Detailed description of Chess Assistant 8.1

Index

20.2.11. Watching games

Chess Assistant 8.1 offers a number of tools to make watching games as convenient and interesting as possible. There is a number of ways to find a game for watching. If you are following more than one game at a time, such as when following the games of big event, then you'll find you no longer have to switch back and forth between the boards to see whether a move has been played or not. Naturally, you will enjoy all the tools Chess Assistant has to offer when watching a game.

Finding an online game to watch can be done in one of the two following ways: either by accessing Players window and looking which players are highlighted yellow (indicating they are playing a game at the moment), or by accessing Games list. In Games list, you will see all the information on the games being played. You can filter the list to show games fitting the criteria you are interested in (blitz/standard, by rating, etc.). Double-clicking on a game opens it for observing.

When watching a game, you can do far more than just watching the moves. You can activate the engine to make it tell you what it thinks of the position, plus follow the moves on the tree to see what the known alternatives are, and all the statistics current. You can also share the engine’s information by clicking on the engine window and choosing. But that is not all! If you want to analyze a move, that has yet to be played or that could have occurred in a previous position, you can just play the move on the board and it will appear in the notation as analysis. The engine and tree will then follow a new position on the board, and if an actual game move is played, it will be added in the notation without interrupting your analysis.

When following more than one game at a time, common practice if you are following several boards from a big event, it can be annoying to have to switch from board to board in order to see whether a new move is played, or new commentary added. With Chess Assistant this is no longer an issue, and you can immediately see status of the games from the colored symbols at the bottom of the screen. Observed games are shown as circles, and if turning red a new move has been played since last time you checked. Passing the mouse cursor over it, will remind you who the players are, and just clicking once on the circle will switch to that board. If the circle is yellow, it means that no move's been played, but that someone added a comment there. Other symbols include a double square to switch to the main message window, or a triangle or a square for your game being examined or played.

20.2.12. Examining games

You may wish to examine a game to show a game to someone else (for fun or as a teacher administering a lesson) or to see a game stored online on ICC.

If you want to show a game to someone, you will find that you can prepare a fully commented game within Chess Assistant, and then show it with all the variations, text and colored commentary. This works the following way: first you must have a game ready and open in Chess Assistant. Then, from ICC console you open a game to be examined. This will open in a large blank notation window. Now just drag and drop a commented game from the side panel onto the notation one and drop it. You'll immediately see it appear with all the commentaries preserved. As you're playing through the moves on the board, spectators will always see the current position, but not the notation. If a move has any colored commentary such as an arrow or a highlighted square, they'll see them, too. If there is a text commentary of a kind, it will appear as a kibitz to them. This way they can follow any and all the commentary you may have prepared, and if you are a teacher, this means you only need to type answers to the questions without wasting time or energy on the prepared material.

If you want to see a stored game such as your history (your last 20 games played), your library, or even a game stored in ICC database, access Stored games window. There you can easily access all these lists of games as well as make use of Search window in order to locate specific games in ICC database.

20.2.13. Playing games

When you start a new game, a game window appears with both players’ names above the notation window, with their ratings, their time left, and a red indicator to show whose move it is. Furthermore, the Actions toolbar is added to the top and automatically activated. It contains buttons for the most commonly used actions:

Actions toolbar

Abort game – Press this button to abort the game. This can be forced if one side hasn’t played yet; otherwise it requires an opponent’s acceptance.

Offer draw – Press this button to send a draw offer to your opponent. If it is highlighted yellow, it means your opponent has made a draw offer. If you accept, click on it, and if not, just continue playing
Resign – To resign a game
Adjourn game – Press this button to request adjourn the game, which you may resume later. If the button is highlighted yellow, it means your opponent's requested to adjourn the game. Clicking on it accepts the request
Flag – This button is only of use if you turn the autoflag off (by default it is on). If your opponent’s time runs out and autoflag is turned off, you have to press this button in order to claim a win on time.
Takeback 1 – Press this button to send your opponent a request to take back one move. The takeback feature allows you to takeback moves with your opponent's permission. If your opponent were the one sending you a takeback request, then pressing this button now highlighted yellow

, before you make a move, would accept it
Takeback 2 – Same as Takeback 1, but it takes back 2 moves
Moretime 60 – If you wish, you can add 60 seconds to your opponent’s clock.
Human/Engine – With this button you can turn on the built-in engine to have it play the game instead.

For information on playing with an engine or Advanced Chess, please refer to Engines and Advanced Chess.

20.2.14. Styles and Sounds

It is possible also to change greatly the appearance of the console by setting different Styles. The Styles menu is accessible from the local menu of any part of the Message window by right-clicking on it and selecting Change Styles…:

By selecting Change styles… you can set different patterns of fonts, colors, and any background you want, from a tiled image to a full photo layout (supported formats are .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, ico, emf, and .wmf). ico, emf, and .wmf) which you can then tile, tile and scroll, stretch, or center through the bitmap. Then when you have finally hit on a magic combination, save it to disk from the Styles menu and share them with other users:

Styles dialogue box

On the Chess Assistant site you will find further Styles that can be downloaded for your pleasure.

Another fun option is to configure ICC to be able hear different sounds at specific moments. For example you can set it to play a cheering crowd every time you win, or a bazooka blast when a move is played.

In order to activate these sound Schemes and edit or create your own ones, go to the General options accessed by Tools|Options (Alt-F9) and at the bottom left put a check in the box where it says Play Sounds. If you click on the button Schemes you will be able to configure the sounds according to your taste by either using the preset sounds or add your own private ones. You can use any .WAV or .MP3 sound file. When ready, click on the Save As button to be able to save your newly created sound Scheme.

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