Play against an engine

Playing against an engine in Lucas Chess is a very good way to practice your game. First of all, you can pick an engine like Maia (included) which mimics human play at certain levels (based on neural network technology):

Playing against an engine like Maia is helpful for your practice

Also, Lucas Chess has the concept of a Tutor: you make your moves, but if they are not good enough, the tutor will warn you and guide you to better moves. This is a really helpful feature to see when you are going wrong in your games.

Playing with a tutor is a great help

By clicking on Tutor change, you can configure your Tutor.

• Which engine to use
• How long the tutor should think (0 means until the Depth is reached) - it might be good to set a time limit here so you do not end up having to wait for too long
• Depth: how many half-moves (plies) should the engine think ahead
• MultiPV: how many lines (best moves) do you want to see - more lines of course take longer
• Sensitivity: how many centipawns of error will the engine allow for you

You can configure the tutor for best performance and learning

When you are playing and get stuck, use the help to move function which will show you the best engine moves.