human is more enjoyable. Hopefully one day I’ll be good enough to answer that question!
So, play humans. There are lots of places to do it on the Internet. I like SocialChess and Chess24.