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Archive-Name: games/chess/part4

Chess FAQ

rec.games.chess.misc FAQ Part 4/4



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TABLE OF CONTENTS



Miscellaneous

 [22] Utility Software

 [23] Using Graphic Chess Symbols in Printed Text

 [24] Trivia

 [25] Common Acronyms

 [26] Rules

 [27] Variants

 [28] Disclaimer and Copyright Notice





Subject: [22] Utility Software





Eric Churchill's Chess Recorder, a (PC) Windows program that records

chess moves, suitable for keeping track of postal games, will be

uploaded to GEnie and submitted to comp.binaries.ibm.pc. (It even keeps

a log of when the moves were entered, which could be used to keep track

of postal time limits.) You can enter annotations and other comments and

they appear in a separate window when the corresponding move is

displayed. The program will print out the moves of the game (with

annotations). $15 shareware fee. Graphics are quite good--looks OK even

on monochrome systems. The colors of the pieces on color systems are

'interesting.' It can now flip colors to put Black on bottom. Swis-Sys,

a $70 Swiss System pairing program, is available from Thad Suits (the

author), 2125 1st Ave North, Great Falls, MT, 59401. 406-453-6160.

Chaos, another pairing program (Swiss pairing as well as Round Robin),

GNU General Public License, runs on the Commodore-Amiga, available from

Aminet mirrors "ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/game/think"

wuarchiv.wustl.edu . For other software utilities see [18].



Subject: [23] Using Graphic Chess Symbols in Printed Text (and Web)



There are a few ways of composing chess texts in international figurine

notation (or including diagrams in printed text):



23.1 Use a word processor or page-layout program and a chess font. For

instance, for the Apple Macintosh there are at least 3 different sets of

fonts usable with standard word processors like Microsoft Word,

MacWrite, Nisus or WriteNow; or with page-layout programs like

Illustrator or PageMaker. Most of these fonts are proprietary (you must

purchase them). The fonts usually can be used for both the figurines and

the diagrams. A freely available/usable PostScript font, including a

variety of figurines, diagrams and _Informant_ symbols, has been posted

to "news:comp.fonts"comp.fonts and "news:rec.games.chess"rec.games.chess

by Andy Walker ("mailto:[email protected]"[email protected] ).



23.2 Use a chess-specific writing application. ChessWriter (Apple

Macintosh) offers an interface including a chessboard and a text window.

Moves made on the chessboard are automatically transformed into

characters in the text window. ChessWriter is proprietary. CC-Publisher

(MS Windows) is another commercial chess-specific writing application.

You must have MS Windows, a word processing package (Word, WordPerfect,

AmiPro), and a chess database system (for generating diagrams--although

this could be done by hand--like ChessBase or Zarkov). It comes in two

versions. The basic version supports HP LJ-compatible laserjet printers

($49.95). The deluxe version supports any PostScript printer, and comes

with PostScript Type I or TrueType fonts ($139.95). You get integrated

utilities to move you from game-entry or diagram-creation to conversion

and import into your word processor, with special Tips and Tricks for MS

Word, Lotus AmiPro, and WordPerfect users. Extremely easy installation,

and your fonts become available to all Windows applications. There's a

comprehensive user manual on the installation disk, and you get free

technical support! Chess Chow Publications, P.O. Box 3348, Church St.

Station, New York, NY 10008. 212-432-6546. e-mail

[email protected]



23.3 Use the LaTeX chess macros and fonts package by Piet Tutelaers (see

[18]). TeX is an advanced public-domain system for text formatting

available on mainframes, workstations and personal computers. LaTeX is a

set of text-formatting macros for TeX. METAFONT is a font generator

program for TeX. For general information on all of these, and pointers

to reference manuals, see the FAQ list posting in comp.text.tex.) Once

you have the chess package, you'll need to 3a) be able to use METAFONT

to generate chess fonts starting from the programs contained in the

package; 3b) be able to install the LaTeX macros in your TeX system; and

3c) learn the macro language to format chess texts. Activity 3a can

become tiresome if you do not have any help from a TeX wizard. Using

LaTeX to write chess text is not very simple, but the results are worth

the effort.



23.4 FEN2DIAG and PGN2FIG http://www.chessvariants.com/d.font/fonts.html





Freeware by Alastair Scott. Macros for Word 6 or higher. Requires an

installed chess font. Version 3.32 is a set of Word macros which allow

the user to input a position in Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN), or paste

a position in from any chess application which uses FEN, then generate a

chess board diagram using a TrueType or Adobe Type 1 font (assuming that

Adobe Type Manager is installed) which contains chess symbols. If the

font contains border characters FEN2DIAG allows the diagram to be

generated with or without borders; a powerful feature is a custom macro

which works with the Alpine Electronics chess fonts (Linares, Hastings,

Zurich) to generate diagrams using any of their six border styles.

FEN2DIAG is that it can be customised, via a .INI file, to work with any

chess fonts including ones which it doesn't "know" about. The macros

currently work with Word for Windows 6.0, 95 or 97. Full installation

instructions are provided.



The free Cheq TrueType font is supplied with the ZIP file; the macros

support 22 freeware and commercial chess fonts in all.



http://www.chessvariants.com/d.font/fonts.html





Web Page Information Available on Chess Publishing:



Much information may be found at:

http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/dtpeng.htm



23.5 Pgn Converter for MS Office Freeware by Michael Berganovsky. MS

Office 97/2000. ftp://www.enpassant.dk/pub/chess/pgnconv.exe ~683K



Open/insert pgn files into an MS Office application such as Word. The

moves are converted to figurine notation, and if the game begins with a

diagram - specified in the header with a FEN tag (e.g. [FEN

"r1b2rk1/pp1p1pp1/1b1p2B1/n1qQ2p1/8/5N2/P3RPPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1"]), one

will be inserted.









23.6 Online Viewing



23.6.1 Palview http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/index.htm



Freeware which allows you to take a chess game stored in PGN format and

convert it into an html/javascript page for viewing on a website. Using

Paldiag you can make html pages (no javascript) with static diagrams.



This page is an index to other pages where you can view examples, see

different piece sets and boards, read detailed help and - of course -

download. The Palview Developers Forum is something like a news group

where you can read comments, questions, answers, developments, news etc.

Version 2 is current as of this writing.



23.6.2  PGN2HTML Unix or Windows.

http://www.csar.cfs.ac.uk/staff/pickles/pgn2html.html



Converts chess games in pgn to HTML pages with Java Script for web

viewing. Command line utility. Windows users will need to install the

C-library, BC40RTL.DLL, to run the program.





Subject: [24] Trivia



How long is the longest possible chess game? The basic idea is a player

may claim a draw if fifty moves elapse without a capture or a pawn

advance. Ignoring the special cases where more than 50 moves are allowed

by the rules, the answer is after Black's 5948th move, White is able to

claim a draw. The simple calculation is (<Pawn_moves + <Captures>-

<Duplicates>+ <Drawing_interval_grace_period) * <Drawing_interval, or

(16*6 + 30 - 8 + 1) * 50 = 5950; we're able to trim two moves from this

total by observing that sequences of Captures/Pawn_moves must have (at

least) 4 alternations between the two players.



Subject: [25] Common Acronyms

* AI Artificial Intelligence ("Anything we can't do with a computer")

* BCE _Basic Chess Endings_ (see your local chess book source)

* BCF British Chess Federation

* BCO _Batsford Chess Openings_ (see [14])

* DT Deep Thought (see [19])

* DT II Deep Thought; latest version

* ECO _Encylopedia of Chess Openings_ (see your local chess book source)

* ELO Arpad Elo's rating system (see [8])

* FAQ Frequently Asked Question (see news group news.answers)

* FIDE Federation Internationale des Echecs (see [1])

* FM FIDE Master (see [1])

* F-S II Fischer-Spassky match held Sept-Nov '92 (Fischer won 10-5)

* GM Grandmaster (see [1])

* ICS Internet Chess Server (see [18])

* IGM see GM

* IM International Master (see [1])

* IWM International Woman Master (see [1])

* KIA King's Indian Attack (see opening books)

* KID King's Indian Defense (see opening books)

* MCO _Modern Chess Openings_ (see [14])

* N Novelty (see TN)

* NM National Master (or just "Master"; see [8])

* OTB Over-the-board (as opposed to correspondence/postal chess)

* QGA Queen's Gambit Accepted (see opening books)

* QGD Queen's Gambit Declined (see opening books)

* SM Senior Master (see [8])

* TD Tournament Director

* TN Theoretical Novelty A new idea in an opening line (usually used
when a GM first tries it)

* USCF United States Chess Federation (see [2])

* WGM International Woman Grandmaster (see [1])



Subject: [26] Rules



coming soon





Subject: [27] Variants



Over the centuries, many variations of chess have appeared and more have

been invented recently by gaming enthusiasts. Charles E. Tuttle Co.,

Inc. (28 South Main Street, Rutland, VT 05701) has published a general

book on the subject: _Chess Variations: Ancient, Regional, and Modern_

by John Gollon. Two of the most popular alternatives to our version of

chess are known as Chinese Chess (or shiang-chi or xiangqi) and Shogi

(or Japanese Chess). Ishi Press International (76 Bonaventura Drive, San

Jose, CA 95134) sells good books on both of these games. (_Chinese Chess

for Beginners_ by Sam Sloan and _Shogi for Beginners_ by John Fairbairn.

Another book on Chinese Chess is "Chinese Chess" by H.T. Lau published

by Tuttle Press. A relatively recent variation of chess is called Ultima

and is described in detail in the book _Abbott's New Card Games_ by

Robert Abbott. For more information on Chinese Chess visit the Newsgroup

rec.games.chinese_chess. A comprehensive book is David Pritchard's "The

Encyclopedia of Chess Variants", published in 1994 by the author

(contact him at Games & Puzzles Publications, P.O. Box 20, Godalming,

Surrey, GU8 4YP, United Kingdom). 383 pages, includes 1450 variants,

including regional, modern, and commercial variants, with very detailed

coverage of the important regional games (shogi and xiang qi) and the

most widely played modern variants (kriegspiel, progressive, giveaway,

etc.). 21.99 U.K. pounds (around $36 by credit card) plus postage). For

postal players, there are two highly active organizations which play

variants : NOST (Knights of the Square Table) in the U.S. (founded 1963)

-- contact Phil Cohen <[email protected] for more information; and AISE

(Associazione Italiana Scacchi Eterodossi) in Italy -- contact

Alessandro Castelli, via Potenza 11, I-62010 Villa Potenza (MC), Italy,

for information. A magazine called World Game Review, in 1991 published

a 99-page special issue devoted to chess variants. This included an

index of 677 variants, with full rules for about 450 of those, plus

addresses, bibliography, glossary, list of inventors, etc. It covers

regional variants lightly (though lots of references are given), but is

very strong on modern variants. It was widely praised in chess variant

circles, and it is still available from the publisher, $10 postpaid from

Michael Keller <[email protected], World Game Review, 1747 Little Creek

Drive, Baltimore, MD 21207-5230. A Web site containing information on

chess variants has been established by HansHans Bodlaender, of the

Department of Computer Science, Utrecht University.

"http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~hansb/d.chessvar/index.html"Chess Variants



Subject: [28] Disclaimer and Copyright Notice





Copyright (c), 1995-2003 Stephen M. Pribut.



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