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- INTRODUCTION
- Chess rater consists of a collection of 40 old master chess games.
- You may simply play over the games for their own sake if you wish.
- To use this program to the fullest you will choose one of the games
- and play over them and take the role of the winning player.
- After a certain number of opening moves have been played, you will
- then try and predict your players moves. Your choice will be selected from a
- number of prechosen candidate moves. In a few cases you will only have
- one move to choose from. In this case you must get the correct answer.
- In most cases you will be presented with the maximum number of options
- which is 4.
- In same cases there will be an in between number of options.
-
- When you have made your choice click on the same line that the move you
- have chosen appears on.
- If you guess correctly you will score points which will range from 1 to 6.
- This depends on the approximate complexity and difficulty of the move.
- If you score incorrectly you will not score for that move.
-
- INSTRUCTIONS
- Initially all the details of the games will be displayed.
- Choose any game you wish to play over by clicking anywhere on the same line
- as the game title. If you click below the last game you will go the next
- page.
-
- For a number of opening moves you will not need to guess the move.
- The number will vary from game to game and will generally be between 8 and
- 12 moves (for each side).
-
- When this opening phase is over 4 options(a b c and d) will be
- displayed in window 4.
- You will be required to select one of these options.
- If you correctly predict the next move that will be played the score
- value for that move will be added to your total score.
- If you guessed incorrectly you will not get the score for that move!
- Regardless of whether you are correct or not the correct move will be
- played .
-
- When it is your side to move again you will again be presented with the
- different options and you select from them again.
- When the game finishes you will be given an approximate rating
- performance based on your total score.
-
- At different times during the program you will be asked to use the
- keyboard or the mouse. Yes or No questions can generally be answered by
- y or n. Always press the return key after typing an answer in.
- You may use the backspace key to correct an answer before you have
- pressed the return key.
-
- Using the mouse means to move the mouse pointer on the screen to
- where you want it and pressing the LEFT mouse button once. The
- right mouse button is only used for pull-down menus. When the message
- CLICK TO CONTINUE appears press the left mouse button when the pointer
- is in the same window as the message.
-
- TIME LIMITS
- You will be asked what time limit you wish to use. If you do not wish
- to use a time limit select correspondence.
- If you will select one of the other choices your time will run out
- when the time is up. As most of the games are under 40 moves this will
- mean that you will be playing according to the either the allegro time
- limit of 30 minutes for the game or the club time limit of 40/90.
-
- ALGEBRAIC NOTATION
- It is absolutely essential you are familiar with algebraic notation.
- Your choices of moves will be in short algebraic.
- The piece that moves is shown by its initial letter.
- A knight is shown by N in order to distinguish it from a king.
- A pawn is not represented by any letter.
-
- The square a piece(or pawn) moves to is shown by the filename
- followed by a rankname. The file is always first.
- The files are named a-h from whites left to right.
- The ranks are numbered 1-8 from white's end of the board.
- e.g.Bc4 means a bishop moves to a file named c and the fourth rank.
- By cross referencing the file and the rank you can find out which
- square this is.
-
- A capture is represented by the letter X. Castles kingside is 0-0
- Castles queenside is 0-0-0.
-
- RATING
- The score for each game will always be out of 50.
- To get a reliable rating average your score over 10 games.
- Rating performances are as follows:
- These are based on the ACF(Australian chess federation) rating system.
- The ACF rating system is based on on the international FIDE
- (The international chess federation) rating system developed by Professor
- Elo.
- The rating range given in brackets is only an approximation of the
- strength needed to be an international master.
- For all the other categories only a current rating is needed.
- 46-50 International master(2400+)
- 41-45 ACF Master (2200-2399)
- ACF Candidate master (2000-2199)
- ACF category 1 player (1800-1999)
- ACF category 2 player (1600-1799)
- ACF category 3 player (1400-1599)
- ACF category 4 player (1200-1399)
- ACF category 5 player (1000-1199)
- ACF category 6 player (below 1000)
-
- You will be asked if you wish to save a high score if the score you
- get for a game is higher than any previous score. If so the new score
- and your name will be saved to disk.
-
- SOLITAIRE CHESS
- The original idea for playing over games in this manner came from several
- sources. There is a version of chess called "Solitaire Chess which has
- appeared in a number of books and magazines. In this case the reader
- covers up the moves to a game, revealing a line at a time.
- There is no attempt to give a rating though. Also because the reader has
- to choose between any possible move it is more difficult for the reader
- and it depends on the assumption that the move played is always the best
- move. There was always the danger of accidentally seeing future moves.
- Having all this on disk prevents this.
-
- HINTS
- Although it is possible to go over a game any number of times any attempts
- after the first will give meaningless results though this may of course
- still be enjoyable.
- The best advice is to take your time over each move. An impatient approach
- will lead to many careless errors. You may have to look deeply into a
- position to find the correct move. It may be very tempting to move too fast.
-
- Do not forget that you are trying to predict the move of a player.
- Generally the options given will not always be the best possible moves,
- but are still possible alternatives. This is partly to avoid having one
- or more moves which are as good as the chosen move. In the few instances
- where this may happen remember that that in the final analysis that you
- are trying to predict the players move!
-
-