Contents

1. Introduction 3
1.1. System Requirements 3
1.2. Technical Support 3
1.3. Installation 3
1.4. Copy Protection 5
1.5. Chess Assistant – What’s new? 5
2. First Steps 5
2.1. Opening a Database 5
2.2. List Mode * 7
2.3. Split Mode * 8
2.4. View Mode * 8
2.5. Test Mode 11
2.6. Demonstration Mode 14
2.7. Active Window, Current Dataset * 15
3. Search 15
3.1. Header Search * 15
3.2. Position Search * 18
3.3. Material Search * 20
3.4. Advanced Search 21
3.5. Search for Comments * 21
3.6. Search for Maneuvers * 22
3.7. Combining Searches * 23
3.8. Composite Search 24
4. Commenting 26
4.1. Annotating Moves * 26
4.2. Adding Variations * 26
4.3. Entering Moves 27
4.4. Working with the Clipboard * 29
4.5. Saving a Game * 30
4.6. Inserting Games * 31
4.7 Multimedia Support 31
5. Playing Engines and Analysis 32
5.1. Playing Engines 32
5.2. Linking Playing Engines * 32
5.3. Adjusting Playing Engines 34
5.4. Playing Against an Engine 36
5.5. Analyzing with Engines * 37
5.5.1. Analyzing in Infinite Mode * 38
5.5.2. Analyzing a Set of Positions in the Background * 41
5.5.3. Searching for Blunders * 41
5.5.4. Game Analysis 43
6. Entering New Games 46
6.1. Entering a Game Header * 46
6.2. Entering Notation 48
6.3. Editing Headers in the List Mode 48
7. Deleting Games 48
8. Editing Games 49

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9. Sets of Games
9.1. Selecting Games
49
49 1. INTRODUCTION
9.2. Classifying Games and Positions 50
9.2.1 Standard Classes 50
9.2.2 Windows Explorer Style Classifier 51
This manual uses the following conventions:
9.3. Operations with Datasets * 53 Menu commands are written as follows: Base | Open (the command Open from the Base
10. The Opening table Mode 55 menu). Screen messages are written in Italics. Keys are shown as, for example, [Alt].
11 Operations with Databases 70 Clicking with the left button of the mouse is referred to as “clicking” and
11.1 Creating a New Base * 70 clicking with the right button of the mouse as “right-clicking”. You can also use
11.2 Copying a Base * 70 the CHESS ASSISTANT help file at any time. Press [F1] to open the help file.
11.3. Joining Several Bases 71
11.4. Deleting a Base 72 1.1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
11.5. Converting Bases from Other Formats 72
11.6. Compressing a Base 73 To use CHESS ASSISTANT , you will need the following:
11.7. Resorting a Base * 73 Essential: IBM-compatible PC, 256 MB memory (RAM), Hard Disk (1 GB of
11.8. Searching for Duplicates * 73 free disk space), Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10/11, DVD-ROM drive.
11.9. Updating from the Internet 73
Recommended: IBM-compatible PC, 512 MB or more RAM, 10 GB of free
11.10 Repairing a Base 74
11.11 Packing and E-mailing a Base 75 disk space for the databases and trees, DVD drive.
12. Libraries * 75 1.2 TECHNICAL SUPPORT
13. Chess Trees 76
13.1. Operating a Tree * 77 Please refer to the CHESS ASSISTANT documentation and help system before
13.2. Database with Master Evaluations 81 contacting technical support. Chess Assistant users can obtain on-line support via
13.3. UserBook 81 the Internet. To use this feature, select Help | Online command in Chess
13.4. CAP Data 82 Assistant’s main menu. You can also register over the Internet, filling the
13.5. Different Types of Trees 82 registration form during installation of the program. Otherwise, you should mail
13.6. Adjusting the Trees 83
your registration data to the addresses given below.
13.7. Constructing the Trees 84
13.8. Opening Book 84 CHESSOK technical support is available as follows: info@[Link]
14. Opening Preparation 87 SKYPE, ICQ, YAHOO MESSENGER CONTACTS PLEASE SEE ON [Link]
14.1 Opening Report * 87 CHESSOK provides unlimited technical support. Technical support is available only to
14.2. Search for Novelties * 88 registered users (CHESSOK technical support policies are subject to change without
14.3. Automatic Opening Commenting * 88 notice).
14.4. Automatic Preparation for Your Games 88
15. Gathering Statistics 88 1.3 INSTALLATION
16. Players Encyclopedia 89
17. Printing * 91 CHESS ASSISTANT program files must be installed onto the hard disk. The
program cannot be started from the DVD. Follow this procedure to install CHESS
17.1 What can be printed 91
ASSISTANT on a standalone computer:
17.2 Page setup 91
• If you have an earlier version of CHESS ASSISTANT installed, make sure
17.3 Print options 92
that it is not running. Close all the other WINDOWS applications.
17.4 Print Preview 94
• Insert DVD into your DVD-ROM drive.
17.5 Exporting 94
• The installation will start automatically (if you have not enabled the
18. The Playing zone chessOK with Rybka 95
Autorun option, Select Run from the Start menu. Select Browse, and
select the DVD-ROM drive. Double-click on [Link]. The SETUP
program will start)
• Read the License Agreement.

2 3
 • Type in your Name and Company (optionally). 2. FIRST STEPS
• Type in your Product serial number that is given on the front page of
you user manual. Start CHESS ASSISTANT. A light narrow bar can be seen on the left. This is the object bar. It
• Select Installation Directory. CHESS ASSISTANT is installed in the displays all the open objects, chess game bases and windows. At the moment the object bar
‘C:\CHESS ASSISTANT…’ directory by default. However, before the files contains a line with the program name. It will also contain GURU and HugeBase lines, as
are copied you have the option to change the path. well as Corr database of November 1, 2022.
You can hide the object bar by clicking on the icon or pressing the [Ctrl] [C]
After successful installation you will be prompted to run CHESS ASSISTANT. key combination. To make the object bar visible once more, just click on this
icon or press [Ctrl] [C] again.

1.4 COPY PROTECTION 2.1 OPENING A DATABASE

The number of times CHESS ASSISTANT can be installed from the original DVD is
unlimited. You can back up all the CHESS ASSISTANT files onto any hard disk of Select Base | Open in the main menu, or click on the icon, or press the
your computer, pack/unpack files etc. However, you cannot transfer these files to [Ctrl] [O] key combination. The Select base to open dialog box will appear.
another computer. Select the folder with the necessary base in the Look in text box.
If you upgrade your computer and change its configuration, you will get an error To select ELITE, choose the ‘C\CHESS ASSISTANT\BASES’ folder. The name of the
message (Error 501). In this case you will have to reinstall the program from the selected base is displayed in the window below. You may wish to see the bases
DVD. Therefore keep the original DVD available. of a certain format only. To do this, choose the data format in the drop-down list
in the Base type text box. To display the bases in all formats, select All bases.
Click on Elite and it will appear in the Base name text line with a short
1.5 CHESS ASSISTANT 23 – WHAT’S NEW? commentary at the bottom
Press Select or double-click on the base icon when the options have all been set.
• Stockfish 15 continues the impressive surge made by its A window with the contents of ELITE will appear. If this list window does not
predecessor by adding another 36 Elo in strength, to become appear, enable the check box Open list when opening a base in the Tools |
once again the strongest engine at Elo 3585! Stockfish 15 will Options | General menu.
be automatically downloaded and plugged into CA 23 upon
installation.

• Chess King LEARN subscription (3 months), giving access to

all courses available there (90+ courses as of Nov.2022 and
counting)! The courses are available in 9 European languages,
sorted by category and difficulty level, and include such gems
as Chess Tactics for Beginners 2.0, Chess: From Beginner to
Club Player, Chess Strategy, Chess Middlegame series, several
courses from CT-ART and Chess Tactics in the Opening series
and more.

• Updated databases now contain 8.5 million games in total!

• Premium Game Service 2023 will provide you with 3000

games auto downloaded weekly until December 31, 2023.

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 2.2 LIST MODE
You can open a list of the current set of games in three different ways:
• With the Dataset | List command from the main menu
• By pressing [F5]
• By selecting the Open list command in the local menu.

Look at the object bar. The word Elite (5031) appears showing the base is open,
and another line, List (5031), is now hanging from it indicating that a list The lines in this list are the game headers, and the current game is highlighted
window is open. All the open windows are displayed on the object bar next to with a blue frame. Use the arrow keys, the green arrows on the toolbar, or the
the corresponding bases so you can easily understand which base the window mouse to move along the list. You can also jump to the desired game by entering
refers to. The red letters RO to the left of Elite indicate that this base is Read only its number on the keyboard.
and cannot be altered. Sometimes you can see small letters next to the numbers.
The Read only check box can also be found in the local menu, which can be a stands for games supplied with at least one annotation or diagram;
accessed in two ways: v stands for games supplied with at least one variation;
c stands for commented games with both text annotations (and/or diagrams) and
1) By right-clicking on the database name in the toolbar;
variations;
2) By clicking on the icon. p stands for games started from a specific position.


Look at the Order of fields in list section. The Selected window shows the displayed
columns. If there is a column you don’t want to see, move it to the Not selected
Tip:
window. In order to do this, click on the unnecessary item in the Selected window and
Right-clicking (clicking with the right mouse button)
on an object produces a menu of operations specific to press the button. If you would like to hide all the items, press the button.
this object. This is known as the local menu. Most The and buttons will do the opposite. To change the order of columns, click
commands are available from the local menus.
on one or several items and move them with the and buttons.
The program remembers all the bases and windows open from the moment you In the General, Chessboard settings, Field options, Chess notation and Start notation
exit and restores them when you start the program again. However, if you want from sections you can set many different options to modify the list accordingly.
to close the base, select the Base | Close command or access the local menu. In the Background type drop-down list you can choose between Black and white,
Color, Wood and Marble and From File

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When you open a new list, its appearance will depend on the options set in the
Tools | Options | List window. To copy the options you have set for the active
window to the other lists, press the Copy to global options button.
You can quickly enter some value for a header field to all the current dataset
games. To do this, mark this column by clicking on the column header, select
Tools | Fill in the local menu, and the Fill pattern window will appear. Click on
the Source line, then on the button with 3 dots on the right, and the Select from
library … of base … window will appear. Select the necessary value that will be
copied into the Fill pattern window, and press OK.
To resort a dataset list, select the Tools | Sort command in the local menu, and
the Select the sort order for … window will appear. Resort the dataset according
to the procedure described in Section 11.2 Copying a Base.

2.3 SPLIT MODE

You can move along the list and at the same time replay games and annotations on
the chessboard. To do this, select the Mode | Split command in the local menu or
press the [Shift] [F5] key combination. This will divide the list window into two parts.

2.4 VIEW MODE

To access a single game, use the View mode. There are two ways of switching
from the list to the View mode:
1. Click on the icon or press [F4] key. Click on it again if you want to
return to the list.
2. Opening a new window for the View mode. There are five ways to To replay moves and annotations use the arrow keys or two button bars below
accomplish this: the chessboard. The buttons are similar to videocassette recorder controls.
• By selecting the Dataset | View command in the main menu;
In the upper row (from left to right): In the lower row (from left to right):
• Clicking on the icon; Jumps to the starting position Jumps into the variation
• Double-clicking on the required game in the list;
• Pressing [Enter]; Steps back a half-move Goes to the upper level
• Pressing [F2]. Deletes the latest half-move Goes to the next variation
The View mode presents a chessboard, game header, the notation, a fragment of
Tree and the Game progress diagram. (You can modify the window just as in the Steps forward a half-move Shows the list of games from huge
List mode: selecting This window’s properties in the local menu). base
Jumps to the end position
The View section in the toolbar includes three buttons (from left to right):

Begins replaying the game

Starts next games automatically

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 Adjusts the replaying speed 2.5 TEST MODE
When viewing notation of the game, Test mode is available. Click Test tab on
Press this button if you want to stop auto-replaying.
the toolbar:
When you replay a game, the linked Tree can be seen below the game notation, showing
you a detailed report on the current position with full statistics, evaluations, previously
analyzed lines, and annotations. See Chapter 13 Chess Trees for details. Clicking on the
tree window with the right mouse button produces the following local menu:

As you can see, this tab contains only two buttons – Test mode and

Demonstration mode . Click Test mode button (Demonstration mode is

described in the next section); this will display Test mode dialog box.
Another way to activate this mode is selecting the Test mode item in the notation
local menu (or press the [Ctrl] [Enter] key combination):

All these operations refer to the tree and will not affect the game. See Section
13.2 Database with Master Evaluations for more information.
You can move along the tree double-clicking on moves in it or pressing the [→]
key. If you double-click on a move, which differs from the move played in the
investigated game, the position on the chessboard will remain the same. If this
additional information is unnecessary, and you don’t want to see the moves from
the Tree, just disable the Show moves from tree option in the local menu or press
the [Shift] [Ctrl] [C] key combination.
The Game progress section in the bottom part of the window presents a graph
that shows the changing evaluation, allowing one to easily locate blunders. This Before you start testing, you must adjust the parameters of this mode in the Test
data was produced by the CHESS ANALYSIS PROJECT (see Section 13.4 CAP Data mode dialog box.
for details).
To go to the next game, press [F8] or click on the icon on the toolbar. To return to
the previous game, press [F7] or click on the icon. You can also jump to the first or
to the last game of the current set by clicking on the or icon correspondingly.

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This feature allows setting up and modifying the parameters of the tests to be As we can see, the user is prompted here to enter another move, and some
automatically presented as you go from game to game in a database. There are a additional information is given, which may facilitate finding the solution:
large number of criteria that can be selected for determining which moves
constitute a solution to a test. This timesaving approach means that the user does
not have to construct each test by hand.
In the Test conditions section of this dialog you can select which “good” and/or
“bad” moves will constitute a solution. You will have to make the moves that
match the criteria selected in the Prefer move section, and not to make the moves
that match the criteria selected in the Avoid move section. The two lower check
boxes offer you the most often used cases (!!, !, !?, ¹ and ??, ?, ?!
correspondingly).
If you wish to find evaluations, annotations, or particular combinations of marks,
press the Advanced button.
The Use regular expressions check box lets advanced users set more the piece to move and evaluation of the correct move. Side to move is marked by a
complicated criteria. colored triangle in the upper right part of this window (Black in the given case). This
message will reappear after each unsuccessful try until you find the solution, which
The Side for test mode pane allows choosing the side (or a group of players) you displays the hidden part of notation. There can be several tests in one selected game.
will “play”. The upper button turns the Test mode Off. You can switch off the hint information in the Test mode dialog box.
The Show hint pane defines a way in which the program will give you various Quite a different situation arises when you have set the Maximum variant depth
hints. If you start with a wrong move, the program displays all comments to the parameter other than 0, and entered a move from an embedded variation. In this
quiz move. If your second suggestion is wrong, it shows a piece that is to move. case program replays this variation automatically and displays the following
The time given for one exercise is set on the Timer pane. message:
The Maximum variant depth box enables you to define, whether the test will
include the variations to the game, or not. The default value given is 0, which
means that only the moves from the game’s main text will be taken into account
for the test. Setting this value to 1 includes the variation of 1 st level, 2 – includes
the sub-variation of the 2nd level, etc.
If you have chosen Any color in the Side for test mode section, all moves become
invisible. Try to guess the moves by yourself, making them with the mouse. If
you have guessed right, the program makes this move on the board; otherwise it
opens the New move message window, offering you to select one of the three
options: Keep on guessing, Make the game move, or Insert suggestion as a Pressing the Further button causes the program to exit the variation returning to
variation. the main line and to continue in Test mode until the next text occurs within the
After you have set all the parameters of the test and pressed OK button, the test same game.
starts. The program displays several moves from the game automatically, then
stops and hides the remaining part of notation.
The test procedure itself assumes entering the moves on the chessboard. A
correct continuation entered discloses the remaining part of notation up to the
next test in the selected game (if any), while a wrong continuation produces the
following message window below the chessboard:

13
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A similar situation arises when you have successfully finished the test. By 2.7 ACTIVE WINDOW, CURRENT DATASET
pressing the Stop button, you quit the Test mode. To resume testing, you must
click the Test button on the toolbar again. At any time you can open several bases and several windows with different sets in different
After you have completed with a single game, you may switch immediately to modes. To make a window active, click anywhere on it or click on its icon on the object
bar. If a window is hidden under the other windows use the icon in the object bar on the left.
the next game in a given sub-set by clicking button, or by pressing [F8] key
The current active window will be highlighted on the object bar. You can also select
(click button or press [F7] key to switch to the previous game). Thus you can Windows in the main menu and mark the line with the necessary window with a tick. Like
undergo a series of tests while not leaving the Test mode. many other Windows based programs, Chess Assistant allows you to switch between
To quit the Test mode, click Test button on the toolbar. Note that selecting the Test windows within the program with the [Ctrl] [F6] key combination.
mode item in the notation local menu (or pressing [Ctrl]+[Enter] key shortcut) does
Many operations in Chess Assistant use the notion of “current set”. If an active
not stop the Test mode but displays the Test mode dialog box instead.
window contains a list with a set of games this set is the “current set”. If a base’s
name is highlighted on the object bar then the entire base is in fact the “current set”.
2.6 DEMONSTRATION MODE In View mode the current set is the one from which the View mode has been called.
The Demonstration mode, or simply Demo mode resembles the Test mode with only The program always remembers where a game is called from. This information is
one slight difference. Open a game from a list and press Demo button on the toolbar. displayed on the object bar as # N1/N2, with N2 standing for the amount of games in
This operation hides the part of notation immediately after the cursor (similarly to the the original set and N1 for the current game number in this set.
Test mode). Thus the user is prompted to enter a move on the chessboard.
However, in contrast to the Test mode, entering a wrong move – the one that did
not happened either in the game, or in some variation to this game – calls the 3. SEARCH
New move dialog box. There are seven types of search in CHESS ASSISTANT: Header, Position, Material,
Advanced, For Comments, For Maneuvers and the Composite search; all these
types of search may be combined.

3.1 HEADER SEARCH

This type of search is based on “header” information, such as the players’ names,
result, year, place, opening name, ECO index, etc. Let’s find, for example, all the
non-drawn games played between Karpov and Kasparov. Open the ELITE database.
Select Search | Header in the main menu. (You can also click on the small down
arrow next to the icon on the toolbar and select Header search in the drop-down
list). The Search dialog box appears, with the header fields listed on the left. The
Criteria and Details columns are empty. The White field is highlighted. To avoid
Here you can select one of the three proposed actions: Keep on guessing, Make spelling mistakes, use the list in the upper right-hand corner of the window.
the game move and Insert suggestion as a variation. We recommend you to Begin with typing the name. When you type the letter K, the list automatically scrolls
select Keep on guessing for a while. to this letter. Type two more letters, A and R, and Karpov Anatoly (RUS) will be
Similarly to the Test mode, you can navigate in the list of a subset of games selected highlighted in the list. Click on this item or hit the [Insert] key and it will appear in the
White field. If you have made a mistake, press the Clear markers button.
for the Demo mode by pressing [F7] and [F8] keys, or by pressing and
buttons on the toolbar. Anytime you can leave the Demo mode either by un-pressing Go to the Black field and repeat the procedure with Kasparov’s name. In this
the Demo button, or by selecting the Demonstration mode item in the notation’s local example it doesn’t matter which of the two champions played with the white
menu. pieces, so mark the Ignore colors check box with a tick.
The Demo mode may be used for memorizing particular variations and sub-variations
(See more detailed description of Demo mode in the Word document on your DVD).
15
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 To choose an evaluation instead of a result, choose the necessary evaluation as
represented by the Chess Informant symbols in the Evaluations section.
ECO: Opening index according to the Chess Informant classification. Select the
way of setting it in the Enter new value text box:
as a single value – type on the keyboard in the Index text line.
as a range – indicate the first and last value of a range.
by name – select from the drop-down list.
Site: The city where a tournament took place.
Date: The year and month (optionally) when a tournament was
held. This criterion can be set as a single year, a range of
years, a single date or a range of dates. The number of
months is shown in the Details column.
Event: The type of competition (match, interzonal, championship etc.).
Round: The number of a round.
Annotator: The author of the game annotations.
Remark: There are three ways to set this criterion: a whole remark
(Exact), a part of a remark (Substring) or its beginning
Go to the Result field, and mark both 1:0 and 0:1. The selected values will (Prefix). Select the setting in the Type text box and type the
appear in the Result field, while the number of chosen items (2 in our example) criterion on the keyboard in the Value/Pattern window.
is displayed in the Details column. Leave the other header fields undefined. Source: The source of the game record.
If you want to have the current dataset list replaced with the results of the search White ELO/Black ELO: Ratings of players.
select the Old set option in the Put results in section. To preserve the window Moves: Number of moves in the game.
with the current dataset and put the search results into a new list, select New set. Possible values for the White, Black, Site, Event, Annotator and Source fields are
For the purpose of our example, please mark the New set section. stored in the library. You can type them in the Find text box.
The options have all been set now and the screen will appear as it is shown in the
picture above. Press the Search button and you will get the game Kasparov – Setting criteria for the ECO, Date, Round and Moves fields
Karpov, 1:0, Las Palmas, 1996. 1. Specify the range in the Enter new value section. Enter the first value in the
From text box and the last value in the Up to text box. If several intersecting
Description of the header fields ranges are selected they will automatically be joined.
White: A player with the white pieces. 2. Press Add.
Black: A player with the black pieces. All the chosen values can be seen in the Values window. The first of them is
If the Ignore colors check box is marked with a tick the program will find all the shown in the Criteria column and the number of chosen values is displayed in
games played between the players independently of who played as White or the Details column.
Black. If the Ignore colors check box is Off the only games found will be those To exclude a value from the Values section, highlight it and press Delete.
in which the player set in the White field played as White and the player set in
the Black field played as Black. Setting criteria for the values stored in the library
If you want to find all the games played by a certain player as White, enter their name
Games are stored as game headers, consisting of several fields and notations. _
to the White field and leave the Black field undefined. If you are searching for all the
Names of players are stored in a special file called a library. Besides the players’
games of a certain player (with either _ black or white pieces) then enter their name in
names the library stores possible values for some other header fields (Site, Event,
either the White or the Black field, leave the other fields undefined, and mark the
Annotator and Source). Every base has its own library. This concept of libraries
Ignore colors check box with a tick.
greatly increases search speed and allows one to avoid mistakes in names with
Result: Possible values are: 1:0, 0:1, 1/2:1/2, or an evaluation.
difficult spellings.
? stands for an unknown result.

16 17
If you don’t remember a spelling, press the Mark button, enter a fragment of the Besides the chess pieces, there are some other symbols on the palette. You can
name in the Value/Pattern text box and select Substring in the Type window. If put them on the board too. Their meaning is as follows:
you are sure that the entered fragment is the name’s beginning then set the Prefix
type. If you have entered the complete name, select Exact and then press the Any white piece
Search button (This button refers to the search through the library list, so don’t Any black piece
confuse it with the search in a set of games!).
Any piece of any color or an empty square
The elements found will be marked in the list. To see them all select Show marked.
Press this button (which is now called Show all) to return to the library list. Empty square
To delete all the entered criteria, press the Clear markers button. Sign of negation

To remove a criterion, press Unmark. A dialog box similar to the one produced by the Negation of a piece means that this piece cannot stand on
Mark button will appear. Enter the criterion (or its fragment) that is to be removed, this square.
press Search, and the chosen elements of the library list become unmarked. Negation of an empty square means that any piece may stand
Searching: through an entire database or a set of games? on this square but it can’t be empty.

You can start searching in any mode: List, Split, or View. The Search dialog box Negation of the white question mark means any black piece
will give you the choice of either searching through an entire database or through or an empty square.
the current dataset. Choose between Set and Whole base in the Search in section. Negation of the black question mark means any white piece
or an empty square.
To select an entire database to be used as the dataset in this operation, select Dataset |
Reset or press [F6]. The old set will be erased and a base list will appear in the Negation of the doubled question mark stands for negation of
window. Before you start searching make sure the current set is the right one. pawns of any color.
You can search for several pieces on the same square. To do this, put the first piece
3.2 POSITION SEARCH on the necessary square. Then choose another piece from the palette, press the [Ctrl]
The positional search function looks for a specific position, a partial position, or key and while holding it down, drop the new piece onto the same square. Any
a structure. number of pieces may be put on one square though only three of them will be
Select the Search | Position command in the main menu. (You can also click on displayed. To see them all, click on the arrow on the palette and then on the square.

the small down arrow next to the

search in the drop-down list).
icon on the toolbar and select Position

In the Search dialog box there is a chessboard with the starting position where
 Tip:
CHESS ASSISTANT allows you to perform every type of search
you can set up the position you want to search for. (except the header search) in several bases simultaneously. To do
Suppose you are interested in the Alekhine Defense. Drag the white pawn to e4 and the this, make sure the required bases are open, then while in the Search
black knight to f6, then indicate whose move it is in the Position search options section. dialog box, click on the small button with 3 dots above the Help
Partially defined positions button. The Select bases to search in window will appear. Select the
bases you want to search through and perform the search. The
You can search for a fragment of a position or for a pawn structure. To set a results will be given for each base in separate windows.
partial position, use the piece palette just below the chessboard.
Clear the board with the [Ctrl] [C] key combination. Take the pieces from the palette Another way of entering a position
and set up a position on the chessboard. To set a piece on the board, first click on the Imagine that while replaying a game in the View mode, you see an interesting
piece icon on the palette. The mouse pointer will turn into the piece icon. Now click position and want to find other games in which this position occurred. How can
on the square (or squares) on the board where you want to put the piece, and return to this be done quickly?
the palette and repeat this procedure with the other pieces until the necessary position Right-click on the notation and select Search for current position in the local
is set up. When this is done click on the arrow on the palette. menu. The Search window will appear with the current position. Naturally, the

18 19
search will be executed through the current dataset, so if you want to search for You can also set the limits for Total number of pieces and indicate for how long
this position in another set you will have to save it in a special file. this material imbalance continued in the Imbalance time (moves) box. If the
Imbalance time is indicated as 0, then the material imbalance set above may last
Search for horizontally and /or vertically symmetrical
for any number of moves.
positions
Search for bishops of opposite colors
This type of search is examined in detail in the manual document on your DVD.
This type of search may turn out very useful in some middlegames and
3.3 MATERIAL SEARCH especially in the endgames. Bishops of opposite colors can be specified in the
The material search function looks for games within certain material restrictions. Search dialog window, which appears after selecting the Search | Material
command in the main menu. Select Of opposite colors in the Bishops drop-down
Example:
list, and the number of bishops will automatically be set to 1 for both Black and
Find all the endgames with rook, bishop and two pawns (or less) vs. rook, knight White. Search for games with bishops of opposite colors in the ELITE database
and two pawns (or less) in the ELITE database. will produce a list of 1126 games.
• Load the ELITE database. Select Search | Material. There are two
boxes on the right: Black and White. 3.4 ADVANCED SEARCH
• Set the limits for White. The Advanced search is a material search in which the material restrictions are
Enter 0 over the question mark to the left of the white pawn icon. set independently for two different groups of squares. Call the Search |
To do this, click on the rectangle to the left of the white pawn icon Advanced command in the main menu.
and either type 0 on the keyboard or select it by clicking on the There are two markers, red and blue. The current color is indicated below the
small up and down arrows. chessboard. To define the first area, click on all the squares you want to include,
Enter 2 over the question mark to the right of the white pawn icon. then set the material restrictions for the selected area as described above.
Enter From 0 To 0 for the white knights and queens and From 1 To set the material restrictions for another group of squares, click on the Blue marker
To 1 for the white bishops and rooks. tab. Like wise define another area and set the corresponding material restrictions. An
The line with the large white question mark instead of a piece is to example of this kind of search is given in Section 3.7 Combining Searches.
set a range for the total number of White’s pieces on the board. In

•
this example it doesn’t matter so leave ? on both the left and right.
Set the limits for Black using the same procedure as above. Enable the
 Tip:

Ignore colors option and set Side to move: Either. Position, Material and Advanced searches can also be
performed in variations by enabling Search in
• Make sure that Whole base is selected in the Search in section. variations in the Search dialog box.
Search for positions with a certain material advantage
This type of search allows you to find games in which one of the opponents had an 3.5 SEARCH FOR COMMENTS
extra pawn (piece, exchange, etc.). While in the Search | Position and material You can search for commented games by selecting the Search | Comments
window, set the difference in number of pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, and queens command in the main menu, and then specifying the type of comments in the
in the Imbalance box on the right. The line with the large white question mark instead Search dialog box.
of a piece is to set a range for the total amount of White’s extra material on the board. You can search for any textual fragments of game annotations (naturally, as with
It is calculated on the assumption that the value of the pieces is as follows: all other searches, in several bases simultaneously). To do this, select the Search
| Comments command in the main menu, enable the Annotation criteria option
Queen = 9 points in the Search dialog, click on the Set annotations button, and then specify the
Rook = 5 points necessary text annotations in the Set search parameters window.
Bishop = 3 points
You can even search for several text fragments at once: just type them in
Knight = 3 points
different lines of the Set search parameters window. In this case the program
Pawn = 1 point

20 21
will search for any of them, thus the resulting list will include all the games with Mark the Undefined source square with a tick. You can also select Captured
annotations containing at least one of the fragments you have searched for. pieces, Promotion pieces, Set delay between previous and current maneuver (in
You may also use this type of search to pick out instructive examples for your half-moves), and Undefined destination square. For the purpose of our example
training databases: search for !! to find excellent moves; to collect blunders, these options are not needed, so press OK. The screen should appear.
search for ??. Press Search to start searching. 22 games will be found.
You can save the current position as a criterion for position search with the Copy
3.6 SEARCH FOR MANEUVERS to position criteria button; and conversely, you can import a position from the
Using this tool, you can search for common piece maneuvers. For example, let’s Search | Position window to the Search | Maneuver window with the Copy from
find all the games with the Greek gift in the Elite database. position criteria button. Naturally, this feature is important if both the Position
Open the ELITE database and select Search | Maneuvers in the main menu. The Search and Maneuvers check boxes in the Criteria included section are enabled.
dialog box appears, with the Maneuvers pane on the right. Click on the small button
with 3 dots above the Help button and make sure that ELITE is selected in the Select 3.7 COMBINING SEARCHES
bases to search in window. To fill the board with doubled question marks, press [Ctrl] CHESS ASSISTANT is capable of combining different types of search. Select them in the
[Q]. Put the white bishop on b1, the black king on g8 and the black pawn on h7 with the Criteria included section of the Search dialog box, and then set the criteria for each one.
help of the piece palette. When this is done click on the arrow on the palette.
Example (Material + Position):
Then drag the white bishop from b1 to h7, and the yellow string Ґb1-h7/§ will appear
Find all the typical Sicilian endgames in the ELITE database.
in the Maneuvers list. Drag the black king from g8 to h7, and the second yellow string
will appear: ўg8-h7/Ґ. If you made a mistake and need to remove a maneuver from • Call Search | Material.
the Maneuvers list, just highlight it and press the Delete button below the list. Should • Set the material restrictions. There mustn’t be any queens on the board.
you wish to remove all the maneuvers, click on Clear list. Both Black and White have two rooks and seven pawns, while the
Now, when both moves are present in the Maneuvers list, look at the first string. It says number of minor pieces is unimportant. Set Ignore colors to Off and
that before the sacrifice the white bishop stood on b1, though it could be on any other Side to move: Either.
square along the b1-h7 diagonal as well. To correct this, highlight the first line, then • Mark the Position check box in the Criteria included section with a tick,
click on the Change button and adjust the Details in the window that will appear. then fill the chessboard with doubled question marks (press [Ctrl] [Q]).
• Set up the typical Sicilian pawn structure.
The screen should appear as follows:

22 23
 • Press the Search button. • Queen – here you can set the search conditions to search for the queen’s
position and circumstances: queen on a central square, queen attacked by
3.8 COMPOSITE SEARCH an enemy piece, a pinned queen, mobile or not mobile queen etc.;
The Composite type of search is based on several chess criteria. You can find the • Rooks – this group of conditions refers to the number and positions of
complete list of these criteria (or conditions) in the Condition dialog box that appears the rooks. Note that when selecting any criteria from this group you can
after you have selected the Search | Composite search item from the main menu: define the number of rooks with the Quantity spinner boxes. The position
of the rook(s) relatively to open files, possibility of their maneuver along
the rank, mobility of the rook(s), etc. are included;
• Bishops – along with criteria common to any piece (the mobility, the
condition of being pinned or attacked, etc.) we can find here the
conditions specific for the bishop – the presence of bishops of opposite
color on the board, two bishops on the board, the color of bishop same or
different from the color of a particular corner square etc.;
• Knights – this group includes some ‘knight-specific’ criteria like the
knight’s position within the extended center (c3-f3-f6-c6), on the rim of
the board, being restricted in its mobility or positioned on the enemy’s
third rank .
• Pawn structure – various pawn structures can also have specific
positional criteria. Here we find passed pawn(s), isolated pawn(s), the
mobile pawn center, backward pawn(s) or doubled pawn(s), etc.
• Control over lines – this group includes criteria specific to the rook and
queen play on the opened and semi-opened files, the possibility of
invading the enemy camp with the major pieces, full or partial control
over the seventh rank, etc. Control of the major diagonals with a bishop
is also included.
• Controlling the center and periphery – this group includes the complex
positional criteria referring to the alignment of forces on a specified
region of the board, as well as the balance of attack/defense on a
particular square.
In this dialog box, you can see the chessboard in the right hand part of it, which is used
Clicking the icon with the cross (plus sign) unfolds the group and displays its content. At
to schematically display the selected search conditions. The Side drop-down list allows
any time you can view the complete list of the search conditions by unfolding the group.
you to define which side the selected condition refers to. The Quantity spinner boxes
Actually, these complex conditions represent some predefined templates for the search,
(From and To) allow you to set the number of pieces; you can use them when selecting
which will assist you in forming your search request. This makes the Composite search a
some kind of material condition. The Characteristic text line below displays the
powerful tool for finding a variety of complex positional factors, which define the course
description of the selected criteria of search.
of the struggle on the board. You can find examples of the Composite search in manual
As you may see, the conditions of search are displayed as a hierarchical structure in
document on your DVD.
the left window of this dialog. They are grouped into nine sections:
• Material – this group of conditions include criteria referring to various
alignments of forces like an extra exchange or a piece, two bishops
against bishop and knight, etc.;
• King’s position – the king’s position can certainly be a decisive factor in
any stage of the chess game. Using this choice, you can easily find
games based on the positioning of the king, like the castled king, or the
king in the center, or the king on a corner square of the board;
25
24
 4. COMMENTING 4.3 ENTERING MOVES
You can annotate games in any mode that displays notation (View, Split, and Entering moves
Tree). To comment a game in View mode, just click on the Comments tab in the All moves are entered with the mouse. In order to make a move, move the cursor
left part of the toolbar and the Comments toolbar will appear. to a piece, press and hold down the mouse button, drag the cursor to the
destination square and then release the mouse button.
To speed up the entering of moves the program suggests a destination square when you
choose a piece. If you agree with this suggestion just release the mouse button. If not,
drag the cursor to the necessary destination square and release the button.
If you first click on an empty square or an opponent’s piece, the program will
4.1 ANNOTATING MOVES. suggest a piece to move there and highlight it. If the wrong piece is highlighted,
just drag the cursor to the right piece and release the button.
To annotate a move, click on the icon. A small drop-down menu will Please note that illegal moves cannot be entered. If you “touched” a piece but
appear. Select Annotate move and you will get the Annotations editor dialog box. then decided to move with another one, drag the cursor off the board area and
release the mouse button.
The entered move immediately appears in notation in square brackets. As you
continue entering new moves they are inserted into the notation. You may
comment on the same move with several variations, each time returning to the
branching point to enter a new one.
As soon as you start a new variation for a move, the icon will become
highlighted. Clicking on it will return you to the main body of the game.
(Definitions of other icons are given in Section 2.4 View Mode).
Commenting the last move in the game
If you place the cursor after the last move and enter a new one, it will be added
The Informant-style symbols may be used in short comments. Highlight Short Before to the main body of the game. To avoid this, press [Ctrl] and only then enter your
if you want to insert a symbol before the current move or Short After to insert one variations to the last move.
after, then click on the appropriate symbol. You can also press the Evaluation tab and There is also another method. Press the [Ctrl] [Shift] [z] key combination, and an
select the necessary evaluation. For explanations of the Standard Classes and User “empty” move will be added to the notation. Then put the cursor before the
Folders tabs see Section 9.2 Classifying Games and Positions. empty move and begin entering the variation.
You may also insert any text in the notation. To do this, click on Long Before or Long Replacing the entered move
After and type the text commentary in the text window. Use the Introduction and Press the [Ctrl] key while entering a new variation. The Changing move dialog
Afterword tabs to insert annotations before the first and after the last move of the game. box will appear. Existing variations are displayed on the left. Use the buttons on
To delete annotations, click on the icon and select Delete annotations in the right to control them.
the small drop-down menu. Press the [Delete] key if you want to delete the The New variation button inserts the entered move as a new variation. If you select
current commentary directly in the notation. Insert and check moves, the new move will replace the old one, with all the next
moves being checked and the illegal ones being deleted. For example, if you had been
To insert a diagram, click on the icon, and to delete a diagram, click on it again. entering a game and accidentally moved the wrong rook to a square (i.e. ¦ad1 as
opposed to ¦fd1), this would overwrite the old move with the correction and verify
4.2 ADDING VARIATIONS that the moves after it were still possible. The Replace button will overwrite the old
To comment a move with a variation, place the cursor before the move in the move with the new one and delete all the following moves.
notation window and just play out the variation on the chessboard.

26 27
Changing the order of variations

Clicking on the icon will bring up the Variations control dialog box.

To change the order of variations in the window, drag and drop them or click on
the up and down arrows.
This window contains 5 tabs: Markers, Lines, Blocks, Chars and Text, these allow
Deleting a fragment of notation you to control the placing of various groups of objects on the chessboard squares. To
Pressing the [Backspace] key deletes the last entered move. If you want to delete set a marker, click on the color box and select the marker. Then, clicking on the board
all the moves from the current one until the game end, press the [Shift] [Ctrl] square sets the marker there. To set a line, click on the Line tab, then on the color box
[Backspace] key combination. Clicking on the icon will bring up the and select the line. Click on the source and destination squares on the board. Every
Deleting moves dialog box. successive click continues the line; to stop it, double-click on the last square. To place
the text on the board, click the Text tab and press the Add button. Select the area on
the chessboard: click the first square of the area, then drag the mouse to the last
square of the area. Enter the text in the Input text marker window. Choose the desired
color in the Color drop-down list and the font size in the Size box, and then press OK.

4.4 WORKING WITH THE CLIPBOARD

Chess Assistant has its own internal clipboard, different from the standard
Windows clipboard and intended only for game notations. You can now also use
the standard Windows clipboard.

Using the WINDOWS clipboard

Operations with the WINDOWS clipboard allow you to copy games and analysis
from the INTERNET and other sources, and to paste them to a CHESS ASSISTANT
database. With its help you can also export data from CHESS ASSISTANT to other
programs and last but not least, it lets you share data inside Chess ASSISTANT.
Select the necessary options according to what you want to delete and then press OK.
Most chess programs have their own format for storing chess data, i.e. games
Setting markers and positions. If programs only supported their proprietary format, sharing
Clicking on the icon opens the Color markers setup dialog. information among them would be exceedingly difficult which is why the PGN
and EPD formats were created. They are the de facto standard for sharing
information between different chess programs. They are also the standard

28 29
formats for posting games and analysis on the Internet. The *.PGN and *.EPD files accidentally damage the database. If the game has been changed then the
are text files which can be edited manually with a text processor. They can also program will warn you and ask your confirmation to save changes. To restore a
be produced by chess programs, which support these formats. Chess Assistant game, select Edit | Restore game in the main menu or click on the icon.
documentation on DVD includes the detailed description of the following
clipboard operations: 4.6 INSERTING GAMES
– importing game(s) from PGN format to CHESS ASSISTANT;
– exporting a game from CHESS ASSISTANT to PGN format; You can insert other games as new lines with the help of the “drag and drop”
– exporting multiple games from CHESS ASSISTANT to PGN format; technique. The program itself determines where these games must be inserted.
– importing board position(s) in EPD format to CHESS ASSISTANT; Inserting one game
– exporting a board position from CHESS ASSISTANT to EPD format; Open two different windows with two different games. Take one of these games
– copying multiple games from one CHESS ASSISTANT database to another. (move the mouse pointer to its notation panel and press the left button) and drag
Using the internal Chess Assistant clipboard to another (move the mouse to another notation and release the button). The
Game drag & drop options dialog box will appear.
Open the window with the game you want to copy and place the cursor before
the half-move starting from which the notation must be copied. Click on the
icon in the Games section on the toolbar and then select Copy to clipboard
in the drop-down list. The number 1 will appear next to that icon. This indicates
that the clipboard contains one notation. Repeat this procedure with the other
games you want to copy. The digit to the left of the icon shows the number
of games contained in the CHESS ASSISTANT clipboard.
Switch to the window where you wish to copy a notation from the clipboard and
click on the icon. The Insert game or variation from the clipboard dialog
box will appear. In the List of variations in clipboard panel you can see the Specify how many half-moves must be joined and how they must be inserted.
contents of the clipboard. Choose the necessary game notation. This depends on the check boxes Join only if current game position exists in
game to be joined and Start from last equal position. If the second check box is
If you now press the Overwrite button the notation from the clipboard will On then the dragged game will be inserted into the motionless in any case
replace the current notation. If you select Join the program will search through rewrite. If the program fails to find common positions, it will insert the dragged
the current notation for the first clipboard position. If the search is a success, the game into the motionless as a variation to the first move.
clipboard notation will be inserted into the current notation as a variation.
If you want to clear the CHESS ASSISTANT clipboard, click on the and select
Inserting several games
Clear clipboard from the drop-down list. Two objects are displayed on the screen, a notation and a list. You want to insert
several games from the list into the notation. Highlight the required games and
select them in the list (see Section 9.1 Selecting Games for detailed description
4.5 SAVING A GAME of this procedure). Drag them from the list to the notation. This will bring up the
To save changes in a game, select Edit | Save game in the main menu or click on the
Game drag & drop options dialog box. Proceed as described above.
icon, or press the [Ctrl] [S] key combination. This command is accessible when the
current base is not Read only, otherwise you can save changes to the clipboard. When
you close the View game window or switch to another game, the Confirm window will
4.7 MULTIMEDIA SUPPORT
appear, asking you: Game is modified. Save changes to clipboard? When annotating games in View mode, you can add the multimedia annotations
If the current base is not Read only then the game will be saved to disk. Note that (images, video and audio) to the moves. See description of this mode in manual
if the ELITE base was not Read only and you have changed and saved a game document on DVD.
then you would have to restore ELITE from your DVD. Don’t be afraid if you

30 31
 5. PLAYING ENGINES AND ANALYSIS
5.1 PLAYING ENGINES
CHESS ASSISTANT provides complete program playing facilities with the built-in
playing engines. Apart from them, many other chess engines (i.e. programs that
play chess) can be linked up to CHESS ASSISTANT. This permits you to play
against a computer, analyze with different engines, and watch them playing
against each other. CHESS ASSISTANT brings with it a few of the very best
engines available, and the possibility to connect countless more.
Your DVD includes:
• RYBKA 2.3 - a GM level engine set as the default one.
• RUFFIAN. This recently appeared program by Perola Valfridsson is the
strongest among the freeware engines.
• DELFI. This recently emerged strong playing program was developed by
Fabio Cavicchio.
• CRAFTY.
• RUSSIAN DRAGON. This engine is obviously weaker than the programs listed
above. In the lower pane there is a list of the linked Engines with their Name, Type,
CHESS ASSISTANT has its own GUI (graphical user interface) for playing and Path and Parameters, and built-in engines are already present in the list. To link
analyzing. From this viewpoint, all playing programs can be divided into internal other programs, as example, RYBKA, click on Add, and the Edit chess
and external. You invoke both of them from within CHESS ASSISTANT, but the program parameters window will appear.
external tools operate in their own GUI, while the internal ones use CHESS
ASSISTANT’s interface.

5.2 LINKING PLAYING ENGINES

RYBKA 2.3, RUFFIAN, DELFI, CRAFTY and DRAGON are built-in and do not require
linking. All other programs you plan on using, must be linked to CHESS
ASSISTANT according to the following procedure. Naturally, the program you’re
linking to CA must already be installed on your computer.
The window shown in the next figure can be called up in five ways:
• By selecting Engines | Engines setup;
• By selecting Tools | Options | Engines;
• By selecting Tools | Chess engines setup;
• By clicking on the small arrow to the right of the icon in the
toolbar and selecting Chess engines setup from the drop-down menu;
• By pressing [Alt] [F11].

Choose engine’s Type from the drop-down list, specify the Path with the help of
the button with three dots and enter the program name in the Name text box.
32 33
If you mark the Allow CA to use Endgame TB check box then, as soon as a shown when playing against an engine.
position available in the tablebases arises on the board, CHESS ASSISTANT will Symbol. Evaluation will be shown as, for example, ±, µ etc…
use variations and evaluations from the tablebases instead of the moves Absolute number. Evaluation will be shown as positive if White has
suggested by the playing engine. Choose the Opening book from the drop-down the advantage and negative if the advantage is Black’s. For instance
list and adjust it in the Setting books against opponents window which appears +0.48 if White is slightly better, and –4.67 if Black has a decisive
after pressing the Advanced button. advantage (1.00 stands for pawn value).
The Parameters pane allows you to adjust some settings of the linked engines, Relative number. Evaluation will be shown as positive if the side to
therefore it looks different depending on the selected Type. In any case, the Hash move has the advantage or negative if the side to move is at a
tables size is the most important parameter. In order to have CHESS ASSISTANT disadvantage. Both. Evaluation will be shown as, for example,
operate at maximum speed, the default value is 8 MB, but it makes good sense to ±(+1.22), µ(–1.22) etc…
increase this setting. • Sensitivity. The better the “sensitivity”, the more time CHESS ASSISTANT


takes for its own GUI and the slower the engine operates. When the
“sensitivity” is decreased, CHESS ASSISTANT takes less time for its own GUI
Tip:
and therefore the engine begins to operate quicker. You can select Low,
The hash tables play a very important role in analysis. Normal, High, or Maximum in the drop-down list.
To achieve analysis of the highest quality, we Play options
recommend that you analyze with one engine at a time
and set its Hash tables size calculated as the total • Display analysis. In this drop-down box you have the following options:
amount of your computer’s RAM divided in 2. Engine’s side – while the engine is calculating its move, you will see
the lines which it considers the best.
To edit an item in the Engines list, click on Edit, and the Edit chess program
parameters window will appear. Enter your modifications and press OK. To Both sides – no matter whose move it is, you will see the lines it considers
delete an engine from the list, press the Remove button, except for RYBKA best. This option works only when the Permanent brain check box in the
thatcannot be removed. Startup window is enabled (see Section 5.4 Playing Against an Engine),
otherwise this option will be treated as Engine’s side.
Linking the NALIMOV tablebases
At status panel – engine’s move and its evaluation will be displayed in
To link the NALIMOV tablebases to CHESS ASSISTANT, open the Tools | Engines | the bottom left-hand corner.
Link tablebases window and specify the path to the folder where they are stored
in the Endgame tablebases path box. A new line Endgame TB will appear in the Evaluation only – you won’t see the engine’s calculations, but you will
Engines list. see how it evaluates the current position.
None – you will see neither the engine’s calculations, nor its
5.3 ADJUSTING PLAYING ENGINES evaluations.
• Beep. If this option is On, the program will beep upon playing a move.
After you have linked the desired engines to CHESS ASSISTANT, you can adjust
• Online comment. If On, you will receive the engine’s commentary after a game.
them. Options, which are common for all the linked engines, are adjusted in the
• Pronounce moves. If On, the program will pronounce a move upon playing it.
General analysis options and Play Options screens. Specific options for
individual programs are adjusted with the help of the Personalities button. • Insert evaluation. If On, the engine will insert the evaluation of a position
after every move. Its appearance (as Symbol or as Absolute number) can be
General analysis options adjusted in the Evaluations and Statistics drop-down box in the Tools |
• Hints with arrows. If you enable this check box then you will see on the Options | View window.
chessboard the moves which it considers the best whilst the engine is • Insert depth. If On, the engine inserts the number of half-moves of the
calculating its move. The blue arrow gives a hint for the side to move, and shortest variation it calculated after every move. In other words, the number
the green arrow shows the reply move. These hints are visible in Infinite of half-moves shows the minimum depth all the legally possible moves
mode and while playing on the ICC under a computer or guest account. were calculated.
• Show score. In the drop-down list you can define the way the evaluation is

34 35
• Endgame tablebases path. This box is intended for specifying a path to the time spent by both players is shown above. Two button bars below the
folder where the endgame tablebases are stored. They may be used by CHESS chessboard were described in the Section 2.4 View Mode.
ASSISTANT in different analysis modes as well as as a standalone engine.
Use the buttons below the chessboard, toolbar icons and hot-keys.
5.4 PLAYING AGAINST AN ENGINE • To set up a position to play, click on the small arrow to the right of the
The most obvious use for an engine, apart from aiding you to understand the icon on the toolbar and select the desired command from the drop-
intricacies of a position, is as a training partner. You can play a game against any down menu.
of the linked internal engines.
• To set time control, click on the icon on the toolbar.
To start a new game from the starting position, select Engine | Play against an
• To stop the clock for a while, no matter who is to move, click on the
Engine | Play from starting position in the main menu, or click on the icon
on the toolbar, or press [F11]. To start a new game from the current position (in icon, and to resume the game, click on it again.
View or Tree mode), select Engine | Play against an Engine | Play from current • You can save the game in the ENGINEGAMES base and (optionally) fill
position in the main menu or press [Shift] [F11]. In View or Tree mode, you can in the game header fields. If the game is not finished yet and you don’t
want to continue it, press [Esc], and the program will offer you to
also click on the icon in the Engines section on the toolbar and then select Assign game result. Press one of the four radio buttons (1:0, ½, 0:1, or
Play from current position or Play a new game from the drop-down list. None), click on OK, and the Stop game window will appear. Select the
In all cases, the Startup window will appear, allowing you to select an engine, set desired action and press OK.
time control and adjust some other options. Select an engine from the drop-down • To adjourn the game, just save it in the ENGINEGAMES base as
list, adjust other settings and press Start. The program will open the base described above. To resume it, open the desired game in View mode
ENGINEGAMES (if it was not already open) and the window for the new game. To and select Engines | Play against an engine | Resume in the main
play as White (if you selected Human - Computer), simply make your first move menu or press [Shift] [Ctrl] [F11].
(as described in the Section 4.3 Entering Moves), and to play with the black • While playing blitz games, you may consider the option to promote a
pieces, press the [Spacebar] (or select Computer – Human beforehand). pawn to a queen by default. To enable it, select Always Queen in the
local menu of the chessboard.
• To receive the engine’s commentary after a game, enable the Online
comment check box in the Play options pane in the Tools | Chess
engines setup window. The program puts marks (?!, ?, ??) to your
moves which it considers weak, and suggests stronger lines.

5.5 ANALYZING WITH ENGINES

CHESS ASSISTANT includes a host of different analysis modes, including:
• Analysis in Infinite mode
• Analysis of a set of positions with markers
• Analysis of a set of positions in the background
• Interactive analysis
• Search for blunders
• Opening analysis
• Endgame tablebases analysis
• Game analysis
In the panel below the notation the program displays the lines it considers the
best, with the evaluations and calculation depth (in half-moves) to the left. The

36 37
The first four may be referred to as “manual” analysis; the last four may be To quickly switch between positions in the analysis lines, use the arrow keys or
called “automated”. Of course, this classification is very conditional, because in just click on any move in any line in the analysis window, and the position after
all these modes it is the computer that calculates variations. this move will appear on the chessboard. Make your move from this position on
the board, and the engine will immediately start to analyze it.
In “manual” analysis, however, it is you who play the leading role by selecting
positions, suggesting moves, adding and deleting lines, etc., while the computer is To control the analysis, use the buttons below the chessboard, toolbar icons and
only a tool in your hands. “Automated” analysis implies a deeper man-machine hot-keys.
partnership in the analysis process: all you have to do is to adjust the analysis
settings, and some time later you will receive an analyzed game or a set of games. • To exit analysis without saving the results, click on the button or
press [Esc].
CHESS ASSISTANT includes new algorithms, which makes program analysis
much more “intellectual”; these new approaches are explained in Section 5.5.4 • To exit analysis and insert the main line in the notation, click on the
Game Analysis. button or press the [Spacebar].
5.5.1 ANALYZING IN INFINITE MODE • If you wish to insert the main line of analysis to the game, but don’t
want to stop analysis and close the analysis window, press [Shift]
Infinite analysis can be called for either in View mode or in Tree mode. Place the
[Spacebar].
cursor at the position you wish to analyze; you have two options further.
1) If you select the Engines | Infinite analysis command in the main • To insert a side-line of analysis to the game and keep on analyzing,
click on this line and then press [Shift] [Spacebar].
menu, or click on the icon in the Engines section on the toolbar, or
press the [Spacebar], the program will run the engine that was used the • To insert the beginning of a side-line of analysis to the game and keep
last time. on analyzing, click on this line, place the cursor after the last move you
2) If you select the Engines | Infinite analysis… command in the main wish to insert and then press [Shift] [Ctrl] [Spacebar].

menu, or click on the small arrow to the right of the icon in the • If you wish to switch to the tree, but don’t want to stop analysis and
toolbar and select Infinite analysis… from the drop-down menu, or
close the analysis window, click on the icon.
press [Ctrl] [Spacebar], you will get the Start analysis dialog box with
a lot of different settings. Its detailed description is given at the end of • If you wish to view and comment other positions in the game, but
this section. don’t want to stop analysis of the current position and lose its results,
Let’s start with the first method, the simplest type of Infinite analysis, which click on the icon. While you view other positions, the program
does not require any adjustment. In a few seconds after you pressed the will keep on analyzing. To return to the “frozen” position, or to start
[Spacebar], a window with results of the analysis will appear. analyzing a new position, click on the small arrow to the right of the
The program shows the lines it considers the best, with evaluations and depths of
these lines to the left. The upper variation is bold-faced; it is the main one icon and select the desired action from the drop-down menu.
because it is the deepest, and after the analysis is finished, it will be inserted into • If you wish to change the engine that is analyzing, select a different
the notation as a comment. engine in the drop-down list to the right of the analysis panel.
The title bar of the analysis window displays the engine being used, the time spent,


the number of the currently calculated move in the list of all the legal moves, the
number of legal moves, the currently calculated move, the number of the calculated
Tip:
positions, the number of positions calculated per second, the number of hits to the
tablebases, the number of variations in multivariation mode, and (optionally) T (if The Infinite mode has a very useful feature: if you have
Consider moves only in tree panel is On) or ^T (if Ignore moves in tree panel is not closed the analysis window, the engine can learn
On) (see below for an explanation of these options). from its mistakes, accumulating its knowledge in the
hash tables.
38 39
Multivariation Infinite analysis with several different engines simultaneously • Multivariation. In the upper line the program will show the best
variation, with alternatives below.
Now let’s discuss the second method to launch Infinite analysis, which gives you
more possibilities. Select Engines | Infinite analysis… command in the main • Consider all moves. All the legally possible moves will be calculated.
• Ignore moves in tree panel. While analyzing, engines will skip the
menu, or click on the small arrow to the right of the icon in the toolbar and moves available in the tree panel. It is important to note that the tree
select Infinite analysis… from the drop-down menu, or press [Ctrl] [Spacebar], panel includes moves from the analyzed game even if they are absent
and the Start analysis window will appear. in the linked tree.
• Consider moves only in tree panel. While analyzing, engines will
analyze only the moves available in the tree panel.
• Opponent’s move. Engines will start to compute from the current
position, but with the opponent’s turn to move. That is, if it is White to
move, engines will analyze the current position with Black’s turn to
move, and vice versa. Use this command to foresee opponent’s threats.
• Adjourned multivariation. As a rule, engines rarely change their
variations when they reach a greater depth. This option allows the
quality of the analysis to increase by switching the engine to
multivariation mode after it reaches a specified Depth.
When the options have all been set in the Start analysis dialog box, press OK,
and in a few seconds the analysis window will appear.

5.5.2 ANALYZING A SET OF POSITIONS IN THE

BACKGROUND
You can set the program analyzing several positions, in one or in several
different games at the same time thanks to the background analysis mode (BGA).
Positions to be analyzed are arranged in PROJECTs. For each PROJECT you have to
specify an engine, the analysis time and priority. Positions from PROJECTs with
higher priorities are analyzed earlier. To create a new project, select Tools |
Background analysis manager in the main menu, right-click on Project and
select New Project in the local menu.
Other details on implementing various methods of the background analysis are
presented in the manual documentation on DVD and also in [Link] flash
animation.
The program offers you to choose Scheme from the drop-down box. By default it
is set as Chronological (1 engine). If you leave it unchanged, you will launch 5.5.3 SEARCHING FOR BLUNDERS
Infinite analysis as it was described above, i.e. with one engine on one panel.
You can very quickly locate blunders with the help of the internal engines.
Other schemes allow you to turn on a 2nd panel and to use two or even more
Create a dataset with the games you want to check (see Selecting Games for
engines. Instead of selecting a scheme from the drop-down list, you can simply
details), then while in List mode, call the Engines | Search for blunders
adjust analysis settings in the Panel 1 and Panel 2 sections. They are as follows:
command in the main menu, and the Set analysis properties window will appear
• Chronological. Variations will be displayed one by one as they were (see the picture below). Select an Engine from the drop-down list and set the
found by the engine, with the best variation bold-faced in the upper other options.
line.
40 41
 5.5.4 GAME ANALYSIS

 Tip:
If you don’t want any explanations, but just wish to
make the computer annotate entire games, allocating a
certain amount of time per game, see Menu commands
below.
Game analysis lets you combine almost all the analysis methods available in
CHESS ASSISTANT; moreover, the program analyzes and annotates game(s)
automatically. In CA 7.1 this mode was rewritten from scratch: new algorithms
make the program analysis much more human-like and “intellectual”. CHESS
ASSISTANT uses the same approach as a human chessplayer in a practical game.
For each one of the three stages (opening, middlegame and endgame) you can
apply different analysis methods; you can also set up commenting options, based
on whether the program will put exclamation and question marks to good and
bad moves.
Analysis methods
Depending on your settings, the program may use more or less detailed methods.
You can set up to three levels of verification, so that after a first analysis of all The more methods you use, the deeper it will analyze, and the lower the method
the moves (at a depth you specify), the moves that were identified as blunders is placed in the list, the better analysis quality it gives you.
are analyzed a second time at a greater depth, and after that even a third time at a
The following three methods can be applied only for the opening stage:
fixed time limit. Naturally, while searching the program will skip the moves
available in the opening library. • Search for novelty. The program will find a novelty and insert
Evaluation delta (in hundredths of a pawn) determines the minimum allowed references to the game’s predecessors.
difference between the game move evaluation and the evaluation of the move • Annotate opening. The program will annotate the opening basing on
suggested by the engine. Evaluation delta may be set in hundredths of a pawn (in the master evaluations (see Database with Master Evaluations) and
the Centipawns box) or as a difference between the chess evaluations (in the CAP (see CAP Data).
Symbols box). Chess evaluations are as follows: °; °/µ; µ; ³/µ; ³; =/³; =; ²/=; ²; ²/±; • Insert reference games. The program will insert valuable games as
±; ±/•; •. Evaluation delta between two neighboring evaluations is 1, Evaluation comments.
delta between = and ² is 2, etc. If the difference in evaluations is greater or equal A further six methods can be applied for all stages (opening, middlegame and
to the value set in both boxes of the Evaluation delta section, the move will be endgame).
considered a blunder. • Search for blunders. This method is described in Section 5.5.3.
For example, let’s set Evaluation delta as follows: Centipawns = 100 and
Symbols = 2. In this case the move that “blunders” 150 hundredths of a pawn, • Quick analysis. The program analyzes the game superficially, spending
but does not change the position evaluation, will not be considered a blunder. In approximately one second for each move. The main intention here is to
other words, a weak move in a won position, which does not miss the decisive get information on how the game developed. This is done in order to
advantage, will not be considered a blunder; the same refers to a weak move in a skip the final stage, in which the game result was already clear in the
hopeless position. future deeper analysis.
If the Set blunders class option is enabled, all the blunders discovered will be • Main analysis. This is a rather time-consuming step intended to find
included into the standard Blunders class (see Standard Classes for details). disguised subtleties.

43
42
 • Checking. When the program checks all improvements it has found on level is the most time-consuming; it combines all the methods mentioned above.
the previous steps, it may “change its mind” and reject alternative You can set different levels in the opening, middlegame and endgame. The
moves suggested earlier. program allows for very subtle tuning with the help of the Advanced button.
• Prolong lines (autoplay). The program analyzes all variations deeper In the middlegame you can optionally skip positions available in CAP; in the
(the depth is set by the user). This step can take time, therefore you are endgame it makes sense to use the tablebases (if you ordered the program to use
given an option to restrict the number of analyzed positions. the tablebases, but they have not been linked, the endgame will be skipped).
• Alternative moves. In order to prove that the improvements found are When the analysis is finished, the program annotates the game. If you wish to
the only ones, the program generates some alternatives and tests them. adjust the way it puts marks (!, ?!, ?, ??), press the Commenting options button,
Menu commands and modify the default parameters set in the Adjust commenting window.
Despite a large number of analysis methods available, making a choice between
them is easy. Select Engines | Game analysis in the main menu, and you will get
four options.
• If you are a beginner, click on Select method using time.

Depending on the difference in evaluations, the program divides moves into five
types. If the difference in evaluations is negative then the alternative move found
by the engine is weaker than the game move, and the latter is supplied with an
exclamation mark.
If the difference in evaluations is positive then the alternative move found by the
All you have to do is to set time restrictions in the Time panel, and the program engine is stronger than the game move, and the latter is considered a mistake. By
will offer you a set of analysis methods in the right panel. In the Time% panel default it is not supplied by any mark if the difference in evaluations is less than
you can increase the selected time. The more time you allot to the program, the 0.3; otherwise the program adds to the game move one of the following
more methods it will use and therefore the better results you will get. marks: ?! (dubious), ? (blunder), or ?? (decisive blunder).
Please note that the time spent may exceed the time allotted. The reason is that You can also choose Commenting type in the drop-down box (More details,
the engines may increase the analysis time if they “consider” that the game is Middle or Less details). The third approach allows you to analyze a game based
complicated. They can also decrease the analysis time if they “consider” that the on information stored in the chess trees. Call Engines | Game analysis |
game is simple, but this happens rarely. Comment game using tree in the main menu, and the Adjust commenting
If you are an experienced user, click on Select method using levels. This method window, displayed above, will appear. Select a tree with the help of the Browse
allows for more flexible adjusting, allowing you to choose from seven levels of button, set other options and press OK.
verification. The first level corresponds to the quickest analysis method (blunder
checking); of course one should not expect high-quality results here. The seventh
45
44
 6. ENTERING NEW GAMES more information). If the library is empty or doesn’t contain the white player’s
name, click on Add, so that the Add to library window appears.
You can enter a new game to either a new database or an existing one. Type in a player’s Name, ELO, Chess title, Birthday, Sex and FIDE ID. Press Add or OK,
Entering to a new base When you create a new base (see Section 11.1 and the entered player will appear in the Select from Players library of … base window.
Creating a New Base), the New game window appears, ready for entering the If you don’t want to define the current header field press the Undefined button.
game. (If this window has not appeared, check the Open view to new base box in All of the header fields are optional, so you can leave all of them undefined.
the Tools | Options | General window). If you want to correct a name in the list, press the Edit button and the Edit record #…
Enter the game header as described in Section 6.1 Entering a Game Header. Enter the window, very similar to the Add to library one described above will appear. Edit the
moves as described in Section 6.2 Entering Notation. To save the game, call the Edit | required fields, press OK, and the corrected information on the player will appear in the
Select from library Players of base… window.
Save game command, or click on the icon, or press [Ctrl] [S].
You can also attach the HugeBase (or Guru) library (by setting the
Entering to an existing base To enter a new game to an existing base, make sure that corresponding flag in the Select from library Players of base window) and take
this base is open and not Read only. Further, there can be two possible scenarios. First: the players' names from the HugeBase (Guru). Please do not forget to indicate the
the base has just been created and therefore doesn’t contain any games. Second: if the path to Hugebase(Guru) in Tools/options/general.
base already contains a number of games, switch to the View mode (those who prefer to
edit games in the List mode please read Section 6..3 Editing Headers in the List Mode).
In both cases, call the Edit | Add new game | Standard command in the main  Important:
When you are editing a library item, you are editing it
menu, or press the [Ctrl] [N] key combination, or click on the icon, so that in all the games of the base.
the New game window appear.
When the required player is present in the library list, click on his/her name and
6.1 ENTERING A GAME HEADER press OK. The Select from Players library of … base window will be closed, and
the white player’s name will appear in the New game window corresponding
Place the cursor on the White field. A gray button with dots on it is to the right part on
field of the Game header panel.
the field. It means that possible values of this field are stored in the library. Click on
the gray button and the Select from Players library of base window will appear. The values of the other fields stored in the library (i.e. Site, Event, Annotator,
and Source) can be filled in the same way. Place the cursor on the field, click on
the gray button with dots, and select the library list.
The header fields, which values are not stored in the library, don’t have any gray
button on the right. Just type in the values for these fields (Result, ECO, Date, Round,
Remark, White ELO, and Black ELO), or choose them from the drop-down list.
Any entered value can be deleted with the help of the local menu.
When entering the header, you may use the HUGEBASE library without attaching
it to the current database.
Press […] in the White field of the game header, and the Select from library
Players of base window will appear.
Enable the Huge base (Guru) option, and the window will split into two parts. The
upper part will display the HUGEBASE (Guru) library and the lower one – the library of
the current base. You can choose players from the upper part, and their names will be
automatically entered into the game header and, correspondingly, into the current base’s
library.
Whether a newly created base’s library is empty or not depends on the options To use only the current base’s library, disable the Huge base (Guru) option.
you selected while creating the base (see Section 11.1 Creating a New Base for
46 47
When entering the date, you can select from various formats. Click inside the Edit | Delete/undelete game command. You can also call this command from the
Date line, so that the Select date window appears. local menu or hit the [Delete] key. The game marked as deleted will be unmarked.
Choose DMY, MY or Y format. To change the year (or the month), click on the year The games marked as deleted can be physically removed from the disk. To do
label and then adjust the date, using the arrows on the sides of it. this, select the Base | Operations | Remove deleted games command (see also
Section 11.6 Compressing a Base). After executing this command, you will not
be able to recover the games that have earlier been marked as deleted.
6.2 ENTERING NOTATION
Note: When using the Base save as command all the games marked as deleted in
To enter the notation, just play out the moves on the chessboard as described in the Base will automatically be deleted
Section 4.1 Annotating Moves. To save the game, call the Edit | Save game
command, or click on the icon, or press [Ctrl] [S]. 8. EDITING GAMES
You can enter a game starting from any position. Clicking on the icon (or If you want to edit game notation, just enter new moves (see Section 4.1 Annotating Moves
pressing [Shift] [Ctrl] [S]) on the Position toolbar opens the Position operations for details) and if you want to edit a game header in View mode, simply enter new values
dialog box (as described in Section 3.2 Position Search). Set up a position on the (see Section 6.1 Entering a Game Header). To edit the game header in the list mode, call
chessboard using the mouse and piece palette. Right-click on the chessboard to the Edit | Edit cell command or to cancel the results of editing, select Edit | Restore game
call the local menu and to get quick access to the list of available hot-keys.
Specify the possibility of castling, who is to move and the next move number. or click on the icon before you leave the row with the game being edited.
With the help of the Save file as button you can save the position for future use. To load one of
the previously saved positions from the *.EPD or *.BRW files, press the Open file button, select 9. SETS OF GAMES
the necessary position, and press <Copy (see Section 3.2 Position Search for details).
It is usually more convenient to work with a set of games instead of the whole base.
Click on OK, then proceed to enter notation as usual.
The expression “set of games” (or “dataset”) has been used many times in the
previous sections. For instance, every search produces a set. You can also create a set
6.3 EDITING HEADERS IN THE LIST MODE by selecting desired games in the List mode.
You can edit game headers in the list window. Place the cursor on the header field
that you’re going to edit, for example, on White. To access this field, select Edit | Edit
9.1 SELECTING GAMES
cell in main menu, or press [Alt] [F2], or click on the gray button with dots on the First you have to mark the games you want to select. You can mark games in the
right part of the field (if available). Then enter the white player’s name as described list in two ways:
above (see Section 6.1 Entering a Game Header). To enter values for the other header 1) By highlighting
fields, place the cursor on the corresponding field, then press [Alt] [F2] etc. 2) By coloring
When the game header has been edited, switch to View mode and edit notation as
described in Section 6.2 Entering Notation. What’s the difference between “highlighted” and “colored?”
The highlighted games are marked only until the next operation is executed. The games
selected and colored will remain colored in the dataset in which you marked them, for as
7. DELETING GAMES long as the dataset is open. Please note that they will not stay colored in the database list. If
you want to mark a game in the database, you should include this game into a class.
To delete the current game from the list, place the cursor on it in the list window,
and select the Edit | Delete/undelete game command. You can also call this To highlight a game, click on a cell with a game number. To select a game by
command from the local menu or simply hit the [Delete] key. The deleted game coloring it, click on this game in the list and press the [Insert] key. If several games
will appear in a different color, which can be set in the Tools | Options | Fonts and are highlighted, pressing [Insert] will color them all.
colors window. If you don’t want to see deleted games in the list, disable the Show When the required games have been marked in some way (highlighted or
deleted games option in the Base | Properties window. colored), choose one of the following commands in the main menu: Dataset |
To recover a deleted game, enable the Show deleted games option in the Base | Create dataset from | Create dataset from highlighted games or Dataset |
Properties window, place the cursor on this game in the list window, and select the Create dataset from | Create dataset from colored games. You can also call
48 49
these commands from the local menu or by hitting [F9]. Note that the new set 9.2.2 WINDOWS EXPLORER STYLE CLASSIFIER
will be displayed in the same window while the original set is erased.
30 standard classes1 is quite enough, nevertheless one cannot foresee all the
How can I quickly select succession of games?
possible situations. As tastes differ, each user may wish to create his/her own
First you have to highlight a number of games. To do this, click on the first game
classifiers.
and then, pressing the [Shift] key, click on the last game of the succession. To
highlight the entire list, click on the cell above the game numbers on the title bar.
Press [Insert] when the necessary games have been highlighted. If there are both
selected and non-selected games among the highlighted ones, you will be asked
to choose Selection type.

If the colored games have been highlighted pressing [Insert] will cancel the selection.
To cancel the whole selection, call the Edit | Clear selection command.

9.2 CLASSIFYING GAMES AND POSITIONS

Every year enormous numbers of strong tournaments take place and countless games of
valuable theoretical relevance are played. Even if your own opening repertoire is very
narrow, it is quite difficult to set up your sail to every wind. Although you may find it
easier at first, you should not keep all your games and analysis in one database. It makes
good sense to carefully select and annotate games into a few small “self made” bases. What are the main advantages of the user classifier system over the classes?
However, before you say Jack Robinson, you will find that your “small” base turns into  Information on user classifiers is stored in the database files, so classifiers
a rather large one. To try and find several needed games, relying on your own memory, can be saved when you update your database.
is to search for a needle in a haystack. To speed up your access to the material in your  Classifiers look like a tree, which gives you maximum flexibility.
database, your chess database management system should have convenient tools for  Number of nested folders is unlimited.
classifying games and positions, and CHESS ASSISTANT offers you two such tools:
 And, perhaps, the most important thing is: despite the fact that some classifier is
standard classes and the WINDOWS EXPLORER style classifier with the user folders.
attached to some database, at the same time it is an independent object; thus it can
9.2.1 STANDARD CLASSES be saved as a template for future use and attached to any other database later on.
CHESS ASSISTANT offers you 30 standard classes. You can assign any of them to Every folder inside the classifier (that is, a node inside the classifier) can
a selected game by calling Tools | Options | Classes command. (See detailed keep the following information:
description of standard classes in the manual document on your DVD#3)
1The standard classes names are stored in the [Link] file. It is a text file
which can be edited manually with a text processor. Thus you can change them,
however that is not recommended unless you are an advanced user.
50
51
 Icon.
 Text.
 Position.
 Any search criteria, which allows games to be automatically classified with Adds a folder of the same level to the current folder. This command
just a mouse click. can be executed for all the levels except the root folder.
 List a set of games. The games may be included in the list either manually Adds a nested folder to the current folder.
or according to any search criteria and the program may differentiate Deletes the current folder. This command can be executed for all levels
between manually and automatically included games. except the root folder.
 Chess tree. Moves the current folder up one position.
 Another classifier. Moves the current folder down one position (you can also drag-and-
 Multimedia information: images, audio and video. drop the folder to its new position).

Of course, you can easily rearrange your classifiers and change the order Allows the editing of text or a diagram attached to the current folder.
of the folders with the hot-keys, toolbar, and local menus, or with the Allows the adjusting of various folder attributes, such as an icon,
help of the “drag and drop” technique. To make the layout to your liking, background, and font.
you can change fonts, colors, backgrounds, etc.
There is no limit to the number of ways you can use the classifier system. Before we Allows the attaching of images, video and audio files to the current
go further, just one more idea: maintaining your own opening repertoire database. folder.
Classify it and save the classifier as a template. Having downloaded some new games,
Calls the drop-down menu that gives you three options: to save the
attach this template as a classifier for the new games. From a huge number of the new
current classifier, to reload the classifier, or to reload its contents.
games the program will select the games that are relevant to your opening repertoire
and will offer you a suggestion for updating your repertoire database. You can select one or several folders in the Classifier window to perform some
operations with them. You can also drag-and-drop folders in the Classifier
To conclude this long introduction, we would like to emphasize the importance
window, attaching folders to a node of a higher level, or simply transferring the
of the classifier system, explained by the very wide scope of its eventual usage.
folder to another node.
It is obviously clear that we could not foresee every possible situation, therefore
we did our best to make this new tool as flexible as we could. Right-clicking on the Classifier window produces the local menu which allows
Now we hope the general ideas are clear so let’s proceed to such routine things the performing of various operations with the selected folder(s).
as dialog boxes, menus, commands, etc. You can find out more about working with references and other advanced
possibilities in Chess Assistant documentation on DVD.
To create a new classifier for a current database, select Base | Classifier | New in
the main menu or click on the icon in the toolbar and then click on New in 9.3 OPERATIONS WITH DATASETS
the Classifier operations window. The New folder options window will appear, Select Dataset | Disk operations | Other (The operations used most often, Save
allowing you to select a new classifier’s Type and to enter its Name. to disk and Load from disk, are put as separate items though they can be reached
You can also set various options for the new classifier. For example, pressing the Image by selecting Other too).
button calls the Select Image dialog. Associate any of the proposed images with the new The Dataset operations dialog box will appear (shown in the following figure). It
classifier, and the corresponding image will be displayed in the Classifier window. displays the Current dataset (above), Operation (on the drop-down list), second
When the options have all been set, press OK, and a new classifier’s window will operand (in the Selected line), and the resulting set.
appear. The following current database objects are included into the Operands list:
• All the open windows;
Building and editing tools:
• All the existing classes;
• All previously saved datasets.
52 53
In the Operation drop-down list you can select the following logical operations
with datasets:
10. THE OPENING TABLE MODE
Join The Opening Table mode in Chess Assistant presents many useful features of
other modes brought together to facilitate the study of opening theory.
Select Current dataset will be joined with the selected operand.
Intersect Toolbar
Select Current dataset will be intersected with the selected operand. The Path
resulting dataset will contain only those games, which are present in both the
Current dataset and the Selected operand.
Subtract
Choose Selected operand will be subtracted from the current dataset. The resulting
dataset will contain those games only, which are not present in the Selected operand.
Load
Choose Selected operand will be loaded (copied) into the current dataset. (You can also
call the Dataset | Disk operations | Load from disk command in the main menu). This
command joins the Selected operand with the Current dataset. If you want to copy the
operand to a new window, click on the base name on the object bar.
Save
To save the current dataset as a file, choose Current dataset will be saved to disk
and press the Proceed button. (You can also call the Dataset | Disk operations |
Save to disk command in the main menu). The Enter new dataset name a dialog
Tree window
box will appear. Type in the Dataset name, press OK, and the new dataset will
appear at the end of the Operands list.
In the Dataset operations window you can also rename and delete datasets. To
rename a dataset in the Operands panel, highlight the dataset you want to rename,
and click on the button (on the left part of the window). Edit the name and
click on Proceed when done. To delete a dataset, highlight it in the Operands
pane, and click on the button. Annotation
window Variation
Copying several games from one dataset to another
List window Table window window
Select the games to be copied in the first list window. Place the mouse pointer on
any of the selected games, press the left button and drag the mouse either to the
second list window or to the second dataset icon on the object bar. You can find here all the attractive features of the encyclopedic opening table
Saving dataset as a base together with options of replaying the table variations, analyzing them, setting
Call Dataset | Save as new base or press [Ctrl] [B]; this will produce a Select marks for interesting positions that you may find in variations and annotating
new base name dialog box. Choose a folder for the new base in the Look in text them with the aid of Chess Assistant’s friendly user-oriented interface. Many of
line, and type in the new Base name. Press the Select button and the Create new the necessary operations, such as positional search, are performed with a single
base window will appear. Optionally you can: mouse click.
• Type in your comment for this base Further than that you can navigate between several positions while continuing
• Copy libraries (see Section 3.1 Header Search for explanation of the your work in this mode. At any time you can start the analytical engine. When
libraries) moving along a Path line or inside the opening table, the New table function
• Resort bases with the Define the sort order button (see Section 11.2 allows you to reconstruct the opening table. The positions for which you have
Copying a Base for description of this procedure). created the opening tables are stored in global trees and you can easily navigate
between them. This is an especially useful feature of the Opening table mode,
Press Finish when the options have all been set.
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since it helps you to examine different opening variations, positions and plans of
play by examining master’s evaluations and/or supplying the evaluations of your
own.
A very important feature of the Opening Table mode is its link to classifiers.
Chess Assistant’s classifiers are a powerful means of working with the chess
databases, they help you to maintain the structure of large arrays of games,
positions and other chess data. Classifiers will save you time and effort, being a
tool that facilitates access to the games within the database, since the folders of
the classifiers contain the results of previously performed searches, sometimes
very complicated ones. You can export a classifier from one database and import
it to another, which makes it easier for you to manage the databases’ content. At
the same time, the classifiers are rather abstract sets of classes and when working
with classifiers, you have to undertake several additional steps to get directly to Here in the figure above a screenshot fragment is given with the Path window’s
the chess games and chess positions. Meanwhile, the Opening Table mode is local menu. Using this menu you can perform the following operations:
directly linked to the CHESS OPENINGS ENCYCLOPEDIA database’s classifier. It New table – this command allows you to build the opening table for any position
allows instant browsing of the content of this classifier. You can launch the that occurred in the path variation. You can move forward or backward along the
Opening Table mode immediately from this classifier’s window by clicking the path variation and construct several opening tables. This is a very useful
Tree button’s drop-down list in Chess Assistant’s main toolbar and then selecting function; implement it to select an opening table with an optimal number of
the Tree Tables menu item. Using the Opening table mode, you can instantly add variations that you can easily perceive and/or memorize.
a variation to the classifier, thus enriching its content.
As you can see in Figure 1, the main working area of Chess Assistant’s window History… – this command is equivalent to pressing the History button on
in the Opening Table mode includes several components. We will briefly the toolbar (see description below). It allows you to browse the positions from
describe them here together with their functionality. which you created the opening tables.
Key positions… – using this option you can browse through positions that you
Path window marked as the key positions. When you click the dark triangle to the right of the
History button, its local menu opens allowing you to browse either all of the
You can launch the Opening Table mode from any of Chess Assistant’s window opening tables or just the key positions.
where the chessboard presents itself, for example, the View Mode. When you are Open game – this command automatically creates a subset of games from the
examining a game, make some moves from the game notation to proceed to a HUGEBASE (Guru), which has in common the current position on the path line –
position and select the Advanced | Opening tables menu item in the main menu. or the point, from which you call this command. Then it launches the View mode
for the first game in this subset.
A special button is also added to Chess Assistant’s main toolbar; when you Open list – this command is similar to the previous one but instead it opens the
move the mouse pointer to it a pop-up label “Create Opening Table” appears. list of a new subset, not the View. When you practice a little with the Opening
This button can also be used to launch the Opening Table mode. These are two Table mode, you will appreciate its facility to improve the access to the large
ways of launching the Opening table mode. When you do so the Opening table databases.
mode is launched and the initial moves of the game leading to the selected Analyze – starts the analytical engine for the current position. The analysis is
position are displayed in the Path window. We interpret this line as a path that displayed in the Engine tab below the Tree window.
connects the initial position and the selected position. Chessboard
The chessboard is simply a visual representation of the chess notation in the Path
window and the Table window. At the same time as you move forward or back
in the Path line or in the Table with the arrow keys the position on the
chessboard changes.
When the blinking cursor is placed inside the Path window and you make a
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move on the board, then the path line is continued or a sub-variation is added to you will find yourself actually in the position immediately before the last move.
it. However, making moves on the board in this mode does not achieve anything To proceed to the position after the last move in the variation, click the green
meaningful; use it when you need to create a new opening table. You can also triangle symbol or press the right arrow key.
make moves with the mouse on the board when the blinking cursor is inside the Clicking with the right mouse button in the Table window calls up the opening
Variation window; in this case a move that you make is added as a new variation. table’s local menu which contains its specific commands. The picture above
The chessboard also has its local menu but that menu contains specific represents a screenshot fragment of this local menu.
commands referring to the chessboard settings; we won’t dwell on them here. New table – this command rebuilds the opening table. You can navigate to some
position in the opening table and then choose this option to examine the arising
Table window position in detail. It is also possible to use the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl] + [U] to
This is the main component of the new mode. Here you can find all the relevant construct the new table. All the tables that you have built are stored and you may
information concerning the selected position, displayed in a form of an later return to some previously built table using the toolbar (see description
encyclopedic opening table. Generally, this is a set of variations supplied with below).
the final evaluations. At the same time, the Table window combines the Add to classifier – this is a core function of the new mode. You can also call it by
advantages of the encyclopedic opening table and those of Chess Assistant’s
View mode. clicking the button on the toolbar. This operation can insert a folder
corresponding to the selected variation into the CHESS OPENINGS ENCYCLOPEDIA
database’s classifier. Note that this feature can be used to develop the structure
of the classifier by adding new sub-folders to it.
Add to report – this function automatically creates a new game, an entry into the
REPORTS database that is stored in BASES\TEMPORARY subfolder. This game
contains a variation from the opening table, which you chose to be placed into
the report. When working in the Opening table mode you can select several
variations and transfer them into the report; moreover, you can create several
opening reports. Remember that you will have to save the report game after you
have finished your work. This is yet another way of obtaining some stable results
of your work in the Opening table mode, which can later be reproduced and used
in your other activities such as annotating your games, etc.
Set evaluation to variation – this opens the Evaluation editor window that allows
you to set the desired evaluation. Another way to call the Evaluation editor is to
press the shortcut keys [Ctrl] + [E] on your keyboard.

You can replay the lines and move between them either by pressing the arrow
keys on your keyboard, or by clicking with the mouse directly in the table. Some
moves in the table are displayed in bold typeface. When you move the mouse
pointer to a move marked with the bold font, the floating pop-up label appears
with the text “Highlight comment: move has variations.” These are the sideline
variations not presented in the table; you can also find them displayed in the
Variations window. They represent the continuations considered worse than the
ones given in the table. The green triangle marker at the end of the main lines
represents the end of each variation. The last move of the variation is available Various levels of the evaluation can be set with the option buttons. You may also
for display in the table, when you click it or transpose to it with the arrow keys

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wish to use the slider bar in this window to set a quantitative evaluation.
Mark as key position for White, Mark as key position for Black – these
commands are used to change the position’s status. The key positions are also
stored by Chess Assistant and you can navigate between them with the aid of the
History button on the toolbar (see the description below). This option is very
useful when managing a large number of opening variations; you can mark some
positions that you want to memorize as key positions and later return to them.
Open list, Open game – these commands are used to transpose to other modes of
Chess Assistant. When you right-click anywhere in the table and select the Open
list command, the List mode is started and a window is displayed with the list of
games where the current position occurred. The Open game command launches
the View mode, opening a window with the first game from that subset (list).
Note that you can also click the Open list and View game buttons in
Chess Assistant’s main toolbar, which will start either the List mode or the View
mode. This option is available when you position the mouse pointer in any place
of the Opening Table window where the chess notation is presented such as in Enter your comment in the text line as it is shown in the picture. You can also
the Path window, Table window and Variation window. Chess Assistant will enter chess symbols by clicking on their icons above.
automatically perform the positional search operation and present the results in a Here below you can see an example of annotations to a move and to a position
separate window. The position used for this operation is indicated by the mouse displayed in the annotation window:
pointer in the Opening Table mode or it is the last position in your current
working session in this mode.
Analyze – use this command to call the analytical program. After you have
chosen it the infinite mode of analysis is started and variations suggested by the
engine are displayed in the Analysis window together with evaluations, the depth
of calculation and time spent by the engine.
This window properties – selecting this command is equivalent to clicking the

Properties button on the toolbar (see below).

Annotation window
This window displays the text and symbolical annotations to the moves and As you can see annotations to a move and to a position are displayed on different
variations in the Opening table. You can open it either by calling a lines of the Annotation window. The move to which the annotation is given is
corresponding command from the local menu, or by clicking the annotation also automatically inserted there. Note; since you print in grey-scale you may not
editor button on the toolbar. This operation calls the annotation editor dialog, notice the color blue, but rather note that it is blue in the application. Use this
here you enter the desired commentary. option to supply some short comments to the chosen moves and positions when
working with an opening variation; you can easily remove them later by right-
clicking in the Annotation window.
Variation window
Here the variations to the moves from the Table are displayed. When you move
in the Table to the highlighted move the variations appear in this window. These
are continuations considered inferior to the Table move; another type of variation
As you can see it is possible to either set or delete an annotation to a move or a is the lines continuing after the last move of the variation in the table.
position. When you select annotate move the Position\move comment dialog
opens:
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 (list). Note that you can also click the Open list and View game buttons
in Chess Assistant’s main toolbar, which will start either the List mode or the
View mode. This option is available when you position the mouse pointer in any
place of the Opening Table window where the chess notation is present such as
in the Path window, Table window and Variation window. Chess Assistant will
automatically perform the positional search operation and present the results of it
in a separate window. The position used as a criterion in this operation is
indicated by the mouse pointer in the Opening Table mode or it is the last
position in your current working session in this mode.
Analyze – this command starts the analytical program; the engine variations are
displayed in the Engine window to the left of the Variation window.
Tree window
The Tree window is already familiar to us from the other Chess Assistant modes.
The image above represents a screenshot fragment with the Variation window’s It displays complete tree information concerning the position on the chessboard –
local menu. Using this menu you can perform the following operations: the moves played in this position, the quantity of games and where they occurred,
New table – when you click with the mouse inside the Variation window percentage and success diagram and evaluations from the various trees. There is
containing some variation, the blinking cursor appears here indicating the current nothing special to be said about the Tree window except that it really is the main
position. This position immediately is displayed on the chessboard. Suppose that component of the Opening Table mode. You can think of the entire mode as an
this position interests you in some way, in which case you can quickly create a advanced viewer\editor for the tree. The information that is stored in the tree in
new opening table for it using this command. compact quantitative form can be explicitly displayed in the Opening
Set evaluation to variation – this opens the Evaluation editor window (see
above) that allows you to set the desired evaluation. In this case, the evaluation
refers to the entire variation rather than to some particular move. The evaluations
are displayed highlighted with blue to the left of the variation in the Variation
window as is shown in the figure below.

Delete variation – removes the selected variation.

Make the variation a table line – inserts the selected variation into the table
Change evaluation for table line – when you have selected some variation to be Table mode. Here you can find a detailed grounded explanation of the tree
transferred into the table, you can set an evaluation for it using this command. evaluations together with variations and plans of play involved. The quantitative
The familiar dialog of the Evaluation editor opens. evaluations of the tree is replaced with symbolical chess evaluations and
Open list, Open game – these commands are used to transpose to other modes of variations in the Opening Tree mode; at the same time any of your comments,
Chess Assistant. If you right-click anywhere in the table and select the Open list annotations and evaluations that you make while working in the Opening Tree
command, the List mode is started and a window with the list of games is mode are stored in global trees (USERBOOK, etc.).
displayed, where the current position occurred. The Open game command The Tree window displays all the possible continuations in any position together
launches the View mode, opening a window with the first game from that subset with an evaluation and success bar. Use it to rectify your positional judgments
while working with the opening tables.
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Right-clicking in the Tree window calls the local menu shown in the figure first button instantly adds the engine’s variation into the Variations window, the
below. The following operations are available in this menu: second stops the analysis. Both tabs of this window are shown in the picture
New table – this command builds the opening table for the position that occurs below.
after the move selected in the Tree window.
Add move to variations – adds the move from the Tree window to the Variation
window. Note that later you may wish to add this move to the opening table as a
line, then add this new line as a sub-folder to the classifier or add this variation to
the report.
Annotate move…, Annotate position… – both these commands call the
Position\move comment dialog box that allows you to add annotation to the
selected move or to the position that occurs after this move.
Evaluate move… – calls the Evaluation editor dialog (see above).
Priority – Using this command you can change the status of the selected move,
Both these tabs have their own local menus. While the local menu for the Games
setting it to Important, Not important or to None.
from statistics tab is the same as the local menu for the Table window, the local
Open game, Open list – both these commands automatically create a sub-set of
menu for the Engine tab includes two commands – Exit analysis and Add
games in which the selected move happened and then display either the list of
variation to my variations. These commands are equivalent to pressing the
games in this sub-set or the View window for the first game in this sub-set.
corresponding buttons of the Engine tab – the first one interrupts the analysis and
These are equivalent to the corresponding buttons in Chess Assistant’s main
the second one inserts the most recent engine variation into the Variations
toolbar. Analyze – Launches the analytical program for the position after the
window.
selected move from the tree. This window properties – equivalent to pressing the
Toolbar
Properties button on the Opening Table toolbar (see below)
Evaluate
List (Games from statistics) window, Analysis (Engine) window Forward History Annotation variations Properties
Below the Tree window you can find the List window (Games from statistics). editor
The Opening Table mode is actually an advanced means of access to information
stored in databases; it is a powerful extension of the Tree mode. When you
replay the lines of the Table, you can see that the list of games from the opened
database automatically appears in this window. If necessary, click the Show
games button on the Opening Table toolbar to display the list. Here we find
an example of the most important function of the chess tree realized, the
accelerated access to databases. If you double-click any item in this list, this will
Back
open the View mode for the selected game. Use this option to observe how the Export Show
game may evolve in a selected variation. current games Add White and
The Games from the statistics window also have their local menu, similar to the table variations Black on
New table to classifier
Table window local menu. different
The Games from the statistics window is actually a docked window with several lines
tabs; one of them is entitled Games from the statistics. Another tab appears when When you are in the Opening Table mode you can see its toolbar over the Path
you click the button with the eye icon on Chess Assistant’s toolbar (or hit window. It contains the buttons that allow you to execute the most frequently
spacebar on your keyboard). This tab is called Engine; it is used to display the called operations in this mode.
variations that the default analytical engine calculates for the position from the New table – clicking on this button instantly updates the content of the opening
Table. There are two buttons in this tab; one of them allows you to insert the table. Drop the mouse pointer in the Path window. When you navigate along the
path variation, you can click the New table button at anytime. It is an especially
engine variation into the game and another one exits the analysis . The
useful function; it may happen that the Table window contains too much

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information for a single working session. In this case you may choose to move This dialog box presents you with several fragments from the opening tables you
forward along the path line until you find a simpler position with fewer have built, together with the control elements that help you to navigate between
variations. Then click this button and the opening table will be re-constructed. the positions. It is an extremely useful feature of the Opening table mode. If you
Back – this button allows you to return to a previous position for which the make a few moves from some interesting opening and then build the opening
opening table has been built. If you have moved to and fro along the path table, it will contain an overwhelming number of variations and you may find
variations and have built tables for several positions, this button helps you to yourself lost facing that bulk of information. It makes sense to make a few
navigate between these positions. moves more along some particular line and update the opening table from that
Forward – use this button to transpose to the next opening table; by default it is position, then you can more easily understand the development of the game in a
inactive but becomes activated when you have built several opening tables and fewer number of variations. Any time you want you can return to the previous
are currently watching the first one of them. position using the Show history option and this dialog box. Repeating this
Export current table – clicking this button allows you to export the table to a procedure several times greatly promotes the process of learning an opening that
*.PDF, *.BMP or *.JPG file. The Save dialog box appears; indicate the export file is unfamiliar to you and enhancing your understanding of its strategic patterns.
name there and click the OK button to start exporting. You can use the export The upper drop-down list in this dialog contains options that help you to filter
files for preparing publications. the history of the positions. You can choose between the various tables built
History – usually this button is used together with the Back button to navigate From the tables start position, From current position and From initial position.
between several positions. It has a dark triangle to the right of it; clicking here The last option indicates the widest possible choice since all the tables (or rather
opens the local menu for this button: the paths), may be prolonged backwards to the initial position. The lower drop-
down box contains options that allow filtering the tables by the time they have
been built – Session, Today, Three days, Week, Month and Full. In this case too,
the last option refers to the entire set of tables. Select the necessary option and
click Go to position button.
If you have marked some positions in the opening tables as the key positions, then
you may choose the Show key position option. This action opens the key positions
dialog box that is similar to the one described above. The difference is that the key
Here Show history option opens the history dialog box: positions are more “time-persistent” – they are stored for a longer period of time
than all the opening tables that you build. You can mark position as a key position
for White or a key position for Black with the aid of the local menus.
Show games – this button toggles to and from the display of games in the List
window (Games from statistics). If you work with a large database, it may take
some time to find and display games on a slow computer.
Annotation editor – clicking this button displays the annotation editor window.
This button also has its own menu; you can annotate a position or annotate a
move, you can also delete annotations you have made.
Add variations to classifier – this button realizes a function that connects the
opening table and the classifier of the OPENING ENCYCLOPEDIA. Anytime you can
add the variation from the table into the classifier by clicking this button. A
corresponding folder appears in the classifier and all the necessary operations
(finding the games and linking them to the folder) are performed automatically.
If the button is inactive (colored grey), then this means that the variation is
already presented in the classifier. Otherwise you can use the button to add any
variations that you are currently studying.
Evaluate variations – this command opens the evaluation editor dialog. You
can add your evaluation to some variation; in which case the evaluation you have
entered is shifted towards the beginning of the variation in contrast to the

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evaluation you have added to some move. Your evaluations are stored in the
Userbook together with your comments.
White and Black on different lines – this button toggles the way the opening
table is presented. By default all the variations are given in one line, Black’s
moves follow White’s. You may wish to change this. Click on this button and
Black’s move will be displayed below White’s.
Properties – clicking this button displays the Properties dialog box (There also
is Opening Table tab in the Options dialog box that may be called with Tools |
Options item of the main menu.) This dialog box has two tabs – General and
Displaying.

In the upper part of the Displaying tab, Properties dialog, you can find three
option check-boxes.
White and black on different lines – this option toggles the way the variations
are displayed in the table. You can set White’s and Black’s moves in the same
variation to be displayed either on a single line of text or on two different lines,
Black’s move under White’s.
Clicking the Table font… button allows you to define the attributes of the font
used for displaying variations in the table. With the standard Windows Font
dialog box you can select the size and other properties of the font. There is a
label to the right of the button; it is used for displaying a text fragment with the
font you have selected – you do not have to apply your changes to see the result.
You can also modify the color used to mark out the annotated move. Clicking the
Annotated moves color button displays the palette drop-down list, where you can
select a color for the highlight. Clicking the Other button there displays yet
The General tab of the Properties dialog box lets you define the general parameters
another dialog box, the standard Windows Color dialog.
of the opening table, such as the maximum number of lines and the maximum
Show marks rectangle – this option toggles the display on and off of the special
depth of the variations displayed there. The default values are given in the figure
rectangular field to the left of a move, where your marks are displayed as color
above; you may try several values to select the appearance of the opening table that
markers. You can set or remove the mark by clicking with the mouse directly
suits you the best. Note, the Main tree text line is left empty by default. This
inside these rectangles. Use these markers during a single working session with
indicates that the evaluations to the moves and variations that you see in the
the opening table to identify the positions that need your special attention.
opening table are taken from the Eval tree. If you change this parameter by clicking
the button with the ellipsis to the right of it, then the evaluations may become
unavailable to you; you must be an advanced user to indicate some other tree as a
source of evaluation. We recommend leaving it as it is.

In the picture above you can see a fragment of the opening table with the moves
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placed in different lines. There are marks rectangles to the left of the moves’
notation; clicking them results in the color markers appearing.
Show games from the Hugebase – this button forces the games from the
HUGEBASE to be displayed in the list window below the tree. By default, the
games are automatically displayed in the Games from statistics window.
However, you may wish to alter this by un-pressing the button, and sometimes
you may need to press it again to display the list of games there.

11. OPERATIONS WITH DATABASES

Base properties
To obtain more information about the current base, call Base | Properties. This
will produce the Base properties dialog box that displays the base Type, its full
name (Path), Length (number of games) and Comment.
Mark the Read only check box with a tick if you wish to prevent changes being made to
the base. You can also specify whether to show deleted games in the list.
One base or more?
Which is preferable? To store chess data in a single large base or in several You can sort the new base according to your choice. Enable the Resort base
smaller ones? There is no universal answer. The huge database allows access to option, click on the Define the sort order button and the Select the sort order
all the games. On the other hand, tasks done on several smaller bases are quicker for… dialog box will appear. To add a criterion for resorting, move it to the Sort
if you don’t need to work with the entire huge base and have separated what is on panel. In order to do this, click on the desired criterion in the Not selected
needed. You should also note that a huge database consumes a lot of disk space.
panel and press the button. Should you wish to use all the criteria, press the
11.1 CREATING A NEW BASE
Call the Base | New command in the main menu (or press [Alt] [F5]), and the button. The and buttons will do the opposite. To change the
Select new base name dialog box will appear. It looks like the Select base to open
order of criteria, click on one or several items and move them with the and
dialog box (see Section 2.1 Opening a Database). Select a folder in the Look in text
box, choose the Base type from the drop-down list and enter the Base name. Press buttons. Press OK when the Sort order has been set.
the Select button and the Create new base dialog box will appear.
Select the library. By default the program takes the library from the last base you 11.3 JOINING SEVERAL BASES
worked with. To copy a library from another base, click on Browse and choose the
base in the Select base dialog box. To clear the choice and create a new library, If you call the Base | Save as command and select a name of an existing (but
select Clear. When done, press the Finish button and the new base name will closed) base instead of a new name, the program will give you a Warning
window with a choice between Append and Overwrite.
appear on the object bar.
To add other bases to the current one, make sure it is not Read Only and call the
11.2 COPYING A BASE Base | Join command. The Joining other bases to… dialog box will appear.
Press the Add button and select the bases to be joined in the Open base to join
To make a copy of the current base (any format), select the Base | Save as command.
dialog box. Press the Select button and the Joining other bases to… dialog box
The Select new base name dialog box will appear. Select a folder in the Look in text
will appear again, in which the Copy libraries option has the same meaning as
box, choose the Base type from the drop-down list, and enter the Base name. Now
above. Press Join when the options have all been set.
press the Select button and the Create new base dialog box will appear.
It is similar to the one shown in the figure above. The only difference is that you You can also join bases with the Base | Convert bases... command (see Section
cannot select the library as it is taken from the base being copied. If the Copy 11.5 Converting Bases from Other Formats).
libraries check box is On that means the entire library is copied. Otherwise the
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only library items copied are those in use in the base being copied.
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11.4 DELETING A BASE 11.6 COMPRESSING A BASE
To delete a base, call Base | Delete. The Select base to remove a dialog box will The Base | Operations | Remove deleted games command is intended to
appear. Select the base to be deleted in the Look in text line and press the Select physically delete the games marked as deleted from the disk. See Chapter 8
button. The Confirm dialog box will appear, asking Do you really want to delete Deleting Games for details.
the base…? Answer Yes and the selected base will be deleted.
11.7 RESORTING A BASE
11.5 CONVERTING BASES FROM OTHER You can resort bases according to your choice. To do this, make sure that the
FORMATS base is not Read only, then call the Base | Operations | Reorganize command,
and the Select the sort order for dialog box will appear. Resort the base
CHESS ASSISTANT is capable of reading databases in the following formats: according to the procedure described in Section 11.2 Copying a Base.
*.DVDP (CHESS ASSISTANT for WINDOWS)
*.BFI (CHESS ASSISTANT for DOS) Read only 11.8 SEARCHING FOR DUPLICATES
*.CBF (CHESSBASE for DOS) Read only
This mode allows one to find and eliminate duplicate games either inside a single
*.CBH (CHESSBASE for WINDOWS) Read only database or by comparing two bases.
*.PGN (Portable Game Notation) The program produces two files, one of which contains a set of games it proposes to keep
*.ZIP (ZIP compressed files) (based on settings the user will have chosen beforehand) and the other contains a set it
*.EPD (EPD files) proposes to delete. You can simply accept this by selecting all or some of the games, mark
However, if you want to increase the speed of operations and fully access the them for deletion and then compress the base (see Section 11.6 Compressing a Base and
data, you should convert bases from other formats to the CHESS ASSISTANT Chapter 8 Deleting Games for details). You can search in up to two bases at a time and all
format. To do this, select the Base | Convert bases command (this command also the games in both bases will be treated as a single base for duplicate searching purposes.
allows you to join several bases of any format into a single base in CA format), Comparisons can be made for both game headers on any of the header fields and game
and the Converting databases dialog box will appear. moves for any range of moves. You can specify whether one game is included in another,
Enter the list of bases to be converted in the Bases window; press the Add button, denote games that differ only in their comments, and whether text is to be used or not when
and the Select base to convert dialog box will appear. Select the required base deciding if games match. You can choose how the program will present the results of a
(let’s call it Oldbase). The program prompts you to enter a Full base name in the search by specifying three different preferences and their order.
New base properties section. Let’s call this base Newbase. To do this, activate the necessary database, then select Base | Operations |
Now, you would like to convert Oldbase to Newbase. If you want to give Newbase Search for duplicates in the main menu, and the Find Duplicates dialog box will
a new name, press the Browse button, and the Select new base name dialog box appear. It contains three sections: Bases, Criteria, and Results.
will appear. Select a folder in the Look in text box, choose Chess Assistant for For a detailed explanation of this mode please refer to the full documentation
Windows (*.DVDp) in the Base type drop-down list and enter the new Base name. available in the Manual folder on your DVD.
Press the Select button and the Converting databases dialog box will appear again.
To select Newbase from existing bases, press Browse, highlight the necessary 11.9 UPDATING FROM THE INTERNET
base in the Select new base name dialog box, press Select, and the Converting With the new Update functions you can download new games, as well as:
databases dialog box will appear again. In this case either Oldbase will be added
to Newbase or Oldbase will replace Newbase. 1) Upgrade the main executable file of your program;
Chess Assistant allows you to convert the contents of one particular field into 2) Upgrade the auxiliary files;
another one, inside a single base. Use Base | Operations | Convert Fields 3) Execute upgrading automatically at scheduled time intervals;
command in the main menu. 4) Using the script system, define what to do with downloaded files. You
may either save the obtained game databases unchanged or attach them
to Hugebase or some other game database. The scripts offered are the
72 sequences of
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commands performed on the game databases of Chess Assistant. You can See Chess Assistant manual document on DVD for detailed description of the test and
view/assign scripts using the main menu item Tree\ Scripts\ Manager. recovery operations’ options.

11.11 PACKING AND E-MAILING A BASE

Packing a base
Within CA you can pack a database into one file for transferring it to another computer
or sending via e-mail. All the database files can be packed into a single file so they can
be easily transferred from one computer to another. Multi-volume archives are available.
You can pack the database by calling the Base | Pack item in the main menu.
Define the source database name in the Base line of the Pack base window and
the archive file name in the Archive name line.
The Compress section allows you to select Multimedia files, Folders and Tree
for a selected database to be compressed.
The Block size line allows you to split the archive file into several files of a
selected size. This might beuseful when transferring files by e-mail.
At your request, checking out and downloading the subscription(s) may be performed
automatically at scheduled time intervals. By default, Chess Assistant retrieves the The packing operation results in the creation of a file with the *. zip extension.
subscription once a week. When obtaining the new subscription, you will see Chess You may unpack such a file by calling the Base | Unpack command in the main menu.
Assistant Automatic update dialogue (see previous page). The standard Windows Open dialog box will appear where you should choose the archive
After selecting the “Yes” button, the program allows you to adjust the settings file name. After selecting the archive the Decompress base window will appear.
defining the time intervals for the subscription downloads. When you select Choose a catalog that will contain the unpacked database, and indicate it in the
“No” button, you still have an opportunity to check the availability of new Save to: line.
updates manually.
Sending a base via E-mail
Chess Assistant allows you to send or receive a base via e-mail using no special
Downloading the subscription(s) manually mailing software.
Regardless of setting the automatic downloading on or off, you may check the In order to tune these modes a user has to call the Base | E-mail | Options
availability of new games and updates manually. command in the main menu and fill the fields in the opening window according
To do so, select the main menu item “Help\Update wizard\Automatic update”. to preferences of his/her mailing program.
Selecting this item calls for a sequence of dialogues which allows you to define
The base is sent via E-mail on calling the Base | E-mail | Send command in the
the process of updating your game databases and the program (see detailed
main menu.
description of the manual download method in Word document on DVD).
To receive the base via E-mail, select the Base | E-mail | Retrieve base
11.10 REPAIRING A BASE command.

In order to test the database of the CAWin type, call the Tools | Test base item in the main
12. LIBRARIES
menu. The window Scan database for possible errors and recoverable data will open. CHESS ASSISTANT keeps libraries of the players, places, events and sources
The database recovery operation is analogous to the test operation, but in the instead of coding them into each game score. The concept of libraries was
former case the recovered database is saved as a new one and the test protocol is described in Section 3.1 Header Search.
not created. Recovering the database is conducted by selecting the Tools | Repair
Editing a library
base… item in the main menu.
To open a window with the current base’s library list, select the Base | Library | Open
command in the main menu. The Open library window will appear allowing you to select
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which library you’re going to edit: Players, Places, Events, or Sources. Click 13.1 OPERATING A TREE
on the necessary item and the corresponding list window will appear. You
can treat the library list like a list of games: search for items in it, add and
delete items, drag items from one list to another and so on (as described in
Section 6.1 Entering a Game Header).
There is also a flexible utility for editing libraries. If you have any
experience operating different chess databases you are no doubt familiar
with the following annoying situation: instead of one player you find you
have three, four or perhaps even more. For instance along with Vladimir
Kramnik (RUS) you have Kramnik, [Link], Vladimir Kramnik etc. How
can one correct this?
The Multichange utility allows one to standardize game headers
automatically by replacing several records with one. You can select any
number of different name entries in any of the four different libraries and the
program will merge them into a single spelling. You can search for all these
spellings using substrings. The first name you select is taken as the correct
spelling and all the other selected entries are replaced by this one. You can
save every process in case you want to do the same multichange again with
the other libraries.

13. CHESS TREES

A chess game may be considered as a set of positions connected by moves, and a To enter the Tree mode, select the Search | Tree command in the main menu or
sequence of moves that leads from one position to another. Let’s call this
sequence of moves a path. Thus every game may be considered as a path that click on the icon, and the Tree window will appear.
begins with the starting position and ends at the final one. There are several types of trees, but functionally they are nearly identical from
the user’s point of view (for an explanation of them see Section 13.5 Different
The same approach may be used for a set of games and even for an entire
Types of Trees). In the drop-down box you can select one of them: Current base
database because every database is a set of games. As far as we know, each game
tree, Huge base tree, Direct tree, Evaluations, or Indexer.
is a set of positions connected by paths; consequently, a database may be
considered as a set of positions connected by different paths. The diagram displays the current position with buttons below the chessboard
If one approaches a database from this point of view, it’s quite possible that the similar to those in View mode. The path leading to the current position is shown
same position may occur in several different games but paths leading to this in the lower panel and the statistics of the current position are present in the
position are different. Likewise, there might be several paths from any position lower left-hand corner. You can move along the tree either by replaying moves
or in other words, several moves have been played. on the chessboard or with the arrow keys or by double-clicking on the necessary
Therefore there are two possible approaches: every database may be considered move; the tree will automatically update the information.
either as a set of games or as a tree, i. e. a set of positions connected by different The Move column displays a list of moves from this position, some of which are
paths. CHESS ASSISTANT offers you good tools for operating these chess trees. evaluated. Basically these evaluations are those of chess experts, but they also
take into account a user’s corrections. Detailed statistics for the current move are
shown to the right and below the list.
• The Q-ty column displays the number of games in which a move occurred.
• The % column shows the percentage of success for each move.
Calculated as % of won games + % of draws divided in 2.
• The following column displays the CAP.
76 • The BGA column displays the background analysis results.
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 • The Engine’s column shows evaluations obtained with the help of computer comment window will appear. Type a text commentary using the chosen chess symbols,
analysis within CHESS ASSISTANT. (They are stored in the [Link] click on OK, your commentary will appear in the Annotations column. If you have
and [Link] files in the BASES\TEMPORARY folder.) annotated a move it will be marked with a small * sign next to its number in the Move list.
• The Annotations column shows the user’s comments taken from the
Local menus
USERBOOK.
• Below the list you can see how many games with the current move Right-clicking on the Moves panel, or on the Path, or on the chessboard will
were won by White, won by Black, or drawn (as numbers and as a bring up the corresponding local menu. These three menus provide convenient
percentage; the red bar stands for won games, yellow – for draws, access to many of the functions intended for operating the tree.
green – for losses and the blue bar – for games with an undefined
result).
When you are inside the tree of any database, below the words Other moves you can
see all the moves available in the other trees which weren’t played in a game of the
current database. Variations, if any, are displayed in the lower right-corner. Any of the
columns listed above may either be shown or hidden
Coexistence of modes
The Tree gives you access to many operations possible in the View mode and
you can easily switch over from one mode to another. You can comment games
and analyze and the program will open a new window for every new mode. The
old windows will remain open as well as all the windows that are displayed on
the object bar, hence activating windows can be done by clicking on the
corresponding line on the object bar.
• To switch from the Tree to the List containing the games with the
The Markers menu lets you set markers and analyze the marked positions. Also
current position, click on the icon on the toolbar or press [F5]. you can Export marked positions to EPD, Import EPD analysis, or Analyze EPD.
• To switch to the View mode of the first game in which the current
The Navigation menu gives you access to the following commands:
position occurred, click on the icon on the toolbar or press [F2]. Markers. If you have some marked positions you can choose between Go
• To start analyzing the current position in Monitor mode, click on the to next position, Go to previous position, or Select position. The latter
command will bring up the Position browser window in which you can
icon in the Engines section on the toolbar or press the [Spacebar]. select the desired marked position.
• To start a new game from the current position, click on the icon in Analyzed. If you have some analyzed positions, you can choose between
the Engines section on the toolbar and then select Play from current Go to next position, Go to previous position, or Select position. The latter
position from the drop-down list or press [Shift] [F11]. command will bring up the Position browser window, in which you can
select the desired analyzed position.
• To get a report on the current position, click on the icon in the
Select opening. This command calls up the Opening navigator window
Position section on the toolbar.
in which you can select a position from the file containing different
Annotating in the tree openings and opening systems.
You can edit the existing expert evaluations, enter your own evaluations, Import positions from tree.
annotate moves and positions in the tree.
The Reset Tree command allows you to jump to the starting position of the game.
The Build ECO table command constructs an encyclopedic table from the
To annotate moves and positions, click on the icon in the Book section on the current position.
toolbar, then select the corresponding command in the drop-down box, the Position\Move

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The Show success bar command displays/hides the small bars in the % column; 3. Call the Huge base tree from the necessary position in View mode (select
thus allowing you to save screen space.
Advanced | Tree in the main menu or click on the icon).
4. Right-click on the Moves panel and use the Navigation menu described
above.
13.2 DATABASE WITH MASTER EVALUATIONS
CHESS ASSISTANT incorporates a database with opening evaluations. About
600,000 opening positions and more than 8000 text annotations by our opening
expert GM [Link]. In fact the database with the master evaluations is a
Direct Tree that is stored in the [Link] and [Link] files. These
evaluations are accessible from any database and are shown next to the moves
in the Move column in any mode that displays the Tree panel. If they disturb
you, just turn them off as described in Section 13.6 Adjusting the Trees. Future
CHESS ASSISTANT releases will include updates to the database with the master
evaluations.
This is the Path local menu; the three upper commands refer to the USERBOOK 13.3 USERBOOK
described in Section 13.3.
If you don’t agree with a master evaluation you can correct it or add new
evaluations and even variations of your own. These corrections and add-ons
are a Direct Tree which is stored in the [Link] and [Link]
files. These files appear as soon as you input your first addition or correction
to the expert database.
Evaluations from the USERBOOK will have higher priority than those from the
EVAL database, so that, even after you have installed a new release of the
database with the master evaluations, you can still see your corrections from
the USERBOOK. Of course, you may also temporarily turn off your corrections
and see the new release of EVAL as it is.
To correct an available master evaluation or to add your own one, click on the icon
in the Book section on the toolbar, and the Evaluation editor will appear.
The chessboard menu allows you to load one of the previously saved positions
from an *.EPD file or to save the current position to an *.EPD file.
Jumping to a “distant” position
If you have a slow computer and want to get to a position many moves away,
making move after move in the Huge base tree may take some time. A quicker
way is to “jump” to the necessary position and to then return to the Huge base
tree. You can choose one of the following methods to accomplish this:
1. Select the Direct tree in the drop-down list and move along it until you
reach the necessary position, then switch over to the Huge base tree.
2. Load the necessary position from the *.EPD file (right-click on the
chessboard and select the Load position command from the local menu).
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Select the necessary evaluation, click on OK to add it to the USERBOOK. 13.6 ADJUSTING THE TREES
13.4 CAP DATA To adjust the trees, select Tools | Options | Tree, or select Tools | Tree options,
Since the beginning of 1999 CHESS ASSISTANT has been involved with CAP (the or press [Alt] [F7]. The Overwrite moves in notation option defines how the
CHESS ANALYSIS PROJECT), uniting a number of enthusiasts from different program will treat the new lines that you add to the tree. If it is enabled, then
countries whose intention is to analyze as many positions as possible. The these new lines will appear in the main panel of the Tree window, otherwise
project includes many branches and mainly evolves in two directions: from the they will be included as variations in the lower right-hand corner.
game beginning to its end and from the game end to its beginning. We plan to The Sort “Moves from” by option allows you to choose the criteria according
keep on including new CAP data in our future software releases. to which the moves will be sorted: by Quantity or by Successfulness.
CHESS ASSISTANT presents CAP data in the form of a Direct Tree stored in the The Symbol and Absolute number options in the Show score drop-down list
[Link] and [Link] files. Simultaneous display of CAP and tree data define how the evaluations will be shown in the CAP and Engine’s columns.
sometimes reveals unpublished tactical refutations of an opening move that
If the Show best lines option is enabled, the Best lines panel appears in the
scores well in practice. As for the endgame, an example of how useful CAP
Tree window, showing the most popular paths leading from the current
endgame data can be was shown in Section 2.4 View Mode.
position. If you wish, you can move along these lines instead of moving along
13.5 DIFFERENT TYPES OF TREES the entire tree. If you enable Show best lines in CA Tree, you get access to the
Cut-off coefficients panel, on which you can set how many least popular lines
Two approaches with their pros and cons exist for creating trees. First and moves you don’t want to see in the Best lines panel.
approach is to keep a game-based tree, CA Tree. To move from one position to
Five radio buttons (Current base tree, Huge base tree, Direct tree, Evaluations,
another the program has to perform a search. The game-based tree is and Indexer) correspond to all possible tree types, and the pressed button
comparatively slow, though on the other hand it is a small size. The second defines which is the default tree when you open the Tree window.
approach is to keep a position database, a Direct Tree. A move in this tree is
made instantly, but you have to pay for it with a large tree size. (Detailed To adjust all these trees, click on Edit configurations, and the Edit tree
comparison of CA Tree and Direct Tree is given in the manual document on configurations window will appear.
DVD.) The Configurations panel displays all the available tree types. If you wish to
A CA Tree is stored in four files with *. TDO, *.TIO, *.UHO, and *.UEO add a new one, click on Add. The Field column lists the possible columns in
extensions. Direct Tree is stored in two files with *. HSH and *.ELM extensions. the Tree window and the Tree column indicates the files that store the
All this means that you can decide which type of tree to use in your particular corresponding data.
situation, depending on your computer resources and the task you’re solving.
The Options column shows what tree elements will be displayed for the
Below there is an explanation of other items from the drop-down box in the corresponding tree types, with M standing for Moves, V for Variations and H
Tree window: for “hide”. To select other files, click on Browse and the Open window will
• Current base tree. This can be either CA Tree for the current base (the appear. In the Files of type drop-down box choose Direct tree files (*.hsh) or
default setting) or Direct Tree for the current base. CA tree files (*.td0).
• Huge base tree. CA Tree for the HUGEBASE (this setting cannot be changed). The Set current tree button connects the current base tree and the Set huge tree
• Direct tree. By default this is the DIRECT TREE for the HUGEBASE, button connects the Huge base tree, while the path to it is set in the Tree paths
though you can link any other Direct Tree. section of the Tools | Options | General dialog.
• Evaluations. These are taken from three sources: EVAL.*, USERBOOK.*,
To change the settings for any trees, highlight the desired type in the
and CAP.* (see Sections 13.2, 13.3, and 13.4 for details).
Configurations list and then highlight the Field that you want to adjust. Click
• Indexer. This tree contains positions that correspond to 500 ECO on the Change options button and the small Set options window will appear.
indices (stored in the [Link] and [Link] files.).
For all these types of trees you can adjust what you can see or not in the Tree
window and how it will be presented. 83

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 can use either one of the two existing, or any of your custom opening books;
they can also use their own opening books, if available.1
Unlike the majority of playing programs which store every opening book in a
separate database, CHESS ASSISTANT uses text files with settings, based on which
the program picks out moves from the sources listed below. Settings, which are
common for all the opening books available, are stored in the [Link] file
in the CHESS ASSISTANT folder. Specific settings of individual opening books are
stored in the CHESS ASSISTANT\BOOK folder.
MAINBOOK is based on four sources:
• Evaluations from the Database with Master Evaluations (over 600,000
By default all trees are set to display maximum information, however you can try positions);
different settings to adjust the trees according to your taste. To disable the option, • Evaluations from the CAP Data (over 18 million positions);
mark the Hide column check box with a tick and press OK.
• Statistics from the DirectTree (opening positions from more than 5
million games);
13.7 CONSTRUCTING THE TREES
• User corrections and add-ons.
• To construct the CA Tree, call the Base | Operations | Build tree command
in the main menu. If the base is small, in the Confirm window the program GURU book apart from these sources, first and foremost uses statistics from the
will ask you Do you really want to rebuild tree? Click on Yes, and the CA GURU database, available on your DVD. This database includes selected games
Tree will be rebuilt. If the base is large, the Tree builder buffer settings played by the best players of the past as well as modern games in which at least
window will appear. Adjust the options and click OK. one of the opponents was rated above 2400 (over 600,000 games in total).
To construct the Direct Tree, call Base | Operations | Build Direct Tree, and the Linking opening books to playing engines
Direct Tree builder settings window will appear. Adjust the options and click
OK. Please note that constructing direct trees demands a lot of computer You can supply different playing engines with different opening books; you can
resources. However, there is no need to construct the DIRECT TREE for the also play against different opponents using different opening books. To adjust
HUGEBASE because it is already available on hard disk if you have installed it these options, call up the Setting books against opponents window as explained
(see Section 1.3 Installation for details) or on the DVD if you haven’t. in Section 5.2 Linking Playing Engines. Press the Add button, select Opponent
• To construct the Professional Tree, call Base | Operations | Build tree and and Book (an opponent’s name may be typed in manually). To change these
mark the corresponding check box with a tick. settings later, use the Edit button.

13.8 OPENING BOOK Viewing book moves

Similar to a human chessplayer, a playing engine may have its own opening You can see when the program is still “in book” or already “out of book” by
repertoire. It is stored in the opening book which allows the engine to recall checking whether it is displaying the book moves. To activate the Opening book
instantly all the moves it will play in the opening phase of the game. panel in View or in Play mode, press [Shift] [F9].

Available opening books Modifying opening books

Some engines are supplied with opening books, some are not. CA comes with CHESS ASSISTANT allows you to modify both the moves played and the frequency
two opening books, MAINBOOK and GURU; it also includes tools for editing them with which they occur. To get access to the opening books, click on the small
and allows you to create additional opening books. The built-in playing engines
arrow to the right of the icon in the toolbar and select Opening book from
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1
You can use them within CHESS ASSISTANT, but you are unable to modify them.

89
the drop-down menu. The Opening book window will appear with the drop- values can press the [Ctrl] [“], and CA will call up INTERNET EXPLORER
down list of available opening books. displaying a table with details of calculations in the HTML format.
To add a new move, simply make it on the chessboard and to modify its settings,
click on the move and press [Ctrl] [V]. To add a branch, place the cursor before To modify the settings, click on the icon in the Opening book window.
the branching point in the notation, right-click and select Add moves from cursor The Properties of, Tree window will appear (see previous page).
in the local menu. Move probabilities are adjusted with the help of Weight and Reliability.
• Weight – This parameter is simply a multiplier for the values set in the
corresponding columns, therefore by increasing or decreasing the
column’s Weight, you can increase or decrease its significance.
 Tip:
If you adjust your engine’s opening book to play
against a human opponent, it is recommended that you
should increase the weight of Eval. If you adjust it to
play against a computer program, it is recommended
increasing the weight of CAP.
• Reliability – This is a “confidence coefficient”, intended to exclude
moves from consideration.
Creating custom opening books
CHESS ASSISTANT allows you to create your own opening book from a set of
games. This feature is useful if you want to prepare against a certain player and
to practice playing his/her favorite opening lines. See example of creating a
custom opening book to have the engine play with the same opening repertoire
as Vladimir Kramnik in the manual document on your DVD.
The Opening book window displays the following columns (from left to right):
14. OPENING PREPARATION
• Eval. Evaluations from the Database with Master Evaluations. We
believe that they are more reliable than other sources, therefore their CHESS ASSISTANT is a powerful tool for learning openings. Not only does it
weight is higher. come with an opening encyclopedia, it can also perform the following tasks:
• CAP. Evaluations from the CAP Data. • give you a detailed report on any opening position;
• #Huge. The number of games with the current move from the DIRECT • find a novelty in any game;
TREE for the HUGEBASE. • automatically annotate the opening stage of any game;
• %Huge. Percentage of success for a current move from the DIRECT • help you to prepare for your tournament games very quickly.
TREE for the HUGEBASE. The same DIRECT TREE is displayed in two
columns in order to give you more flexibility while adjusting. Though
14.1 OPENING REPORT
the default weight of both of columns is not high, they have a great You can obtain a detailed report on any opening position with full statistics,
effect on choosing a move in the very early stage of the game, when evaluations and the previously played lines. There are two ways of creating an
the number of games is large. opening report. One of them is realized in the Opening Table mode (Section 10).
• Signs. User text comments. They are supplied by annotations. Another one is simpler – the opening report can be accessed in the View and Tree
The program sums up the values set in all these columns for all the moves modes. Click on the icon (Report for the current position) in the Position
andbased on the obtained probability values, randomly selects a move. section on the toolbar.
Advanced users who are interested in how the program calculates probability
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14.2 SEARCH FOR NOVELTIES If Customize the order is On you can arrange the order of criteria in the Statistics
options and Custom statistics order panels (see manual document on DVD).
CHESS ASSISTANT can find a novelty in any game and insert references to the
game’s predecessors. This feature is especially useful while browsing new games.
To do this you have to open two databases: one containing the investigated game
16. PLAYERS ENCYCLOPEDIA
and the other for comparison. The program will search for the move in which the Yet another mode in CHESS ASSISTANT is Players encyclopedia. The Players
investigated game diverged from the games available in the second base. CA encyclopedia contains about 900 photographs of rated players together with
Tree must be built for the second database beforehand. information about their performance organized by year and tournament. This
Naturally, it makes sense to compare it with the HUGEBASE. Open the HUGEBASE and mode starts when you open Guru database (or, if you have installed the Guru
the base with the investigated game, then switch to the View mode of this game. To use database during the Chess Assistant installation, then it opens automatically with
the Find novelty function, select the Advanced | Find novelty using database command each start of the program).
in the main menu or click on the icon in the Games section on the toolbar. The Guru database is represented in the Object browser bar with its list icon and
If several bases are open you will be asked to choose one to search. If the its classifier. When you click the classifier icon there, the classifier opens. Its
program finds a novelty, it puts a N mark to a new move and supplies it with a folders are organized in alphabetical order and they contain a list of players.
game (with annotations, if any) for each move played before. Each subfolder represents a single player:
You can find novelty using direct tree: Advanced/Find novelty using direct tree.

14.3 AUTOMATIC OPENING COMMENTING

CHESS ASSISTANT can automatically annotate the openings of a set of games with
the help of its opening library. These opening annotations are based on master
evaluations and a user’s corrections if any. The program itself puts marks and
suggests stronger lines where weaker opening moves were played.
To start the automatic opening annotating of a single game or of a set of games,
activate this game or dataset.
Call the Advanced| Annotate opening command in the main menu.

14.4 AUTOMATIC PREPARATION FOR YOUR GAMES

This mode has a graphic interface based upon a folder system (see Section 9.2.2.
Windows Explorer Style Classifier for more information).
This mode is called by selecting Advanced | Prepare for your opponent item in
the main menu. An example of preparation is given in manual document on
DVD.

15. GATHERING STATISTICS

CHESS ASSISTANT is capable of producing different statistical information: results Clicking the subfolder with player’s name displays the player’s image in the
of competitions, opening statistics, players, years, tournaments etc. Call middle part of the screen. You can find the player’s data displayed below the
Advanced | Statistics in the main menu and the Select statistics order for … base snapshot – player’s nationality, title, dates of birth and death. There also is a text
dialog box will appear. box with the Search button below it – you may use it to find a player by his
If Choose from a predefined order is On then select from the most commonly name. Enter the name and click the Search button.
used statistical criteria in the built-in list. You will quickly find out that working in this mode is not just having fun when
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watching some new faces of the rated players. Let us explore the structure of the
classifier folders deeper.

As you may see in the picture above, the two folders of the upper level represent
the initial letters of player’s name. They just help you to navigate inside the The toolbar has two spinner boxes, From and To, which allow you to set the time
classifier. The folder with a full player’s name and country of birth contains two interval. There are two buttons, the upper one (Show list of tournaments)
sub-folders, Elo and Years and tournaments.
and the lower one (Open list). Open list button is de-activated by default; to
Clicking the Elo folder displays the following diagram in the middle part of activate it you must first select a tournament from the list by clicking it. After
window: clicking this button Chess Assistant will perform a Header search operation and
display its result as a list of games in the window below. Click the Show list
button to switch to the list of tournaments again.
You may find it useful to select some prominent player and watch out, how
he/she interpreted a favorite opening in various competitions year after year.

17. PRINTING
17.1 WHAT CAN BE PRINTED
CHESS ASSISTANT is capable of printing notations, lists of games and
encyclopedic tables.

In View mode the Print | Print command prints the header and notation of the
Here you can find data of the selected player’s performance organized by year current game. In List mode the Print | Print command prints the game headers
and displayed in form of the bar diagram according the player’s Elo rating. and notations of all the listed games. To print a current set of games, use the
Moreover, another folder of the lowest level in this classifier, Years and Print | Print current dataset command.
tournaments, contains list of tournaments, in which the player participated. The
list contains complete information on a tournament, including year, place, an 17.2 PAGE SETUP
official title of the event and number of the player’s games there. Now the To adjust a page setup, select Print | Page setup. This will bring up the Print
middle part of the window contains a toolbar over the list of tournaments. options window, with the activated Page setup tab.

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Select a printer from the Printer name drop-down list. To adjust the printer, press To adjust the appearance of game notations, click on the Game notation tab.
the Setup button. You can set the Left, Right, Top and Bottom Margins (in
centimeters), as well as the Number of Columns and Space between them and
you even have the option to Draw a line between the columns.
To adjust Page header or Page footer, press the corresponding small button with
dots. This will bring up the Edit pattern window in which you can type your text
and Select font.
To insert specific fields, such as Page number, Page count, Year or Time to the
page header or footer, right-click on the Pattern line and select the necessary
item in the local menu. The three lower commands at the bottom of this menu
(Tab, Print if the previous field is not empty and Print if the next field is not
empty) let you adjust the layout of these fields. The Tab item in this local menu
does the following: the text entered before the first Tab will be aligned to the
left; the text entered between the two Tabs will be centered; and the text entered
after the second Tab will be aligned to the right.
In the Print options window, you can watch the changes in the page header and
footer in the upper and lower Pattern lines correspondingly.
To insert an Empty line after the page header or an Empty line before the page
footer, mark the corresponding check box with a tick.
You can watch the page setup changes in the Page preview panel.
What to print before and after a game body
17.3 PRINT OPTIONS Introduction / Afterword: If On then the annotations before the first and/or
The Print | Print options command brings up the Print options dialog box after the last move will be printed.
intended to define how a set of games will look in print. The Page setup tab was Pattern after last move: This text line will be printed after the notation. Click
described in Section 17.2 Page Setup. The RTF setup and Web export tabs will on the small button with dots on it to open the Edit pattern dialog box,
be explained in Section 17.5 Exporting. This section is devoted to the Game similar to the one described in Section 17.2 Page Setup. The text can be
header, Game notation and Diagrams tabs. either typed in or entered with the help of the local menu.
To adjust the appearance of game headers, click on the Game header tab and the First move and number of moves: Press the Fixed radio button, type a move
program will suggest six standard headers. To use one, press the Use a number and set the side to move (White or Black). You can also select Auto in
predefined layout radio button and select the necessary header in the drop-down which case the notation will be printed according to the last search criterion.
list in the upper right-hand corner of the window. Choose Number of moves to print (the default setting is 999).
Variations: If Enabled is On the variations will be printed. You can also define
To set your own header, press the Customize patterns radio button and define the
the depth of the variations, whether to print brackets or not and whether to
header layout in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd pattern line. To access any of these three lines,
separate them by a carriage return (a [Return] or [Enter] keystroke).
press the corresponding small button with dots. This will bring up the Edit
pattern dialog box, similar to the one described in the previous section. Diagrams: If Enabled is On the diagrams will be printed. The Last search
position check box determines if the diagram is printed according to the last
You can specify the Line spacing in half-lines as well as whether you want the search criterion and if a game was not entered from the beginning, the Start
Name format to be Full or Partial by pressing one of the two radio buttons. The position check box determines whether to print the diagram with the starting
contents of the Empty player string will be printed instead of an undefined player position or not. The Diagrams in notations check box allows you to print
name, while the contents of the Empty field string will be printed in the other diagrams inserted in the notation and finally you can also decide if you want the
undefined fields. If the Empty field string is empty, “?” will be printed in program to Show coordinates in diagrams.
undefined fields.
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Text comments: If Enabled is On then the text annotations will be printed. The Exporting to HTML
Print on a new line check box separates each text annotation by a carriage return
You can choose export to a static HTML or export to the Java-controlled page,
(the equivalent of pressing the [Return] or [Enter] key after each text annotation).
that allows you to play games on a client side.
Notation options from the Tools | Options | Fonts and colors menu are used when
Export to static HTML
printing and exporting a game, i.e. they are the same options as in View mode.
To export games to static HTML, disable the Dynamic HTML check box in the Print
You can use different fonts: set a certain font for the piece and a different one for
| Print Options dialog, with the activated Web export tab. To display GIF images
the coordinates. To set a piece font, click on Game notation in the Element list
instead of chess symbols, enable Use GIFs instead of CA Chess font check box.
and select the desired font. To select another font for the coordinates, click on
main body, 1-st level variation etc. and select the font. These adjustments are Export to Java-controlled page
valid for View, Print and Export to RTF and HTML modes. To export games to the Java-controlled page, enable the Dynamic HTML check
To set printing options for diagrams, open the Print | Print Options | Diagrams box. As a rule, the dynamic mode is used when exporting sets of games. A
dialog. special folder structure was created for this purpose. In addition to HTML files
with games in them, two extra files are generated in the same folder:
17.4 PRINT PREVIEW [Link] with contents and a frame file [Link].

To see how the games will look in print, call Print | Print preview, and the CA After calling the Print | Export | HTML command, the Save as window appears.
Print Preview window will appear. In the Zoom box you can enlarge or reduce a Select (or create) the output folder. Let us name it SET1. Dataset file names
picture on the screen (this does not affect the printing). To print all the pages, include a user defined name plus an ordinal game number. For example, if the
click on Print All, or to print the current page, click on Current. user defined file name for a set of four games is "new" then the following files
will be created: [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link].
The left box in the Page section shows the current page number, while the right window
displays the total number of pages. You can turn pages over by clicking on the < and >
buttons. You can also type a page number in the left box and press [Enter]. The << and 18. THE INTERNET
>> buttons jump to the first and last pages correspondingly. To close the CA Print
Preview window, press Close or hit [Escape]. PLAYING ZONE CHESSOK
CA allows you to play chess live over the Internet through Playing zone
17.5 EXPORTING ChessOK. The interface was designed to help novices play with no
knowledge of server commands and yet enjoy all the same privileges as
Export to RTF experienced users.
To set export to RTF options use the Print | Print Options dialog box, RTF New Training Programs:
setup tab. 1. CT-ART II. Elementary Combinations
Marking the Bitmaps for diagrams check box allows you to use diagram images
when exporting to RTF or HTML instead of diagram fonts. Thus a chessboard 2. CT-ART III. Combinations for Club players
appearance in RTF file will be the same as in View mode (size, coordinates, 3. How to Win Miniatures at Chess
markers, text on the board etc.) In the Print options dialog box, Diagram tab,
4. Attack on the King I. Mating in 2 Moves
you can adjust both size and type of the diagrams.
To display the game headers as a formatted table, enable the Header as table check box. 5. Attack on the King II. Mating in 3 or 4 Moves
To print diagrams with the coordinates, enable the Show coordinates in diagrams 6. Opening Lab 7. Total Chess Tactics
check box. When you mark the Show triangle in diagrams check box, a colored
triangle is printed next to diagrams, indicating which side is to move.
To export fragments of games, starting from a non-initial position, mark the Start [Link]
position check box.
To export a single game, use View mode and to export a list of games, open the
list and select Print | Export | Rich text format.
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