Correspondence Chess with Aquarium 2010
A new version of Aquarium 2010 (version 4.0.3) will be released soon. It’s a free update for current Aquarium 2010 users. One of the new features is a correspondence chess module that keeps track of correspondence games played on Xfcc compliant chess servers. The Xfcc protocol was designed by Martin Bennedik. Servers of this type include the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF), SchemingMind.com, and myChess.de. Read the rest of this entry »

Networked Computers with Aquarium 2010
What do all the green squares in the image below represent? Seasoned Aquarium users will immediately recognize that this is a screen-shot of the Aquarium status bar (split into two lines) where each square represents one chess engine (Rybka in this case). What is unusual here is the huge number of chess engines: thirty-four instances of Rybka, all analyzing at the same time, running on a network of computers! It is an amazing experience to have so much analysis power at your fingertips. Read the rest of this entry »

Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures. Part Two
Aquarium 2010 has been released. In comparison to the initial Aquarium version, which was released last year, it is clear that progress has been very rapid, both in improvements to existing features and the addition of new features and stability. Its database feature started out with a limit of two open bases, but now the limit has been removed and database performance has been improved. Aquarium has also taken the lead on publishing iBooks and HTML content for web pages and blogs. That’s quite a change from the initial version, which didn’t even have a printing feature. Aquarium has been a leading analysis tool from the beginning; nevertheless, the new version shows huge improvements in this area, as you can see by reading last month’s column about IDeA. The new Aquarium also emphasizes analysis on networked computers; a new feature that can give a big boost to IdeA, as well as advanced infinite analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures

Part One Graphical Annotations Visual annotations are an effective tool to recall your thoughts about a position and quickly remind you of its most important features. They are also essential for creating video lectures and very useful for live commentary. Open (or create) a game and click “Color Marks” on the “Comments” tab.

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Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA) With Rybka Aquarium 2010
One of the biggest changes in Rybka Aquarium 2010 is the greatly improved Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA). Many players were happy with the possibilities offered by IDeA in Rybka 3 Aquarium, but I’m afraid that it will look like a dinosaur compared to the new version. It provides better automatic analysis and much more effective ways to control the analysis process and the shape of the analysis tree. I’m sure that many serious players will find that the new and improved IDeA is an essential tool to stay competitive. Read the rest of this entry »

iBook Examples

Rybka Aquarium 3.2 has been released with several interesting enhancements. Some of them have been described in my recent ChessOK Cafe columns and, as usual, the Aquarium FAQ describes many of the new features. In this column I will show a few examples that should help iBook authors better understand some of the commands available to them. I assume that the reader is familiar with my two previous iBook columns: “Interactive Chess Books in Rybka Aquarium” and “Writing Aquarium iBooks – Introduction”.

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Handicap Play in Rybka Aquarium

This month we will examine how you can play against Rybka (or another chess engine) in Aquarium. The Play mode in Aquarium has been revised and streamlined in the upcoming Aquarium 3.2 version. As usual many of the improvements are based on user feedback.

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Dadi Jonsson «Introduction to Writing Aquarium iBooks»

In February 2009 I described a new feature of Rybka 3 Aquarium, Interactive Chess Books or iBooks. At that time the tools for creating iBooks were rather primitive, but a new version of Aquarium is expected soon and improved iBook writing tools are among the enhancements. In this column I will show you the basics of creating iBooks – enough to get you started writing your own. Just keep in mind that there are a many features that I only mention briefly, or skip completely, including some that are quite useful for larger writing tasks.

Based on the experience so far, we can see that iBooks are suitable for both small and large projects. You may prefer to use iBooks for your own personal annotations, for presenting tactical exercises and other training material, for web publishing, for preparing forum posts, etc. It has also been used successfully for jobs such as converting a 200 page chess book to iBook format.

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