WELCOME

Welcome to Sigma Chess version 6, a very strong chess program for the Macintosh with an intuitive graphical user interface and many features. We feel confident that Sigma Chess will provide many hours of fun and intellectual challenge. This manual contains all the instructions needed to install and use Sigma Chess. It is assumed that you are familiar with the basics of Macintosh.

Features

Sigma Chess has knowledge of a variety of endgames. Apart from basic endgame knowledge such as the rule of the square and opposite coloured bishops, the program has a complete built-in database of the KPK endgame (King and Pawn versus King). Furthermore, Sigma Chess includes complete external endgame databases for a number of 3 and 4 piece endings, such as KQKR, KRKN and KBNK.

Sigma Chess supports transposition tables up to a size of 320 Mb. Transposition tables are used for storing chess positions during the search to avoid re-searching positions. This can have a dramatic effect on the speed of the search, particularly in the endgame.

Sigma Chess supports game annotations, i.e. textual move comments including the standard move suffixes (!, ?, !! etc.). The built-in annotation editor lets you annotate games yourself, and the new improved printing facilities let you print games complete with annotation text, diagrams and move suffixes, using figurine notation (optional) and either long or short algebraic notation.

Sigma Chess also supports game collections, which can contain thousands of games, such as the games of tournaments, matches etc. The built-in collection browser and the database search facilities lets you scan through and select the games that are of interest.

Sigma Chess has a built-in position library editor, where you can edit or create new opening libraries. Note, however, that this feature is save-disabled in the Lite version.

Sigma Chess is compatible with the PGN (Portable Game Notation) format, which is a cross platform standard for the representation of chess games and positions using ASCII text files. This, for instance, gives you access to thousands of games on the Internet, which are available in the PGN format. In particular, you can import multi-game PGN files into game collections. Additionaly, you can export any part of a collection to the PGN format.

Sigma Chess can be used as an engine from within the powerful chess database ExaChess. Simply make an alias to the Sigma Chess application and move that alias to the ExaChess "ExaChess Tools/Engines" folder.

If you are upgrading from version 5, you will be pleased with all the new features and improvements in this new version 6 which include:

• Native OS X Compatibility: Unlike previous versions, Sigma Chess 6 is a so-called "Carbon" application that runs natively on Apple's new, powerful UNIX-based Mac OS X operating system. Sigma Chess 6 also runs on the "Classic" Mac OS version 8.6 or 9.x (providing the CarbonLib extension is installed). But System 7.x and OS 8.0 - 8.5 are no longer supported. Note: Help balloons are not supported under Carbon and have hence been removed from Sigma Chess 6 (both in OS 8.6/9.x and OS X). At a later stage the new tooltip-based help manager will be supported. Likewise, focus on non-edit controls in the dialogs are no longer supported.
• New 2500 ELO Setting: The Sigma Chess 6 playing strength dialog now includes a 2500 ELO option (in Sigma Chess 5 the maximum was 2400 ELO). While the Sigma 6 engine is slightly stronger than the Sigma 5 engine, this new 2500 ELO option is mainly included because of the increased power of the new top G4 Macs. It will not be available on older G4s (or any G3s).
• Redesigned User Interface: The User Interface has been redesigned in accordance with the new Aqua GUI under OS X. Most of these design improvements are also available when running Sigma Chess 6 in Mac OS 8.6 or 9.
• Position/Opening Line Database Search: In Sigma Chess 6 Pro it is now possible to perform database searches on specific board positions and opening lines.
• Up to 1 Million Games in Collections: Sigma Chess 5 Pro was limited to 32.000 games, but in Sigma Chess 6 Pro collections can contain up to 1 million games! (but obviously sorting and filtering is slower and uses a lot more memory for such large collections, so you might find it more practical to limit your collections to e.g. 100.000 games or less).
• HTML Export: Sigma Chess can now generate chess-related web pages with embedded chess diagrams, annotation text etc (similar to printing). It uses the same piece set naming convention as in ChessBase, so you can use your favorite ChessBase piece sets instead of the standard Sigma Chess HTML piece set.
• Rating History Graph: A new player ELO dialog is included which shows more rating statistics, including an ELO history graph showing the development of the player's ELO rating. In Sigma Chess 6 Lite only the results of the first 10 rated games are included.
• Multiple Board Sizes: Sigma Chess 6 now supports multiple 2D board sizes.
• Custom Boards & Color Schemes: You can now define you own custom color scheme and 2D board via the standard Apple Color Picker.
• Larger Transposition Tables: Transposition tables up to 320 MB are now supported in the Pro version. The Lite version is still limited to 10 MB.
• Improved PGN support: See below for details.
• Improved Position Library Handling: A new, more complete opening library is included. Additionally, support for position classification and automatic import from game collections are now supported. See below for more details

Additionally, many medium and minor improvements and new features have been added, including:

• The old file open/save dialogs have been replaced with the new, more powerful Navigation Services dialogs.
• Better transposition table memory handling (OS X only). The memory system in OS X allows the user to change the total transposition table size without restarting Sigma Chess.
• The are now 8 novice levels and they are all easier than before (they were too strong in Sigma Chess 5!)
• Better time usage with Fischer clocks.
• Move markers. Sigma Chess can optionally show the last move made (by framing the "from" and "to" squares).
• Optionally show "future moves" in the move list.
• Optionally show scores relative to White (instead of relative to side to move).
• Optionally show scores using annotation glyphs.
• Play the analysis main line on the board.
• Set the speed of piece movement.
• Pressing the cmd-key while dragging a piece cancels the move.
• Sigma Chess beeps if you perform illegal moves or click on pieces with no legal moves.
• Now supports up to 30 piece set and board type plug-ins (10 in Sigma 5).
• New menu shortcuts, now providing quick keyboard access to nearly all menu items.
• The main toolbars can now be positioned at the top of the windows too.


• Option to automatically create collections when opening PGN/EPD files (i.e. without forcing the user to explicitly name and create a new empty collection first).
• Optionally open single game PGN files directly in a new untitled game window.
• Can now parse pasted PGN games with missing tag section and/or game termination marker.
• Now allows files of ANY type to be opened if the file name ends with .pgn or .epd. This has been done in order to better handle PC PGN files downloaded from the Internet, as these are not always considered text files by the Mac OS.
• Optionally remove the space between the period and the move (i.e "1.d4" instead of "1. d4") during PGN export and cut/copy to clipboard.
• Optionally filter PGN files, so only files with the .pgn (or .epd) extension can be opened.
• Optionally remember column widths in collection windows.
• PGN import speed is much improved for large collections.


• A new, more complete opening library is included.
• ECO codes and opening variation names are now shown separately right below the move list.
• The position library editor has been redesigned and now supports the standard classification glyphs.
• Sigma Chess's playing style now determines which moves it will play from the opening library.
• Position library import: Extend the position library with a subset of positions from game collections (e.g. GM games).
• Sigma Chess now remembers the most recently used opening library when you restart the program.

System Requirements

Processor
Any PowerPC.

System Software
Mac OS X or Mac OS 8.6/9.x (with CarbonLib 1.4 or later installed).

Monitor
800 x 600 resolution or higher with thousands or millions of colors.

Memory
At least 8 MB free, but 20 MB or more is recommended in order to take full advantage of the transposition tables, the 3D board and large collections.