Vibe Coding and... You?

Hey folks, curious who might be using AI tools for chess improvement projects?

I’ve been using Claude Pro for about a month, and honestly, I’ve been surprised by the use I have gotten out of it.

Here are the tools I have built. Apologies, as these are HTML files that live on my machine, so I can’t link to them. Someday, I may build a website and add these tools to it for use among my readers. In the meantime, if anyone knows how to attach files to Substack posts, let me know.

One tool I made lets me generate banners for posts, where I can insert a FEN string from one of my games to change the position within the banner, and flip which side is on top, etc. I use this when posting about my own games (just created - not used yet).

Here is an example of what I am talking about. The position is pretty cool, as White to move can win with a nice sequence.

26… Kd7 27. Rad1 Rd4 28. Rf2 Bb4 29. a3 Ba5 30. e6+ Qxe6 31. Qxa5

Here, for instance, is a version with a tactic from one of my games where it’s White to Move and Win. On my blog, you’ll always know who is on the move by who is at the bottom - I don’t like any of the move indicators I wound up with.

I’ve had horrible issues with visualization over the years. One thing I have read that helps immensely is to quiz yourself repeatedly on the color of each square until you know it at a glance.

Maybe this doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but if you know that b2 is a dark square, and you are considering a line with … Nf6 in it somewhere, it helps to know without thinking that both b2 and f6 are dark. If f6 isn’t protected, then that might be the end of your idea.

Here is what that looks like.

My Flash Card Tool

I’ve spent maybe an hour or two using this, but honestly, it has already been quite helpful.

Today I made something that I think will help me immensely. I was able to create a tool that allows me to drop in a PGN database and extract games from it within the openings and rating ranges I have selected.

Opening Filter

I can add or remove any ECO codes; the files are exported and sorted by ECO code.

Why do I find this one so meaningful? Because I won’t be going through TWIC searching for what I really need from it. Now I drop a file, and a few seconds later, I have all of the relevant games.

Those of you who have read just about anything of mine in the past month have seen diagrams like the ones below. This was my first Claude project.

Chess Diagram Generator

Something that I have caught on to almost immediately is that vibe coding brings out who you are. If you are someone who, like me at times, hasn’t really worked all that hard at chess improvement, then you might wind up finding that you are using the time you should be studying, using tools like this, to procrastinate more. Nothing that I can do about that, but…

If you work hard at improving, using tools like this can do much of the heavy lifting.

I’ve talked a lot in my personal improvement journey posts about how openings have long been my bane. Since I started Project 1900, the main way I have been working on openings is by playing through hundreds of games in the openings I play. This has been helping me build a solid foundation, but I have been asking myself for months, “Yeah, but what happens when I finish the games in the files I have created?”

Now I know. I’m more or less done with the files that have gone into making these updates:

I’ll still keep what’s left in these files. After all, I might need them for the Drop and Give Me 100 updates. Week to week, though, I’ll be adding the stuff I play and flipping through the games.

I’ve managed to take a task that used to involve me downloading TWIC, then filtering out the games I didn’t want by rating range and ECO code, but I had to do the codes one by one. Taking that off my plate so that now I download TWIC, throw it into a utility, then save the output saves me a lot of time. Time that can now be spent improving.

What about you? You vibe coding?

Til next time,

Chris Wainscott