What’ s new

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.

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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

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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.