NKOTB wrote:if you are 1800, rook odds is about an even match at 5 minutes per game. if you are 2000, knight or bishop sounds about right. You can not the smallest tactical mistake against engines rated 3000 and higher. One really needs to understand what 3000 means before club players try there hand. Lucky for us (I left chess at 1795 USCF), some of these 3000 type engines are free. Grab one, play at odds and report back the results.
I think that you are wrong here and at 5 minutes per game I expect rybka to beat most 2000 players with knight odd at blitz.
You probably confuse between rybka and free engines that are usually significantly weaker when most of them do not know not to trade pieces when they are at disadvantage.
My fide rating is 1975 and I lost 1.5:0.5 against rybka2.3.1 with rook odd
at 5+1(one game rybka was without rook h1 and one game rybka without rook a1)
I am not a good blitz player and I also think that I did not play well in the relevant games but it is certainly easier to trade pieces in order to win against free engines so you can learn nothing from games against free engines.
Here is the game that I lost.
practically I tried to play 45...Kc7 but rybka told me that it is a blunder and I saw winning advantage for rybka but at move 45 I already lose and 29...Rd8 is a significant mistake.
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2007.03.08"]
[Round "?"]
[White "New game"]
[Black "Rybka 2.3.1 32-bit"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator ",agur"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "91"]
[EventDate "2007.??.??"]
{512MB, Fritz8.ctg, URI-AMD} 1. Nf3 {-2.89/14 16} d5 {2} 2. g3 {-2.94/13 10}
Nf6 {2} 3. Bg2 {-3.03/13 10} c5 {1} 4. O-O {-2.89/12 21} Nc6 {1} 5. c4 {
-2.89/12 9} e6 {6} 6. cxd5 {-2.94/12 24} exd5 {2} 7. d4 {-3.06/12 10} Nxd4 {3}
8. Nxd4 {-2.90/10 2} cxd4 {1} 9. Qxd4 {-3.20/12 6} Be7 {10} 10. Nc3 {-3.22/11 6
} Be6 {9} 11. Be3 {-3.35/11 8} O-O {2} 12. Qd3 {-3.42/11 15} Qc7 {19} 13. Bd4 {
-3.40/10 9} Qc4 {10} 14. Qd2 {-3.51/12 7} Ne4 {12} 15. Nxe4 {-3.54/10 2} dxe4 {
1} 16. Bxe4 {-3.69/11 2} Rfd8 {15} 17. e3 {-4.21/13 5} Bf6 {24} 18. b3 {
-3.70/11 5} Qc7 {9} 19. Rd1 {-3.62/11 5} Bxd4 {3} 20. exd4 {-3.77/9 2} Bd5 {4}
21. Bf5 {-4.13/11 7} Be6 {6} 22. Be4 {0.00/15 2} Qb6 {6} 23. d5 {-3.56/11 7}
Rac8 {9} 24. Qe2 {-3.67/11 2} Qd6 {17} 25. Qe3 {-3.53/10 5} Bd7 {11} 26. Qxa7 {
-3.75/12 6} Qa6 {9} 27. Qxa6 {-3.38/11 5} bxa6 {0} 28. f3 {-3.52/12 4} Be6 {10}
29. Kf1 {-4.53/13 1} Rd6 {5} 30. Ke2 {-4.61/13 5} Rcd8 {4} 31. dxe6 {-1.21/15 4
} Rxd1 {16} 32. e7 {-1.29/16 1} Re8 {23} 33. Kxd1 {-1.16/11 1} Rxe7 {1} 34. b4
{-1.09/14 4} Kf8 {9} 35. Kd2 {-1.00/12 3} h6 {1} 36. a4 {-0.92/12 3} Re5 {1}
37. Bd3 {-0.88/14 3} Re6 {3} 38. Bc4 {-0.87/15 2} Rb6 {3} 39. Kc3 {-0.77/15 3}
Ke7 {5} 40. a5 {-0.81/17 10} Rf6 {1} 41. Kd4 {-0.57/17 4} Kd6 {4} 42. Bxa6 {
-0.40/12 1} Rxf3 {5} 43. Bc4 {-0.43/15 0} Rf2 {16} 44. b5 {0.00/18 4} f5 {4}
45. a6 {0.00/11 4} Rd2+ {14} 46. Kc3 {2.60/13 6} 1-0