Title: Playing chess by email | |
Author: Solène | |
Date: 28 September 2020 | |
Tags: chess | |
Description: | |
It's possible to play chess using email. This is possible because | |
there are notations like PGN (Portable Game Notation) that describe | |
the state of a game. | |
By playing on your computer and sending the PGN of the game to | |
your opponent, that person will be able to play their move and | |
send you the new PGN so you can play. | |
## Using xboard | |
This is quite easy with xboard (which should be available in most | |
bsd/linux/unix distributions), as long as you are aware of the few | |
keybindings. | |
When you start a game, press **Ctrl+E** to enter edition mode, this | |
will prevent the AI to play, then make your move. | |
From there, you can press **Ctrl+C** to copy the state of the game. | |
You will have something like this in your clipboard. | |
[Event "Edited game"] | |
[Site "solene.local"] | |
[Date "2020.09.28"] | |
[Round "-"] | |
[White "-"] | |
[Black "-"] | |
[Result "*"] | |
* | |
You can send this to your opponent, but the only needed data is `1. | |
d3` which is the PGN notation of the moves. You can throw the rest. | |
In a more advanced game, you will end up mailing this kind of data: | |
1. d3 e6 2. e4 f5 3. exf5 exf5 4. Qe2+ Be7 5. Qxe7+ Qxe7+ | |
When you want to play your turn, load that line and press **Ctrl+V**, | |
you should see the moves happening on the board. | |
## Using gnuchess | |
gnuchess allow playing chess in command line. | |
When you want to start a game, you will have a prompt, type `manual` | |
to not play against the AI. I recommend using `coords` to display | |
coordinates on the axis of the board. | |
When you type `show board` you will have this display: | |
white KQkq | |
7 p p p p p p p p | |
6 . . . . . . . . | |
5 . . . . . . . . | |
4 . . . . . . . . | |
3 . . . . . . . . | |
2 P P P P P P P P | |
1 R N B Q K B N R | |
a b c d e f g h | |
Then, I can type `d3` I get a display | |
8 r n b q k b n r | |
7 p p p p p p p p | |
6 . . . . . . . . | |
5 . . . . . . . . | |
4 . . . . . . . . | |
3 . . . P . . . . | |
2 P P P . P P P P | |
1 R N B Q K B N R | |
a b c d e f g h | |
From the game, you can save the game using `pgnsave FILE` | |
and load a game using `pgnload FILE`. | |
You can see the list of the moves using `show game`. |