playing on the icc
CA 8.1 allows you to play chess live over the
Internet through the Internet Chess Club game server, otherwise known as ICC.
The interface was designed to help novices play with no knowledge of server
commands, and yet enjoy all the same privileges as experienced users. Looking
for a game, playing a game, and watching the games of others can all be done
with the greatest of ease, and with it all the power that a database such as
Chess Assistant 6 can offer.
You will find easy to read charts showing who is online, who they are
playing, what interesting games are going on at the moment, and of course who
is looking for an opponent. A simple click permits one to change the order of
the information allowing one to see everything according to rating,
alphabetical order, game type (color coded for bullet, blitz or standard time
controls), and even from fastest to slowest time controls. You can also set
specific filters to always display your preferences. For example, you could set
it to only show human players rated between 2805-3012 who are playing blitz or
standard games.
The message window allows you to set repeated messages, tells (for
chatting with others), or any command really, and permits you to easily switch
between one and the other, sparing you the need to repeatedly type everything.
Playing a game with Chess Assistant provides the player with far more
possibilities than merely moving the pieces. New options have been created to
make it possible to play “Advanced Chess”[3] directly online. Possibilities such as trying out moves and
variations on the board before sending them, accessing the main database’s tree
to see all the statistics on the moves being played, and of course turn on the
engine, having it play automatically or only suggesting lines while you make
the decisions. A simple click can switch you from one engine to the next. You
can also set it to save any and all game information, such as comments made by
players, times per move, etc.
When watching the games of others, all restrictions are removed, and you
can follow Grandmaster games (only for registered ICC players) accompanying
their moves with the tree, and watching the engine mercilessly point out
their mistakes (or brilliancies J). Feel free to comment through
“kibitzes”, comments that can be seen by the players, or “whispers”, comments
that can only be seen by other spectators, and save them as well. There are
also colored symbols permitting you to easily switch between games and see at a
glance whether another game you are observing has had any new moves played.
If a game is being displayed in Examine mode, a mode for showing and
analyzing games such as in lectures, classes, and special ICC events, not only
can you see the colored comments such as highlighted squares and arrows, but
you can save them for you, along with other information you have chosen to be
saved, so that they may later be looked over at your own leisure.
ICC has a number of different
databases such as a player’s “history”, their last 20 games played, the
“library”, a special publicly-accessible database of up to 100 favorite games,
and finally, a searchable database of over 1,000,000 Grandmaster and
International Master games played online. All can easily be found and accessed
without any special knowledge of server commands, and added to your databases
in Chess Assistant.
Finally, if the
appearance of the display isn’t to your liking, you can switch back to the
classic BlitzIn appearance with a simple click, or modify the settings to your liking
to set any font, color, or background (including photos) and create and save
different Styles. These Styles can also be shared with other CA6 users. Check
out the website for new Styles to download.
Quick Start
Although further ahead you will find explanations to satisfy your
curiosity on every little detail of the interface, the first sections were
written so as to get you going as quickly as possible without overlooking the
essentials. If you’ll take a couple of minutes to go through this, you will
learn the essentials of Chess Assistant’s ICC interface and its new features:
Accessing the Internet with Chess Assistant
The
first thing to do is to setup your ICC account information. If you do not have
an account already with ICC, we highly recommend you acquire one in order to
benefit from the numerous privileges registered users have. These include
creating a unique pseudonym or nickname, acquiring a rating, watching lectures
and special events, and watching live Grandmaster games.
Setting up an account
In order to setup an existing account, first go to the Internet menu at the top, and click on Options. A dialogue window will open
presenting you with a number of options. First click on the button 
, then at the top left fill in the Description with the name of your
profile (probably the same as your handle or pseudonym). This will Just below
this fill in your pseudo or nickname in the part that says Login (ignore the
part that says on login sequence for
the moment) and then your password in the part that says Password.
6
Configuring
ICC options
In
the Auto save options, you will see a number of options the first of which are
setting your games to always be saved 
or other
games that you watch, as well as the Time per move, Total time, etc. By
checking these options such as 
Chess
Assistant will automatically add a text comment with the corresponding
information to each move played.
You can also have it save all the text comments, such as kibitzes and
whispers by selecting 
or you
can choose whose comments you wish to see by clicking on Selected and then on the button Add.
You should end up with something like: 
. Finally, please don’t forget to set your new
account as the default by clicking on the button 
near the
top right so that in future sessions, you need click on the small arrow to the
right of the 
icon in the toolbar and select Connect
to ICC from the drop-down menu
to connect.
For computer accounts, you will have the added option of being able to
start the game with an engine 
or leave
it as Human for “Advanced Chess” games. You can later change the player (human
or engine) during the game. You also have the possibility of saving the
engine’s best line, depth, and score in the Auto
save options and in the Auto send
line 
you can
have the best line sent as a kibitz or a whisper after each move.
Connecting
7
You can enter the Internet Chess Club (ICC)
either by selecting Internet | Connect to Internet Chess Club from the CA 8.1 main menu, or by click on the
small arrow to the right of the
icon in the toolbar and select Connect
to ICC from the drop-down menu
to connect.
Tabbed Toolbar Console Tabs
Console
Overview
Send button Connection
Indicator Accelerators Object panel Information Area
Command entry box Game
Status indicator
Fig.1.
ICC main console
When
you connect to ICC, a tabbed console appears, with some new tabbed toolbars at
the top, and some other items on the display:
Ø
ICC tabbed toolbar – These toolbars permit you
to set buttons to Seek a game by
issuing different types of challenges, to set User commands such as an automatic greeting when starting a game or
other server commands, Personal
information such as finger notes and ICC preferences, and finally an added Actions toolbar that only appears during
a game, to handle basic game functions. Note:
The user can also add further buttons
to suit their needs by clicking on the arrows next to the buttons.
Ø
Console Tabs – allow you to switch
between the different information windows which briefly are as follow:
Ø
Message Window – This is the main room of ICC and is where all ICC announcements are
made (games, events, tournaments, etc.) as well as chatting. Many functions are
highlighted like a web link and can be activated by just clicking on them. This
area can also be customized with colorful personalized Styles by right clicking anywhere on the main area.
Ø
Seek List – Here you will find all the public challenges
that have not been answered yet, as well as detailed information such as the
time control being sought, the type of game, rated or unrated, etc. The list
can be reorganized by clicking on the top of the column of the information that
interests you. Ex: if you click on the cell that says Time, the list will be organized according to the time. Clicking on
it a second time will invert the order of the list.
Ø
Seek Diagram – Here too, you will see all
the unanswered public challenges, but rather than a chart, it is organized in a
graph with ratings on the side and time controls at the bottom. By passing the
mouse cursor over a dot on the graph, each dot representing a separate
challenge, you will find further details on that particular challenge.
Ø
Players – Here you will see a list of the players
connected and can see what they are doing according to the color behind their
name. Any action related to a specific player (seeing what they are doing, who
they are, sending a message, etc.) can be done from here. The list can be
regulated through the filter (right-click on the window) allowing you to
determine who appears on this list.
Ø
Games – This window tells you what games are currently
going on and gives you extensive information without forcing you to actually
see the game first. Some of the information included are the time control, the
material balance, the times of both players, and how far advanced the game is.
The list can be filtered according to preference (Right-clicking on the window
area), and re-organized by clicking on the top of the column of information
that interests you.
Ø
Stored Games – This window allows you to
search through one of the 3 types of databases that ICC provides: the history,
the last 20 games played by the player, the Library, a player’s private
database in which they can store up to 100 favourite games, and the ICC
database, a database of over 1,000,000 games played online by Grandmasters and
International Masters.
Ø
Challenges – This will only appear if a
player(s) has issued a challenge specifically to you. The presentation is
identical to that of the Seek List.
Ø
Indicator – shows whether you are currently connected to
the ICC game server (green), or not (red). A yellow indicator means that the
connection has not been established yet. If you see a gray triangle rotating
over the green, it means that you are successfully connected to the ICC game
server, but the data transferral you requested may take some time.
Ø
Information area – This is where all the
information is displayed, from the chess board to the message window and the
other console windows. You can switch between the the various consoles using
the Tabs on top. You can also set your own Style
of appearance for the Message Window
by right-clicking on it and accessing the local menu.
Ø
Object panel – allows one to quickly
switch between various objects such as games, game lists, folders, and the ICC
console.
Ø
Command entry box – allows you to type in
various ICC commands.
Ø
Accelerators – These are three drop-down list boxes over the command entry box. They are designed to make it easier to work
with repeated commands such as announcements or chatting with someone as you do
not have to type in commands repeatedly and are stored during your ICC session.
The first accelerator contains the most common console commands which you can
select from the list or type in manually. The second accelerator contains list
of players, that you spoke to previously. Note that if you click on a player’s
name on the Message window the
program will fill the first two accelerators to allow you to talk to them
without any further trouble. The third accelerator is where a message being
sent to someone would be typed.
Ø
Send button – When you press this
button, any command selected in the accelerators, or that was typed in the
command entry box, is sent.
Ø
Game Status indicator – These colored symbols
represent different games you have open, their status, and let you switch from
one game to the next by clicking directly on them. They not only tell you what
type of game is being displayed, but also whether a move has been played since
you last looked at it, in which case it turns red, or whether the position
remains the same but someone has commented in it via kibitz or whisper, in
which case it turns yellow.
Game
being played Unchanged game where comment has been made
STARTING A GAME
In order to start a
game, you must either have been challenged in which case the challenge will
appear in the console tab Challenges (visible only at such moments), you must
yourself issue a challenge, or you may take up a public challenge issued by
someone else. A challenge can be made either to a specific person by proposing
a match, or by issuing a public challenge. All games on ICC are timed and one
can set the total time to be spent plus the time added per move. Therefore a
challenge for 2 minutes and 12 seconds of increment would mean that each player
starts with 2 minutes and receives a bonus 12 seconds after each move played.
On the other hand if you wanted a 5 minute blitz with no additional time per
move you would choose 5 0.
You
can challenge a specific player in a number of ways. One would be to go into
the Player’s list of the console and double-click on the player you wish to
challenge. You can also click once on the player, and then use one of the
buttons on the side of the console in order to get more information.
In order to issue a public challenge, the simplest way is to use one of
the predefined seek buttons on the Seek toolbar. If the time controls or other details
are not to your satisfaction, you have the option of editing or adding buttons
by clicking on the arrows on the side of the buttons. You may set these seeks
to determine the color you start with or set it to manual where you may still refuse a player accepting your seek.
Once your request is made it will remain pending until someone else accepts the
challenge. A message similar to this should also appear in the message area:
seek 5 0 w0 r 0-9999
Your ad is #57
(ad sent to 328
players, of whom 260 are eligible)
You
may also use the Seek List and Seek Diagram (click on Tabs at the top of the
console) in order to choose someone seeking a game. The Seek List will display
the conditions of the game desired (time control, rated or not, etc.) and
allows you to accept a challenge by simply double-clicking it.
Once
a player accepts your challenge, the game starts and the Game View with the
chessboard will appear.
PLAYING A GAME
As soon as a game is started the Game view
appears.
Clocks
Game view
|
Clocks |
Actions Toolbar
Console window Game notation window Game info window Chessboard
Commands
drop-down list Command
entry box
As you can see in the picture above, the new game view window features
the chessboard with the sizing control in its bottom right corner (you can make
the chessboard smaller or bigger by pulling it with the mouse pointer), clocks,
game text window, monitor window with tabs, game info window, command entry box
and commands drop-down list.
When you start a new game, the Actions
toolbar is added to the top and is automatically activated. It contains buttons for the
most commonly used actions:
Human/Engine
Takeback 1 Adjourn game Takeback 2
Moretime 60
Fig. 2. Actions toolbar.
Ø
Abort game – Press this button to abort the game. This
can be forced if one side hasn’t played yet, otherwise it requires the
opponent’s acceptance.
Ø
Offer draw – Press this button 
to send
a draw offer to your opponent. If it is highlighted in yellow 
, then it is your opponent who has made a draw
offer. If you wish to accept, click on it, and if not, just continue playing.
Ø
Resign – To resign the game.
Ø
Adjourn game – Press this button 
to
request adjourn the game, which you may then resume later. If the button is
highlighted in yellow 
, then it is your opponent who has requested to
adjourn the game. Clicking
on it accepts the request.
Ø
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 had been turned
off, you would need to press this button in order to claim a win on time. You
control the autoflag
variable, using the Variables dialog
box (see Fig. 14, which you call by pressing the Variables button on the Personal
tab of the tabbed toolbar).
Ø
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 is the one
sending you a takeback request, then pressing this button now highlighted in
yellow 
, before you make a move, would accept it.
Ø
Takeback 2 – Same as Takeback 1, but it takes back 2
moves.
Ø
Moretime 60 – If you wish, you can add
60 seconds to your opponent’s clock.
Ø
Human/Engine – With this button you can
turn on the built-in engine to have it play the game instead.
The game is played
by clicking and dragging the piece you want from it’s beginning square to the
destination square on the chessboard. Castling is done simply by clicking and
dragging the king two spaces. If desired, you may resize the chessboard by
clicking and dragging the sizing control in the bottom right corner of the
board. The sizing control remains somewhat invisible if the coordinates are
deactivated, but is still there.
F Tip: If you like
to play with the largest board possible, first minimize the control buttons
area below the board, then remove the coordinates (right-click on the board
area), and finally increase the board until it fills the entire area. You can
also set this to be your default choices in Tools|View
Options.
The clocks to the right of the chessboard keep track of the time control
automatically. The red square near the clocks indicates whose turn it is. You
will also see a blue arrow that appears briefly to highlight your opponent’s
last move.
There is a special feature allowing you to play out moves and variations
on the board first. In order to do this, press the Ctrl key while making the first move to be tested. All subsequent
moves will be a part of the variations. In order to leave the variation and
play your move, just go back to the last move of the game, and play.
Ex: To try out a move or start a variation without actually playing it
(your opponent will not see it), press down the Ctrl key, and while keeping it pressed, play a move on the board.
You will see it appear in a different color indicating that it is a variation.
You can now play any number of other moves without the need to keep the Ctrl button pressed, and see the
results. When you decide on a move, go back to the last move played by your
opponent, and just play your move as you would normally. The variations will remain
in the notation window and will be saved into your game score in CA.
Finally, if you set up the Tree in the View options (Alt-F8) so that it
follows a tree of your choice (such as a Direct Tree or one from the HugeBase),
the statistics and information will all appear in the Tree tab of the Console
window.
IMPORTANT: Please note, that when you operate in a network with significant lag
(“ping”), you may encounter situations where your clock continues to run, even though
you have played, or your opponent’s clock continues to work, even though they
have already made a move. These are effects of connection problems and are not
due to problems in the software.
Once the game is over, the clocks stop, and the Actions toolbar at the top disappears. To quit the game, close the
window, by either clicking on the cross in the upper righthand corner of the
window view or by right-clicking on the appropriate item in the Object Panel. A
dialog box will appear asking whether you wish to save the changes made. If you
select the Yes, the game will be
saved into CA’s ICC database (see the Object Panel) or whatever base you
specified in the ICC options.
Using the engine while
playing – Monitor and Autoplay mode
With CA, you may also benefit from one of its most powerful features –
the built-in engine module. When playing, you may choose to switch either to Monitor mode, leaving the engine
analyzing the position on the board in the background, or to Autoplay mode, where the engine module
plays automatically.
You
can switch to the Monitor mode by
clicking on the button with the eye icon 
in CA’s
toolbar, or by pressing the <Space>
bar.
14
IMPORTANT:
Note that the ICC regulations strictly forbid
unauthorized use of the computer while playing. However, you can use CA’s
engine in two cases: you either must be registered on ICC as a computer player
(with the (C) suffix after your handle), or you may log on the ICC server as a
guest (meaning you can only play unrated games).
Along with the normal ICC message window and the Tree window, you now
have a third one for the Engine. This provides you with the engine’s results
showing the evaluation (according to the settings in the Chess Engines Setup),
depth in plies[4] searched, the best variation found at that depth, and the time spent on
the line:
Evaluation Line Depth Time
Spent
Fig.3.
Engine tab in Monitor mode.
When playing in Monitor mode, you can select the engine by opening the
drop-down list in the upper right part of the monitor window. You can choose
between Tiger 13.0, Tiger Gambit, Crafty and Dragon engine modules, plus any
other engines you may have set up. You can also share the engine’s information
with others by right-clicking on the engine’s window and selecting 
.
By pressing the Human/Engine button 
, you can activate the Autoplay mode. Once activated the built-in engine starts to play
the moves for you, until you de-activate it by pressing the Human/Engine button
again.
WATCHING
GAMES
Instead of playing a game, you might be more interested in watching one,
whether it be of a friend, a grandmaster playing live, or even one of the great
tournaments relayed live on ICC.
To watch a game, you can go to the Players
window 
, choose a player currently in a game and then
press the button for Observe game or Follow[5] the player. Better yet, go to the Games
window 
where a
complete list of the games being played can be found, along with detailed
information. You can filter the list of games by right-clicking on the window
area (you know the drill by now), or re-organize it by clicking on the top of
the column of information (rating, time, etc.) that interests you. You can open
a game by simply double-clicking on it, or if you just want to see the
strongest game currently going on, click on the 
button
on the side.
You can open as many games as you want, and each game observed will be
identified by a small circle at the bottom left of the console. There is no
need to flip from board to board in order to see if a move was played. As long
as the circle is green, the position hasn’t changed. On the other hand if the
circle is red, then a move has been played since you last looked. 
To
switch to the game, just click on the colored circle. The two little green
squares permit you to switch to the main console as well. The purpose is so
that you can still flip to the console if you wish to maximize your information
by hiding the Explorer bar with 
.
Watching a game through Chess Assistant provides you with the all the
added benefits you would expect and imagine. You can turn on an engine at any
time in Monitor mode either through the <Space>
bar or through the 
button.
You will then be able to watch the computer analyze the position in front of
you, pointing out both the players’ blunders and brilliancies. Here too, you can share the
engine’s information with others by right-clicking on the engine’s window and
selecting 
. Also, If the Tree has been set up in the View options (Alt-F8), then all the
statistics and information on the opening moves will appear automatically as
they are played. Note: If you set
the Tree in the View options to
follow the moves using the Hugebase tree and don’t see anything, check the
Hugebase path in the General options (Alt-F9): 
by
clicking on the 
. Also note that the tree is never quite
instantaneous (even with a CA Professional Tree or a Direct Tree) and does take
some time to access, however little, so that the program may hesitate to
follow an opening that is played extremely fast.
Below is an example of the Explorer bar hidden (using the colored
symbols to switch between boards and the console), the board set to its largest
size (hiding the coordinates and minimizing the Console buttons), with the
engine running (always giving its main line below the clocks so that you may
access other information without sacrificing the engine’s) and the Tree window
activated to see the statistics of the Hugebase tree.
All the information will update itself automatically for each move
played.
If the game is being shown (examined – see
below) by someone, whether as a demonstration or as a lecture, CA will also
preserve the colored comments (arrows, highlighted squares, etc.) in the
notation as commentary, or even any text comments (see the Configuring ICC
options above) and can later be saved as well.
EXAMINING/SHOWING A GAME
On ICC it is possible to access a number of
game databases, so that you may go over games that were played in your absence.
Games that are being played over in this case are said to be examined. Examined
games have no sporting result and are often used to show a game to someone else
(i.e. classes, lectures, events) the examiner (the person who first opened the
board window) can illustrate the game by commenting on moves while moving the
pieces, and can also add colorful commentary in the form of arrows and
highlighted squares.
The
databases in question are the player’s History
(guests have a history too for as long as they remain connected to ICC), which are the player’s last 20 games
played, a player’s Library (only for
registered members) which is a personal library, containing as many as 100
favorite games, that can be accessed by anyone in ICC, and there is the main
ICC database. This last is a searchable database of over 1,000,000 Grandmaster
games played in ICC.
All
these databases can be accessed through the Stored Games window. For example,
if a user should want to see their own History,
they would press the Load History button leaving the default to <you>.
The same would go for a player’s library, or they could enter the name of a player’s handle and see that
player’s history or library. In order to save these games
into a specific CA database, you must first load the game, then save it to disk
by clicking on 
.
Should you wish to show someone a game from your personal CA library,
you can open a blank board for examining by typing the command examine, and
when the Game view opens up drag the CA
game onto the Game notation window and drop it there. Ex: I just saw a
wonderful game in my database and now wanted to show it to you on ICC. First, I
open a board by entering the command examine. Then I drag and drop the game
from the CA Object Panel onto the Game notation window, and confirm that I want
to attach it. Now all you need to do is play over the moves.
If you enter the mexamine (or mex) command, while examining the game, then you will enable other players
on ICC to examine it. This can be especially useful, when you want to share
your analysis with other players.
CA supports several graphic tools, available in Examine mode, as
illustrated in the figure below.
Fig.4.Circle on the d5-square and
the f8-b4 and b4-e1 arrows in Examine mode.
By entering the circle command in the command line, followed by the board
coordinates, you can draw a circle on the desired square. For example, to draw a
circle on the d5-square, as it is shown below, you enter the command:
circle d5
To draw an arrow from one square to
the next, enter the arrow
command
followed by the coordinates of the source and destination squares:
arrow f8 b4
Anyone watching this game as you paint these comments on the board will
see them appear on theirs as well.
ICC
IN STYLES
It is
possible also to greatly change 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 wish, from
a tiled image to a full photo layout. To change the font, click on the type of
message you want to set the font for, such as the Tells, Shouts, etc. Then
click on the 
next to
the word Fonts, and set the options according to your taste. To set the
background, you can either choose a color by pressing next to 
or you
can select an image with the button 
(supported formats are .gif, .jpg, .jpeg,
.bmp, ico, emf, and .wmf) which you can then tile, tile
and scroll, stretch, or center through the image alignment menu 
.
F Tip: For best results try a background whose lightness or darkness
remains fairly consistent, and then choose font colors that contrast best with
it. A background with many light and dark areas risks making some of the text
invisible on portions of the screen.
Then when you have finally hit on a magic
combination, save it to disk from the Styles menu and share them with other
users:
ICC TOOLBARS
The
ICC toolbars at the top offer you the possibility of rendering many tasks
automatic. You can issue and accept challenges with the Seek bar, then with the User
bar you can set an automatic hello and goodbye before each game as well as set
buttons for any ICC command, and finally set your personal data such as finger
notes[6] and ICC preferences using the Personal
bar. A fourth toolbar, Actions, only
appears when a game is being played.
Match button Rematch
button Button
options Unseek
button Autoaccept
button Seek
button
Fig.
5. CA’s tabbed toolbar, tab Seek.
In the figure above,
you can see the Seek toolbar is
activated. By default, it contains 5 buttons, each with floating tips
(information that appears when passing the mouse cursor over it) indicating
what the button is currently set up to do.
Seek Toolbar
As you can see, the buttons in the Seek
tab allow you to perform the following operations:
Ø
Unseek – Press this to cancel challenges you made.
Ø
Auto accept – To automatically accept
the challenges of select players. When you press this button, the Auto accept user dialog box will appear:
Fig.
6. Auto accept user
dialog box.
Then you can add (or
remove) the player’s handle in the text box and press OK. After that, all
challenges issued by that player will be immediately accepted by you.
Ø
Seek 2 12 u a – Pressing on this button 
will
issue a challenge for a 2 minute blitz game with a 12 second increment[7]. The game will be unrated, which means that it will not be used for
calculating your ICC rating. The a means the game will start automatically when another player accepts
your challenge. An m in
this position means that instead of automatically starting the game, the
player’s challenge is added to the Challenges window, allowing you the right to
decline to play the player. Until you do accept, other players may still
challenge you. For further details on the ICC conditions and terminology type help
definitions or help formula in
the command line of the message window.
This is the default Seek button,
but through its local menu, you also have the option of editing it, creating
others and having it automatically issue the challenge when you are finished
with a game.
Editing a seek button – To edit a button, enter the button’s local menu 
and
select Edit. The
Seek parameters dialog box will
appear:
Fig.
7. Seek parameters dialog box.
19
You can select one of the commonly used time
controls from the Time controls drop-down
list or you can select User time control
in it and then below it set the Initial
time (min) in the spinner and the Increment.
You may also want to change some other parameters of the challenge such as:
preferred Color of pieces (Auto lets the ICC server choose), the
opponent’s rating range, will the game be rated or not, will it start
automatically, etc.
Adding/Deleting a Seek button
– Adding new buttons can be extremely practical when you want
to have buttons for several standard challenges. To add a
button, enter the button’s local menu and select Add icon as shown below:
Fig.
8. Toolbar buttons: using the local menu to add a button
The button that is added will be an exact copy of the first so you will
have to edit it for it to send a different challenge. In the figure below, you
see the toolbar now with 6 buttons. Note that you can easily delete this newly
created button from its local menu by choosing: Delete icon.
Fig.
9. Deleting a newly created button from the toolbar
Example: Suppose you usually
enjoy playing 5 minute blitz games against any and all opponents as well as 2
minute lightning games (bullet in ICC terminology) with a 1 second increment,
but only against players rated between 1500 and 1650 . Here is how you would do
it:
1) First enter the local menu of the Seek button 
and Edit the challenge information. Enter 
box if
you want a rated game.
2) Now enter the buttons’s local menu again and select add icon as shown in figure. You now have two buttons, both allowing
you to issue challenges for 5-minute blitz games.
3) Next you must edit the new button, as in step 1), but this time enter
and 
. Finally, check the rated game box and hit
Ok.
Match 2 12 u - If you want to play series of games against a particular opponent, then
you can issue a match challenge. All the games in the match have the same time
control. The color of the pieces each opponent plays with changes game after
game (white-black-white-black-…etc.).
Editing a Match button - If
you decide to edit the button for issuing match challenges, then selecting the Edit item in the button’s local menu
calls another dialog box, Match options:
Fig.
10. Match options
dialog box.
Simply enter the desired parameters for the match and when you’re done
press Send button. Please note that
the Time control section contains an Equal time checkbox. This allows you to set
either equal time controls for both opponents, or different ones, if desired.
After sending your match request the following message appears in the console
window:
match
<playername> 2 12 r
If your opponent accepts your challenge, then the display immediately
switches into the game view, and you can start playing.
Adding a Match button – Just as with the seek button you have the option of adding extra Match
buttons to the toolbar. The procedure is the same as that for adding a seek
button, and can be done by accessing the local menu of the Match button.
User
Toolbar
The User toolbar, accessed by
clicking on the User tab, contains three buttons with inscriptions on them that
read from left to right left to right Hello, User and Bye.
22
Fig.
11. User toolbar: Hello button with local menu
As you can see in the picture above, the buttons in this toolbar are
also provided with the local menu, allowing you to edit them and add more.
Selecting Edit item of the local menu calls the Enter text dialog box:
Fig.
12. Working with Enter text dialog
box.
Generally, these buttons are designed to help you in communicating with
the other players. You can create messages that will be automatically sent to
your opponents with the Hello buttons and the Bye buttons.
Important: if you simply enter some text in
the Enter text dialog box and leave the first drop down menu with command in it
it will
not be transmitted to your opponent. This text will simply sent as a command.
You must first select Say, kibitz or whisper from drop-down list 
.
Using these buttons and creating new ones helps you to create your own
personal greetings and byes and improves general communications with other
players.
Example: Suppose you wanted to start every game on a foot of good sportsmanship
and decided to start them all by automatically saying “Hi, may your position self-immolate.” Here is what you would do:
1)
You would open the local
menu of the Hello button 
and
select Edit.
2)
There in the dialogue box you would choose Say
from the drop-down menu, and would type “Hi, may your position self-immolate.”
In the text box to the right. You would then check the Auto Send box, or if you
wished to leave this as a manual option (depending on you opponent or your
mood), you would leave it unchecked. 
Note
that you could always change this later by choosing Auto from the button’s
local menu.
3)
Press Ok.
Personal
Toolbar
The third toolbar, Personal, is designed to manage your
personal data.
Info
(finger notes) Variables Formula
Human/Engine
Fig. 13. Personal toolbar
Ø
Info – Pressing this button 
allows
you to set your personal finger notes on ICC. Finger notes are personal notes
created by the player that other ICC users can see when “fingering” them. These
notes can be anything, from a description of who you are to a favourite phrase
or poem.
Ø
Variables – With the Variables
button 
you
obtain:
Fig. 14.
ICC Variables dialog
box.
You may use this dialog box to control your console environment while
playing. Several options here allow you to filter (or, to the contrary, accept)
several channels of communication on ICC. You can simply mark the desired
options and press OK. A more detailed description of all the terms used in the
dialog is available in ICC on-line help.
Ø
Formula – The third button 
Formula
brings up the Formula dialog box:
Fig.
15. Formula dialog
box.
“Formula" is a variable that can be set with the "set"
command, to filter match challenges you receive from other players. See the
detailed description of the formula in ICC on-line help (just enter help formula in the command line). For example, the formula, set in the figure
above, specifies that you are interested only in blitz challenges with an
increment set to 0 seconds per move.
Ø
Human/Engine – The fourth button 
, Human/Engine,
allows to start playing with the help of a built-in playing engine. You can
have the engine play instead of you at anytime, but this option is only
available when you play under “computer” account or as guest (you play only
unrated games in the latter case). Pressing this button calls the Starting game with engine… dialog box:
Fig.
16. Starting game with engine… dialog box.
You can then select the engine
to be used from the drop-down list.
The
Console Windows
The console is divided into 6 different windows
permitting you to control a number of activities, from chatting with others to
searching for an opponent, to seeing who is on and what good games are going on
to searching through the different databases of ICC, and finally seeing the
different challenges issued to you.
MESSAGE WINDOW
By default, the first tab (Messages)
is activated displaying announcements and incoming messages. At the same time,
the icons ICC and Console appear in the object panel. You
communicate with the ICC game server and with the other players, currently
connected to it, either by clicking on underlined text (it works like a hyperlink
in an Internet browser) in the console window, or entering commands and
messages in the command entry box.
As a rule, you will be able to do most of your activities directly
through the interface, but if you don’t find what you want, you can always use
the command entry line, or you can set a User button from the User toolbar.
Tip: ICC maintains an on-line help file for every command. Typing help seek, for example, will display
the help file for the seek command.
Also, using commands or info will list the different help files
available
Clicking on the right
mouse button inside the console window will bring up the context, or local
menu.
Tip: In CA every part of the display contains a
local menu providing a list of commands that are specific to that part. This
continues to be true of the interface. All these ‘local menus’ can be accessed
by right-clicking on a chosen area. In the message Window, this means that
certain commands can be found in all parts, such as the Styles, but some types
of text, names, commands, etc. will offere you different possibilities.
Fig. 17. Generic local menu of the ICC console .
The local menu of the main console contains several items:
Ø
Highlight – highlights messages from a particular player. Selecting this item
calls the following dialog box:
Fig.18. ICC console with Highlight options dialog box
When you type or paste the handle of the selected player inside the text
window of this dialog and press OK, all the messages from the selected player
in the console become highlighted. The figure above shows highlighted messages
from Tactics,
whose handle was entered in the Highlight
options dialog box.
Ø
Filter – Filters out messages from a particular
player so that you cannot see them anymore. This is useful if you feel a
particular user is abusive, or if you wish to filter out announcements. By
typing in the player’s name into the into the Begins with window, you would stop seeing messages that began with
that text. Thus you could even filter out RoboAdmin if you wanted. Or, if you
were tired of seeing the endless messages and chatter regarding Fischer, you
could enter Fischer into the Contains
window of the dialog and any message that contained the name Fischer would no
longer appear in your console. If you change your mind, you can go back to the
Filter and remove them from the list.
Fig 19. ICC console with the Do
not show dialog box.
Ø
Change Styles… - This menu item allows you
to customize the Message window with the images, background and fonts of your
choice. For more details see ICC in Styles Section … (p.14)
Ø
Set Chess Assistant style – This menu item
refers to general appearance of the main console. By default, you see the console
in CA style.
Ø
Set Blitzin style – Some users, especially
those ones, who are familiar with BlitzIn2 program, may choose to change the
appearance of the ICC main console to emulate it’s appearance. To do so, select this option.
Ø
Look command list (Ctrl + 1) –
opens the first drop-down list, containing commands. You can do the same by
holding down the Ctrl key and
pressing the 1 key.
Ø
Look users list (Ctrl + 2) – opens the second
drop-down list, containing a list of users. You can do the same by holding down
Ctrl key and pressing the 2 key.
Ø
Look tails list (Ctrl + 3) – opens the third
drop-down list, containing the texts that you typed into the command line. You
can do the same by holding down the Ctrl key
and pressing the 9 key.
Ø
Look history (Ctrl + 4) – Allows you to look
through the commands that you typed onto the command entry box (which, in fact,
is also a drop-down list). You can do the same by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing the 8 key.
Local menu for underlined text
If you right-click on underlined text, then the local menu changes: 
Fig. 20. Main console: commands local menu
The new items in the
local menu are:
Ø Execute
– Executes underlined command
Ø
Add to command string – Copies the underlined text
in the console and pastes it into the command line input box, attaching it to
the end of the line
If the underlined text
happens to be the handle (or name) of a registered player, then the local menu
offers different options related to the player:
Fig. 21. Main console: users
local menu.
Ø
Tell – selecting Tell item will immediately add to the command line the string: Tell <playername>. You can then type in your message to the selected player in the third Text
box. To keep on talking with them, just type in the same text box and hit enter
to send your tell. Nothing
else is needed.
Ø
Finger – Selecting this “fingers” the player and
displays their finger notes in a pop-up box. You can also do this by pressing and
holding Ctrl and then clicking on the
player’s name.
Ø
Message - With the message command, you can send a message to a particular player which is kept in
their message box.
Ø
Add to users list – this adds the selected
player’s handle into the second accelerator at the bottom of the Message window
SEEK LIST
Columns Console
view controls Seek
list’s toolbar Seek
list tab Headers
Fig. 22. Seek list window.
When you click on the Seek list tab,
the console changes into the list of players currently connected to ICC server,
with the parameters of their challenges. To the left of the Seek list itself, you can see the
specialized toolbar with icons. They are designed to perform operations with
items of the list.
Seek parameters
Fig. 23. Structure of the Seek list.
The parameters of the
challenges that ICC players issue are represented by columns of the Seek list. From left to right they include
the player’s index (player’s unique number), his/her rating, their handle
(pseudonym of the player used on ICC), the type of game he/she wants to play,
the time control, the increment (quantity of time added to player’s total time
after each move), rated (this flag indicates, whether the game is used to
calculate both opponent’s inner ICC ratings, or not), color of the pieces the
player choose, the desired range of opponent’s ratings, and flags. Let us take a closer look at
them:
Ø
Index – each request for a new game is registered on
the ICC server by a unique number. This number is valid until the game
finishes. It is random and used by the ICC server merely for technical
purposes, and helps to identify the game.
Ø
Rating – Registered ICC users have special ICC
ratings. The ICC server automatically keeps track of each player’s rating and
they are calculated based the player’s results. If you are not registered
player, you cannot have an ICC rating. The higher the rating, the stronger the
player is, and vice versa.
Ø
Name – Registered ICC users choose unique handles
or pseudonyms. You use the player’s handle to address him or to select him in
the Seek list or Seek diagram. Unregistered ICC users (guests), are automatically
given names like guest****, where asterisks stand for
the guest’s index number. If you are registered ICC user, you can pick your own
unique name.
Ø
Type – When a player issues a challenge, they
select the type of game they want to play. These games fall under three categories:
Ø
Standard – 15 minutes or more per game with increment 0
seconds per move and more (the game with an increment of more than 12 seconds
per move is considered to be standard).
Ø
blitz – 3 minutes per game or more, usually with
either no increment or with very little (1-3 seconds per move).
Ø
bullet or lightning
– 1 to 2 minutes per game with no increment.
Ø
Time – Amount of time given per game.
Ø
Increment – Amount of time added to each player’s clock
after their move.
Ø
Rated – This flag indicates whether the result of the
game will be used to calculate each player’s rating. Only registered ICC users can
play rated games.
Ø
Color – That is color of the pieces (black or white)
the player wants to play with for the game.
Ø
Range – When you issue a challenge, you may specify
the desired rating interval of your opponent. Therefore a range of 1400-9999
would mean that only players with a rating of at least 1400 would be
acceptable. Players who were lower rated would not be able to acceot your
challenge. Unregistered players (guests) do not have ICC ratings, so they too
would not be able to accept your challenge.
Ø
Flag – Three flags are used here: manual (m), formula (f) and computer (c). Manual means, that a player still has
the right to refuse someone who accepted their public challnge. If and until
accepted, the game will not start. Formula
means that players wishing to play you must fulfill the requirements of the
formula. Formual settings can be quite comlex to set if you are not
experienced. For more information enter help formula. Computer means, that the player that issued the challenge is not a
human being, but either a computer program or a computer assisted player. For
example, you will see all three flags set in the first player’s challenge in
the figure above. That means that the challenge is issued on behalf of a
computer account, Amateur(C), rated 2413. The challenge in question is also
filtered (i.e., it assumes a certain range of players), and the reply for this
challenge is manually accepted – that is, somebody on the other end of
connection decides, whether the computer will play against you, or not.
The headers of the columns in the Seek
list are control elements in themselves. Clicking on them will sort the
list according to the parameter represented in the column. Another click on the
header will sort the list in reverse.
32
You select the challenge of a particular player
in the list by clicking on his/her row in the list. That row in the table is immediately
highlighted and the buttons on the toolbar to the left of the list are
activated. When you double-click a row in the Seek list, this means that you accept the challenge listed.
Fig. 24. Seek list’s toolbar.
When you move the mouse pointer over one of the buttons, a floating tip
with the description of the button appears indicating what will happen if it is
pressed. As you can see from the picture above, Seek list’s toolbar contains
six buttons each with floating tips to identify them. The buttons allow you to
perform various operations, already discussed earlier:
Ø
Play game – pressing on this button immediately switches
the display into the game view (provided the selected challenger hasn’t set
their acepotance to manual)
Ø Issue match – Clicking on this button calls the Match options
dialog box.
Ø
Finger person – Pressing this button
displays the finger notes of the player selected in the Seek list. You can set your on with the
You can compose such a profile for yourself, using Info button on the
Personal tab of the tabbed toolbar (see fig. 13).
Ø
Ping person –
Ø
Assess – By pressing on this button, you can obtain
information about how possible outcome of your games against the selected
player will affect your ICC rating and that of your opponent. When you click on
it, this information is dumped into the console window.
You can also access the local (or contest) menu either by right clicking
on the mouse anywhere in the Seek list,
or by clicking the special button with an arrow near the top right corner of
the Seek list window:
Fig.
25. Local (or context) menu of the Seek
list.
As you can see, the items of the local menu correspond to the buttons of
the Seek list’s toolbar and allow you to perform the same operations.
Tip: Filter option helps you to control which seek ads are shown. It is useful to use them when you are getting
too many seek ads on your screen.
Selecting
this item calls the Seek filter
dialog box:
Fig.26.
Seek filter dialog
box
31
After placing a check in the Active option in the left lower corner
of this dialog box, you can set your filter options. These will remain active
and will help filter the seek challenges that appear on your screen.
SEEK DIAGRAM
With CA, all pending seeks may also be viewed on the Seek diagram. This is an alternate display and way of seeing
the different challenges that players have sent. When you click on the Seek diagram tab, the display of the
game view changes into the Seek diagram
window as seen below. Each of the dots on the diagram represents a player
looking for an opponent. Moving your mouse over a dot will display the details
about that seek in a floating tip whereas clicking on a dot will accept that
particular challenge.
Standard
games area Tab
Seek diagram Challenges
represented by dots Local
menu Blitz
games area Lightning
games area Rating
scale
Time
scale
Fig. 27. Seek Diagram
Faster games are listed to the left, slower ones to the right. The
vertical dotted lines divide between the different time controls: Bullet,
Blitz, and Standard. The highest rated players are listed on the top and the
lower rated ones near the bottom. The
gray dots are seeks that don't match your settings. Solid dots are rated game
requests, while hollow dots are unrated requests.
By right-clicking on one of the dots, representing the challenges, you
can call up the local menu, which will present the following items already
familiar to you:
Ø
Play game – selecting this item immediately switches the
display into the game view
Ø
Issue
match – Select this item to issue a match challenge
Ø
Finger person – displays the finger notes
of the player selected in the Seek
diagram
Ø
Ø
Variables –
displays the personal variables of the player that issued the challenge
Ø
Assess – estimates possible changes in your rating if
you accept the challenge
Ø
Filter – calls the Filter options dialog box – after
which you can filter the challenges you are or aren’t interested in.
PLAYERS LIST
Idle
for 5 min.
Players
list toolbar Currently
playing Available
for challenges
Fig. 28. Players list
window.
All the players, currently connected to the ICC server, are represented
in the Players list window. The
rating of each player is given. The three main types of records in the Players list are color coded:
Ø
Players available for challenges –
their handles are highlighted with a white background. You can issue a
challenge to such a player by double clicking on their handle.
Ø
Players who are currently playing –
their handles are highlighted with a yellow background. You still can issue a
challenge for such player, but it will only be sent to him/her after the end of
the current game. You may also observe their games by pressing the 
button.
Ø
Players who have been idle for more than 5 minutes – it is not definitely known whether such players are still connected.
Fig.
29. Players list
toolbar.
The Players toolbar is similar
to those of Seek list and Seek diagram with one notable difference
the Observe game button ). With
the aid of the toolbar, you can do following:
Ø
Issue match – Select this item to
challenge the selected player to a match
Ø
Finger person – displays the finger notes
of the player selected in the Players list
Ø
Ø
Variables –
displays the personal variables of the selected player
Ø
Observe game – This shows you the game
being played by the selected player.
Ø
Assess – estimates the your possible rating changes
as a result of accepting the challenge.
Ø
Filter – Permits you to filter the players that
appear on the list
GAMES LIST
Clicking on the Games tab activates the games list view:
Fig. 30. Games
list window.
This is a list of the games that are currently being played on the ICC
server. The list is provided with its own toolbar to the left and its own local
menu. Both the toolbar and the local menu allow you to perform the following
operations with the games:
Fig.
31. Games list’s
toolbar: buttons with floating tips.
Ø
Observe – You can observe the selected game. Pressing
this button (or selecting the item of the local menu) switches the display into
the game view and loads the selected game automatically.
Ø
Finger white – This allows you to obtain
the public information on the white player, stored on ICC server.
Ø
Finger black – This allows you to obtain
the public information on the black player, stored on ICC server.
Ø
Observers of the game – Pressing on this button
gives you the list of observers of the selected game, listed into the ICC
console.
Ø
Observe the highest rated game –
Pressing this button does just what it says – you start observing the highest
rated game.
The tops of the columns in the games list are control elements in themselves,
and permit you to sort the list, by clicking on them. The next click on the
same header sorts the list in reverse order. For example, clicking on 
would
sort the list according to the slowest time or the fastest time control being
played. .
STORED GAMES
VIEW
The Stored games permits you to look at the History (last 20 games played) of a player, the personal Library of a player (publicly accessible
collection of 100 favourite games of the player), and finally an easy to use Search facility to search through the
ICC database, made up of over 1,000,000 grandmaster games played on ICC:
Headers Games
list Load…
buttons Local
menu Toolbar
Fig. 32 . Stored games view.
Clicking on the Stored games tab switches into the Stored games list window. This window
has 4 basic functions and also presents a list of games in the form of a table,
provided with headers, and has its own toolbar and it own local menu. The four
basic operations are:
Ø
Load history – When you press 
it loads
a list of the last 20 games played by the player. If you didn’t enter a
player’s name in the 
first,
then your last 20 games will appear. But if you type in the handle of a player
first, their history will appear in the list.
Ø
Load library – ICC permits registered
users to keep a private database of up to 100 games that are chosen by the
player. They can be any game the player pleases. Pressing the Load library button 
allows you
to access the library of a player or your library if you left the as is.
Ø
Load adjourned games – By pressing 
you are
able to access the adjourned (unfinished) games of either yourself or another
player.
Ø
Search – ICC maintains a dtaabse of over 1,000,000 games
played by grandmasters on their server. This database is entirely searchable
and can be easily done so by clicking on 
. Upon doing this, a dialogue box will open
allowing you to set the parameters of your search. When you have entered the
correct search information just press the 
at the
bottom.
With the results of your query, you can then do three basic operation
with each game in the Stored games
list:
Ø
Observe game – Loads the stored game
into the game view window
Ø
Finger white – Allows you to obtain
public information on the white player
Ø
Finger black – Allows you to obtain
public information on the black player
Challenges
window
This window only appears after you have received a direct challenge from
a player. All
challenges will then appear here and be listed:
Fig.33
. Challenges list.
You can simply accept the challenge by double-clicking on it, or you may
also:
Ø
Accept the challenge – Pressing 
accepts
the challenge.
Ø
Decline the challenge – Pressing 
declines
the challenge.
Ø
Delete the challenge – 
permits
you to remove the challenge from the list.
Ø
Match player – By pressing 
you can
offer the challenger different parameters in case you should prefer a different
time control for example.
Ø
Finger player – Pressing 
allows
you to obtain public information on the selected challenger.