FOREWORD

by Yuri L. Averbakh

The first English edition of Comprehensive Chess Endings was published almost twenty years ago. Since then, the rapid proliferation of computer technology has affected many aspects of life. Indeed, chess is no exception to this rule. A computer program has already defeated the world champion, and now computers are infallible in the late endgame, when very few pieces remain.

Furthermore, ever faster time controls have led to a drastic acceleration of play - adjournments and resumptions are now a thing of the past. Previously, one could adjourn the game and analyze the position calmly, but now play must continue without abatement. This means that a good fundamental knowledge of basic endgames is even more important.

The main objective of this new edition is to unite the experience accumulated by many generations of chess players with the latest computer technologies. Thus it is released not as a printed book, but as a software product, and is made in co-operation with the famous chess software company Convekta. Together we have done the following:

1. We have corrected all the previous edition’s shortcomings discovered by readers. Additionally, two supplementary articles are included, by GM Sergey Shipov and IM Maxim Notkin.

2. All positions with five or less pieces on the board have been verified with the Nalimov endgame tablebases. The most significant changes were made in the two sections: “Queen and pawn vs. queen” and “Queen vs. rook and pawn”.

3. All positions with a larger number of pieces on the board were checked by playing programs. Furthermore, whenever an improvement was suggested by an engine, it was verified by a human player.

As a result, about 200 examples have been corrected. Since there are over 4,100 examples in total, the reader can judge the work we did in the 1950’s and 1980’s, when we did not have the benefit of computer assistance. That is why much of the text remains unchanged, and often times, we only needed to supply a few corrections. These are highlighted and marked with the sign “RR”. Having reached this sign, an interested reader can compare the human investigations with the computer verdict.

Acknowledgements

First of all I would like to remark that the first three-volume edition of Shakhmatnye Okonchaniya, published in 1956-1962, was prepared with the assistance of the Soviet masters N.Kopayev, V.Chekhover, V.Khenkin and the famous endgame theorist I.Maizelis. The first English edition, published in 1983-1987 by Pergamon Press, was based on the second Russian edition, and was translated by Kenneth P. Neat. The latter was published in 1982-1986 by "Fizkultura i sport".

This revision has made use of the endgame tablebases by Eugene Nalimov, the database management system Chess Assistant and several playing programs. I am particularly grateful to the chess staff of Convekta for their preparation of the database, and to the many chess players throughout the world who have offered advice, suggestions and comments on the previous edition. Finally, I am very grateful to Convekta’s development team for their untiring work on the software.

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Contents 1. Software License Agreement 4 2. Introduction 5 2.1. System Requirements 6 2.2. Technical Support 6 2.3. Installation 6 2.4. Copy Protection 7 2.5. Quick Guide for Chess Assistant Users 7 3. First Steps 8 3.1. Starting the Program 8 3.2. Browsing the Contents 9 3.3. List Mode 10 3.4. View Mode 12 3.5. Using the Tablebases 14 3.6. Testing Yourself on the Browser Pane 16 3.7. Testing Yourself in View Mode 16 3.8. Active Window, Current Dataset 18 4. Search 18 4.1. Header Search 18 4.2. Position Search 20 4.3. Material Search 22 4.4. Advanced Search 22

4.5. Search for Maneuvers 23 4.6. Search for Comments 23 4.7. Combining Searches 23 5. Commenting 25 5.1. Annotating Moves 25 5.2. Adding Variations 26 5.3. Working with the Clipboard 27 5.4. Saving a Game 28 6. Playing Engines and Analysis 28

6.1. Linking Playing Engines 28 6.2. Adjusting Playing Engines 29 6.3. Playing Against an Engine 29 6.4. Analyzing with Engines 30 6.5. Using the DGT Board 31

7. Sets of Games 31 7.1. Selecting Games 31 7.2. Classifying Games and Positions 32 7.3. Operations with Datasets 35 8. Chess Trees 35 9. Printing 38 10. Miscellaneous Options 40

1. SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT

IMPORTANT!

READ CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS PRODUCT

BY USING THE ENCLOSED SOFTWARE YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, PROMPTLY RETURN THE SOFTWARE AND ALL ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS TO THE PLACE YOU OBTAINED THEM FOR A FULL REFUND.

LIMITED USE LICENSE – This agreement grants you the right to use one copy of the enclosed program (the SOFTWARE) on any single computer provided that the software is installed on only one computer at a time.

COPYRIGHT – The SOFTWARE is owned by Convekta Ltd. and is protected by British Copyright Laws, international treaties, and other national laws. You must treat the SOFTWARE like any other copyrighted material except that you may install the SOFTWARE onto a single computer, provided that you keep the original CD solely for backup or archival purposes. You may not copy the written materials accompanying the SOFTWARE.

OTHER RESTRICTIONS – You may not rent, lease, or license the SOFTWARE but you may transfer the SOFTWARE and accompanying materials provided that you retain no copies and the recipient agrees to the terms of this Agreement. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works of the SOFTWARE.

LIMITED WARRANTY – Manufacturer warrants that the enclosed SOFTWARE will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying written materials and that the supplied media will be free from defects for a period of 12 months from the date of purchase. The customer’s sole remedy is return of the price paid or repair or replacement of defective merchandise. This Limited Warranty is void if failure has resulted from accident, abuse, or misapplication.

NO LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES – IN NO EVENT SHALL

CONVEKTA LTD. OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY AMOUNT ABOVE THE PRICE

PAID, OR FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY

TO USE THIS PRODUCT.

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2. INTRODUCTION Your CD includes:

• Program files: �� Database management system COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS; �� Playing engines CRAFTY and DRAGON.

• Data: �� AVERBAKH database, the latest edition of five-volume

COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS edited by Yuri Averbakh, thoroughly revised and updated;

�� Sample EXAMPLES database; �� CAP data (500 000 positions); �� Database with MASTER EVALUATIONS ; �� CHESS ASSISTANT OPENING BOOK; �� DIRECT TREE (abridged).

The full set also includes a DVD with the most complete version of the three-four-five-piece NALIMOV ENDGAME TABLEBASES (290 files) which are highly recommended because they allow you to take advantage of the program’s extra features, such as, for example, Endgame zones (see Section 3.5 Using the Tablebases for details).

COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS is an abridged version of CHESS ASSISTANT 7, powerful chess database management system. This lets you perform different searches, add your own comments, print games, analyze with different playing engines, etc. The abridged version, however, has some restrictions, almost all of which are listed in Section 2.5 Quick Guide for Chess Assistant Users.

This manual is mainly intended to explain the unique features of COMPREHENSIVE

CHESS ENDINGS, which are not available in CHESS ASSISTANT, while the CHESS

ASSISTANT’s modes are described rather briefly; some of them are not mentioned at all.

��Tip:

If you are interested in the features, which are not mentioned in the manual, you should use CHESS

ASSISTANT instead of its abridged version �

This manual uses the following conventions: Menu commands are written as follows: Base | Exit (the command Exit from the Base menu). Screen messages are written in Italics. Keys are shown as, for example, [Alt]. Clicking with the left button of the mouse is referred to as “clicking” and clicking with the right button of the mouse as “right-clicking”.

You can also use the help file at any time. Press [F1] to open the help file.

2.1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS To use COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS, you will need the following:

Essential: IBM-compatible PC with Pentium 100 CPU, 64 MB memory (RAM), Hard Disk (150 MB of free disk space for the program), VGA graphics, Windows 98/2000/NT/ME/XP, CD-ROM drive, Microsoft-compatible mouse.

Recommended: 1 GHz CPU, 256 MB or more RAM, 8 GB of free disk space for the tablebases, Windows 2000/NT/XP, Super VGA graphics with 16 bit colors and 1024x768 screen mode.

2.2 TECHNICAL SUPPORT

CONVEKTA provides unlimited technical support. Technical support is available only to registered users, so mail or e-mail your registration card or information today. (CONVEKTA technical support policies are subject to change without notice.)

Mail: Convekta Ltd., c/o IPS 666 Fifth Avenue Suite 572 New York NY 10103 USA

E-mail: Sales@chessassistant.com

Please refer to the documentation and on-line help system before contacting technical support. When you e-mail technical support, please provide the following information:

• Registered user’s name

• The wording of any messages that appear on your screen

• A list of what steps were taken leading up to the problem

CONVEKTA technical support is available as follows: Support@chessassistant.com

2.3 INSTALLATION

COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS program files must be installed on hard disk. The program cannot be started from the CD. Follow this procedure to install COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS on a standalone computer:

• Close all other WINDOWS applications.

• Insert the CD into your CD-ROM drive.

• Select Run from the Start menu.

• Select Browse, and select the CD-ROM drive.

• Double-click on SETUP.EXE. The SETUP program will start.

• Read the License Agreement.

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• Type in your Name and Company (optionally).

• Select Installation Directory. COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS is installed in the ‘C:\PROGRAM FILES\COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS’ directory by default. However, before the files are copied you have the option to change the path.

• The program will ask you about the tablebases. You have three options: a) to install them from DVD; b) to link them (if they are already present on your hard disk); c) not to install (in this case you can do this later.)

For your convenience, the setup program will offer you to create a desktop shortcut.

2.4 COPY PROTECTION There is no limit to the number of times that COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS

can be installed from the original CD. You can back up all the program files on any hard disk of your computer, pack/unpack files etc. However, you cannot transfer these files to another computer.

If you upgrade your computer and change its configuration, you will get an error message (Error 501), in which case you will have to reinstall the program from the CD. Therefore keep the original CD available.

2.5 QUICK GUIDE FOR CHESS ASSISTANT USERS

COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS is an abridged version of CHESS ASSISTANT 7, therefore it is deprived of some CHESS ASSISTANT’s possibilities. You cannot enter new games, load other databases and create the new ones, create your own classifiers and edit the existing one, edit main lines, play against CHESS TIGER and analyze with it (if you don’t have it on your computer), automatically analyze games, play on the INTERNET. Almost all other CHESS ASSISTANT’s features are available.

If you have CHESS ASSISTANT installed on your computer, you can load the AVERBAKH and EXAMPLES databases, as well as the classifier, and operate them in all CA modes. In this case, however, you will be unable to use a unique feature of COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS, which is not available in CHESS

ASSISTANT. This is jumping to referenced games, described in Section 3.4 View Mode.

The latest innovations, introduced in CHESS ASSISTANT 7.1 (build 723), are explained in Section 3.5 Using the Tablebases and Section 3.6 Testing Yourself on the Browser Pane. Other sections describe CHESS ASSISTANT’s old modes and may be skipped in order to save time.

3. FIRST STEPS

3.1 STARTING THE PROGRAM

Start COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS. The screen is divided into three parts: the object bar on the left, the browser in the center, and the Contents on the right.

The detailed Contents is based on the printed edition, the browser shows diagrams of a current theme, and the object bar displays all the open objects, chess game bases, and windows. All open windows are displayed next to the corresponding bases so you can easily understand which base the window refers to. The program remembers all the windows open from the moment you exit and restores them when you start the program again.

There are two databases in the object bar, AVERBAKH and EXAMPLES. The latter contains complete game scores of all the games from CHESS ASSISTANT’s HUGEBASE, in which positions from the AVERBAKH database occurred.

You can hide the object bar by clicking on the icon or pressing the [Ctrl] [C] key combination. To make the object bar visible once more, just click on this icon or press [Ctrl] [C] again.

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3.2 BROWSING THE CONTENTS Each line of the Contents corresponds to an endgame theme, and some themes are marked with a “+” which denotes second level branches. In other words, the Contents is built like a tree. The first level branches present different endgame themes, the second level branches stand for sub-themes, etc. When you unfold a branch, the “+” is replaced by a “–”.

Each branch can be folded and unfolded by double-clicking on it, clicking on the “+” or “–” signs, or by using the left and right arrow keys. You can move along the Contents with the [↑] and [↓] arrow keys or with the mouse. The diagrammed positions correspond to the highlighted endgame theme.

The lowest level branches, which cannot be unfolded, have neither “+” nor “–“ next to the folder icon. Double-clicking on such a branch opens a new window with a list of examples of the endgame theme in question, and its icon will

appear on the object bar. The same can be done by clicking on the icon in the control panel, or by pressing [F5]. (List mode is described in Section 3.3.) You can also open the list below the Contents. To do this, press the [Spacebar]; and the list will appear in the lower pane. To close it, press the [Spacebar] again.

The # Games field displays the number of included examples as N1/ or N1(N2), with N1 standing for the total number of examples, including nested folders; N2 for the number of examples in the lowest level branches.

The browser pane in the middle part of this window displays diagrams with all examples of the current theme (highlighted in the Contents). By moving the right border of the browser pane to the right or to the left you can increase or decrease the number of columns correspondingly.

Each diagram is supplied with class markers (see Section 7.2 Classifying Games and Positions for explanations), example’s number in the theme and in the database, indication who is to move (white or black triangle), evaluation, and players (or author).

The buttons below the chessboard allow to replay a solution shown below:

Jumps to the starting position

Steps back one half-move

Steps forward one half-move

Jumps to the end position

Double-clicking on the chessboard opens the View window with the current example (see Section 3.4 View Mode for its description). Right-clicking on the chessboard gives you access to the local menu, in which you can increase or decrease the chessboard and the size of the control buttons, as well as execute other commands.

��Tip:

Right-clicking on an object produces a menu of operations specific to this object. This is known as the local menu. Most commands are available from the local menus. (Later, as a rule, we will not remind you about this).

If you mark the Test mode check box with a tick, the program will hide evaluations, offering you to guess them (see Section 3.6. Testing Yourself on the Browser Pane for details).

3.3 LIST MODE

You can open a list of the current set of games in several different ways described in the previous section. You can also do this with the Dataset | List command from the main menu or by selecting the Open list command in the local menu.

The lines in this list are the game headers, and the current game is highlighted with a blue frame. Use the arrow keys, the green arrows on the toolbar, or the mouse to move along the list. You can also jump to the desired game by entering its number on the keyboard.

There are small letters at times next to the numbers.

a stands for games supplied with at least one annotation or diagram; v stands for games with at least one variation; c stands for commented games with both text annotations and variations; p stands for games starting from a specific position.

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Modify the list window to suit your taste. For example, clicking on the divider and moving it in the title bar will change the width of any column. Furthermore, the number and order of columns may also be changed. Right-click on it, select This window’s properties, and the Properties window will appear.

Look at the Order of fields in list section. The Selected window shows the displayed columns. If there is a column you don’t wish to see, move it to the Not selected window. In order to do this, click on the undesirable item in the Selected

window and press the button. Should you wish to hide all the items, press the

button. The and buttons will do the opposite. To change the order of

columns, click on one or several items and move them with the and buttons.

In the General, Chessboard settings, Field options, Chess notation and Start notation from sections you can set many different options to modify the list accordingly. In the Background type drop-down list you can choose between Black and white, Color, Wood, Marble and From File.

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 other lists, press the Copy to global options button.

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 Split command in the local menu or press the [Shift] [F5] key combination. This will divide the list window into two parts. Use the [Tab] key to switch between the top and bottom parts of the screen.

3.4 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 the [F4] key. Click on it or press [F4] again if you wish to return to the list.

2. Open a new window for the View mode. These are four ways to accomplish this: by selecting the Dataset | View command in the main

menu; clicking on the icon; double-clicking on the needed game in the list; pressing [Enter].

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 List mode: selecting This window’s properties in the local menu.)

To replay moves and annotations, use the arrow keys or two button bars below the chessboard. The buttons are similar to videocassette recorder controls.

In the upper row (from left to right): In the lower row (from left to right):

Jumps to the starting position Jumps into the variation

Steps back one half-move Goes to the upper level

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Deletes the last half-move Goes to the next variation

Steps forward one half-move

Jumps to the end position

The View section in the toolbar includes four buttons (from left to right):

Begins replaying the game

Starts next games automatically

Adjusts the replaying speed

Press this button if you wish to stop auto-replaying.

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.

Many examples have references to others. The numbers of the referenced examples are colored blue and given in brackets; they follow after the right arrow key. Click on the referenced example’s number, and the program will give you the Select reference window, offering to jump to the selected example. To return to the source game, click on the small red left arrow next to the Game header title below the chessboard.

If you mark the Open in the notebook panel check box, the program will display the referenced example in a separate window on the left, next to the current example (instead of the object bar).

The buttons on the Notebook pane mean as follows:

Explorer – the program will close the referenced example window and display the object bar.

Move to workspace – the program will close the Notebook panel and display the referenced example in View mode.

Close – the referenced example window will be closed.

��Tip:

When you’re viewing games, hide the object bar by

clicking on the icon or pressing [Ctrl] [C], as this will give you a larger board and a larger notation window as well. To make the object bar visible once more, just click on this icon or press [Ctrl] [C] again.

3.5 USING THE TABLEBASES

The endgame tablebases will tell you exactly how to play out any position once a certain amount of pieces is left on the board. For the time being, the Nalimov tablebases include all positions with 3, 4, and 5 pieces and a comparatively small number of positions with 6 pieces on the board. If you want to have the five-piece tablebases available on your hard disk, note that they occupy 8 GB (the six-piece tablebases occupy 100 GB!).

During preparation of the AVERBAKH database, all positions with five or less pieces on the board have been verified with the Nalimov endgame tablebases. Nevertheless, it makes good sense to link the tablebases to COMPREHENSIVE

CHESS ENDINGS. This can be done either during installation (see Section 2.3 Installation for details), or at any moment later by selecting the Engines | Link tablebases command in the main menu.

After you have linked the Nalimov endgame tablebases, you can see drawing and winning zones in endgames with five or less pieces on the board. These zones can be displayed for every piece.

Example 1:

Open the View window with Example 1 in the Rook against two pawns theme. Right-click on the Notation pane, select Endgame zones in the local menu, and the Endgame zones window will appear.

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To define the zones for the white king, right-click on it. Losing zone (i.e. if the white king is positioned in this zone, White loses) is colored blue, Drawing zone (if the white king is inside this zone, the position is drawn) is colored yellow, and Winning zone (if the white king is there, White wins) is colored red.

If you selected Both sides in the Display zones for drop-down list, the program will display the zones for both Black’s and White’s turn to move. To see what the markers mean, click on the Legend button.

Example 2: Open the View window with Example 7 in Pawn endings. 1. Basic theory and terminology. The final position of this example is a position of mutual zugzwang: the side to move loses.

Right-click on the notation pane and select Endgame zones in the local menu. The Endgame zones window will appear. Choose both sides from the Display zones for drop-down list.

If you right-click on any piece in this window, the program will mark it with the zugzwang marker. To see what the markers mean, click on the Legend button.

You can change a position on the board in two ways:

1. by dragging pieces on the board;

2. by pressing the Edit position button.

To save all the Endgame zone markers in the current game, press the Save button.

3.6 TESTING YOURSELF ON THE BROWSER PANE

Select the Contents of AVERBAKH, mark the Test mode check box on the browser pane with a tick, and the program will hide evaluations, offering you to guess

them. Click on the icon above the chessboard, and select your evaluation from the drop-down menu.

Statistics of your progress are given above. Depending on your results, positions are included either into the Right solution, or into the Wrong solution class.

You can also test yourself with the EXAMPLES database. In this case, however, please note that you will guess not the correct evaluations, but the game results. For example, if White lost in a won position, the program will consider 0:1 to be the correct answer.

3.7 TESTING YOURSELF IN VIEW MODE

With this mode, you can set up exercises to be automatically presented as you go from game to game in a database. There are a large number of criteria that can be selected for determining which moves constitute a good exercise. This timesaving approach means that the user does not have to construct each exercise by hand.

Open the prepared test game in View mode, call the local menu of notation and select the Test mode command (or press the [Ctrl] [Enter] key combination). The Test mode window will appear.

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In the Test conditions pane you can select which “good” and/or “bad” moves will constitute an exercise. 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 (!!, !, !?, � 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 complicated criteria.

The Side for test mode pane allows to choose for which player (or a group of players) you will “play”. The upper button turns the Test mode Off.

The Show hint pane defines a way in which the program will give you various hints. If you start with a wrong move, the program displays all comments to the quiz move. If your second suggestion is wrong, it shows a piece which is to move.

The time given for one exercise is set on the Timer pane.

When the options have all been set, press OK.

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 window, offering you to select one of the three options: Keep on guessing, Make the game move, or Insert suggestion as a variation.

To quit this mode, call the local menu of notation and unmark the Test mode command.

3.8 ACTIVE WINDOW, CURRENT DATASET

COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS is a WINDOWS application, therefore you should be familiar with WINDOWS to use it efficiently. At any time you can open several windows with different sets in different modes. To make a window active, click anywhere on it or click on its icon on the object bar, so if a window is hidden under other windows use the icon in the object bar on the left. The current active window will be highlighted on the object bar. You can also select Windows in the main menu and mark the line with the desired window with a tick. As well as many other WINDOWS based programs, COMPREHENSIVE CHESS

ENDINGS allows you switching between windows within the program with the [Ctrl] [F6] key combination.

Many operations in COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS use the notion of a “current set”. If an active 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”.

In View mode the current set is the one from which the View mode was called. The program always remembers where a game was called from. This information is displayed on the object bar as # N1/N2, with N2 standing for the amount of games in the original set and N1 for the current game number in this set.

4. SEARCH There are six types of search in COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS: Header, Position, Material, Advanced, For Comments and For Maneuvers; all these types may be combined.

4.1 HEADER SEARCH

This type of search is based on “header” information, such as the players’ names, result, year, place, etc.

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.

White: The player (players) with the white pieces.

Black: The player (players) with the black pieces.

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Result: The possible values are: 1:0, 0:1, 1/2:1/2, or an evaluation; ? stands for an unknown result.

ECO: Opening index according to the Chess Informant classification. Select the way of setting it in the Enter new value text box.

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.

Event: The type of competition (match, interzonal, championship etc.).

Round: The number of the round.

Annotator: The author of game’s annotations.

Remark: There are three ways to set this criterion: a whole remark (Exact), a part of a remark (Substring) or its beginning (Prefix). Select the setting in the Type text box and type the criterion on the keyboard in the Value/Pattern window.

Source: The source of the game record.

White ELO/Black ELO: Ratings of players.

Moves: Number of moves in the game.

Possible values for the White, Black, Site, Event, Annotator and Source fields are stored in the library. You can type them in the Find text box.

Setting criteria for the values stored in the library

Games are stored as game headers, consisting of several fields, and notations. The names of players are stored in a special file called library. Besides the players’ names, the library stores possible values for some other header fields (Site, Event, Annotator and Source). This concept of libraries greatly increases the search speed and allows one to avoid mistakes in names with difficult spellings.

If you don’t remember an exact spelling, press the Mark button, enter a fragment of the name in the Value/Pattern text box, and select Substring in the Type window. If 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 Search button (This button refers to the search through the library list, so don’t confuse it with the search in a set of games!).

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.

To delete all the entered criteria, press the Clear markers button.

To remove a criterion, press Unmark. A dialog box similar to the one produced by the Mark button will appear. Enter the criterion (or its fragment) that is to be removed, press Search, and the chosen elements of the library list be unmarked.

Searching: through an entire database or a set of games?

The Search dialog box gives you the choice of either searching through an entire database or through the current dataset. Choose between Set and Whole base in the Search in section.

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 window. Before you start searching make sure the current set is the right one.

4.2 POSITION SEARCH

The positional search function looks for a specific position, a partial position, or a structure.

Select the Search | Position command in the main menu. (You can also click on

the small down arrow next to the icon on the toolbar and select Position search in the drop-down list). In the Search dialog box there is a chessboard with the starting position where you can set up the position you want to search for.

Partially defined positions

You can search for a fragment of position or for a pawn structure. To set a 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 and set up a position on the chessboard. To set a piece on the board, first click on the piece icon on the palette. The mouse pointer will turn into the piece icon. Now click on the square (or squares) on the board where you want to put the piece, and return to the palette and repeat this procedure with the other pieces until the position desired is set up. When this is done click on the arrow on the palette.

Besides the chess pieces, there are some other symbols on the palette. You can put them on the board too. Their meaning is as follows:

Any white piece

Any black piece

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Any piece of any color or an empty square

Empty square

Sign of negation

Negation of a piece means that this piece cannot stand on this square.

Negation of an empty square means that any piece may stand on this square but it can’t be empty.

Negation of the white question mark means any black piece or an empty square.

Negation of the black question mark means any white piece or an empty square.

Negation of the doubled question mark stands for negation of pawns of any color.

You can search for several pieces on the same square. To do this, put the first piece on the desired square. Then choose another piece from the palette, press the [Ctrl] key and while maintaining it pressed drop it on the same square. Any number of pieces may be put on one square though only three of them will be displayed. To see them all, click on the arrow on the palette and then on the square.

��Tip:

You can perform every type of search (except the header search) in both bases simultaneously. While in the Search dialog box, click on the small button with 3 dots above the Help button. The Select bases to search in window will appear. Select the bases you want to search through and perform the search. The results will be given for each base in separate windows.

Search for horizontally and/or vertically symmetrical positions

To search for horizontally symmetrical positions, while in the Search dialog box, set Ignore colors to On and Side to move: either.

To search for vertically symmetrical positions, enable the Mirror flanks option.

These types of search are very useful in the endgame, especially in conjunction with each other – an instructive example is given in Section 4.7 Combining Searches.

4.3 MATERIAL SEARCH The material search function looks for games within certain material restrictions.

Select Search | Material, and set the limits for Black and White in the corresponding boxes. The lines with the large black and white question marks are to set ranges for the total number of Black’s and White’s pieces. When the options have all been set, press Search to start searching.

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 extra pawn (piece, exchange, etc.). While in the Search | Position and material window, set the difference in number of pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, and queens in the Imbalance box on the right. The line with the large white question mark instead of a piece is to set a range for the total amount of White’s extra material on the board. It is calculated on the assumption that the value of the pieces is as follows:

Queen = 9 points Knight = 3 points Rook = 5 points Pawn = 1 point Bishop = 3 points

You can also set the limits for Total number of pieces and indicate for how long 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 for any number of moves.

Search for bishops of opposite colors Bishops of opposite colors can be specified in the Search dialog window, which appears after calling the Search | Material command in the main menu. Select Of opposite colors in the Bishops drop-down list, and the number of bishops will automatically be set to 1 for both Black and White.

4.4 ADVANCED SEARCH The Advanced search is a material search in which the material restrictions are set independently for several different groups of squares. Call the Search | Advanced command in the main menu.

There are 14 markers of different colors. The current color is indicated below the chessboard. To define the first area, click on all the squares you want to include, then set the material restrictions for the selected area as described above. With the help of the local menu you can Shift markers: Left, Right, Up, or Down.

To set the material restrictions for another group of squares, click on the Blue marker tab. Likewise define another area and set the corresponding material restrictions. An example of this kind of search is given in Section 4.7 Combining Searches.

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��Tip:

Position, Material and Advanced searches can also be performed in variations by enabling Search in variations in the Search dialog box.

4.5 SEARCH FOR MANEUVERS Using this tool, you can search for common piece maneuvers.

Select Search | Maneuvers in the main menu, and the Search dialog box will appear, with the Maneuvers pane on the right. Search for maneuvers irrespective of a position on the board is hardly useful; it makes more sense to combine the maneuver and positional searches.

Set up a desired partial position, using the piece palette below the chessboard (as described in Section 4.2 Position Search). When this is done click on the arrow on the palette. Then drag the desired piece from a source square to a destination square. Repeating this action with other pieces, you can search for a sequence of moves.

4.6 SEARCH FOR COMMENTS You can search for commented games by selecting the Search | Comments command in the main menu, and then specifying the type of comments in the Search dialog box.

You can search for any textual fragments of game annotations (naturally, as with all other searches, in both bases simultaneously). To do this, select the Search | Comments command in the main menu, enable the Annotation criteria option in the Search dialog, click on the Set annotations button, and then specify the desired text annotations in the Set search parameters window.

You can even search for several textual fragments at once: just type them in different lines of the Set search parameters window. In this case the program will search for any of them, thus the resulting list will include all the games with annotations containing at least one of the fragments you have searched for.

4.7 COMBINING SEARCHES You can combine different types of search. Select them in the Criteria included section of the Search dialog box, and then set the criteria for each one. Let’s find, for example, all the rook + bishop endings with 4 pawns vs. 3 pawns, in which both players had three pawns on one wing and the strongest side had a passed lateral pawn on the other wing (the bishops are of opposite colors).

• Call Search | Position. Fill the chessboard with doubled question marks (press [Ctrl] [Q]) and enable Ignore colors and Mirror flanks.

• Click on the small button with 3 dots above the Help button. The Select bases to search in window will appear. Mark both bases, AVERBAKH and EXAMPLES, with a tick.

• Mark the Material check box in the Criteria included section with a tick and set the material restrictions. There mustn’t be any queens or knights on the board, and both Black and White have one rook and one bishop each. Select Of opposite colors in the Bishops drop-down list. Set 4 pawns for White and 3 for Black, then set Ignore colors to On and Side to move: Either.

• Mark the Advanced check box in the Criteria included section with a tick. Fill the chessboard with doubled question marks.

• Click on all the squares inside the f7-h7-h2-f2 (right) rectangle. In both White and Black sections enter 3 on both the left and right of the pawn icon.

• Press the Blue marker tab and click on all the squares (left) from a2 to a7 as in the diagram below. In the White section enter 1 on both the left and right of the pawn icon.

The screen should appear as follows:

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• Press the Search button. A list with the only found game will appear (Browne – D.Gurevich, USA 1984).

In this example we combined several types of search (Position + Material + Advanced + For bishops of opposite colors + For horizontally and vertically symmetrical positions).

5. COMMENTING To comment a game in View mode, just click on the Comments tab in the left part of the toolbar and the Comments toolbar will appear.

5.1 ANNOTATING MOVES

To annotate a move, click on the icon. A small drop-down menu will appear. Select Annotate move and you will get the Annotations editor dialog box.

The Informant-style symbols may be used in short comments. Highlight Short Before if you wish to insert a symbol before the current move or Short After to insert one after, then click on the appropriate symbol. You can also press the Evaluation tab and select the desired evaluation.

You may also insert any text in the notation. To do this, click on Long Before or Long After and type the text commentary in the text window. Use the Introduction and Afterword tabs to insert annotations before the first and after the last move of the game.

To delete annotations, click on the icon and select Delete annotations in the small drop-down menu. Press the [Delete] key if you wish to delete the current commentary directly in the notation.

To insert a diagram, click on the icon, and to delete a diagram, click on it again.

5.2 ADDING VARIATIONS

To comment a move with a variation, place the cursor before the move in the notation window and just play out the variation on the chessboard.

Entering moves

All moves are entered with the mouse. In order to make a move, move the cursor to a piece, press and hold down the mouse button, drag the cursor to the destination square, and then release the mouse button.

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 to the main body of the game. To avoid this, press [Ctrl] and only then enter your variations to the last move.

Replacing the entered move

Press the [Ctrl] key while entering a new variation. The Changing move dialog box will appear. Existing variations are displayed on the left. Use the buttons on the right to control them.

The New variation button inserts the entered move as a new variation. If you select 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. The Replace button will overwrite the old move with the new one and delete all the following moves.

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.

Deleting a fragment of notation

Pressing the [Backspace] key deletes the last entered move. If you wish to delete all moves from the current one until the game end, press the [Shift] [Ctrl]

[Backspace] key combination. Clicking on the icon will bring up the Deleting moves dialog box. Select the desired options according to what you want to delete and press OK.

Painting on the chessboard

Clicking on the icon will produce the Color markers setup dialog box, with the current position on the left and the color markers on the right. This window contains five tabs: Markers, Lines, Blocks, Chars and Text that allow to place various color objects on the chessboard.

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5.3 WORKING WITH THE CLIPBOARD You can use the standard WINDOWS clipboard which allows one to copy games and analysis from the INTERNET and other sources, and to paste them to the AVERBAKH or EXAMPLES database. With its help you can also export data from COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS to other programs, and last but not least, it lets you share data inside COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS.

The PGN and EPD formats are the de facto standard for sharing information between different chess programs. They are also the standard formats for posting games and analysis on the INTERNET. The *.PGN and *.EPD files are text files which can be edited manually with a text processor. They can also be produced by chess programs, which support these formats.

PGN stands for “portable game notation”, and is intended for exchanging game scores and analysis. EPD stands for “extended position description” and is intended for exchanging board positions.

To export a game from COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS to the PGN format: 1) Open the View window with this game. 2) To copy the game to the clipboard, press [Ctrl] [Ins]. 3) Switch to the program this game is to be exported to (This can be any

text processor or a chess program supporting both the PGN format and WINDOWS clipboard).

4) To paste the game, press [Shift] [Ins]. There is also another method. While in the View window, place the cursor at the desired position. If you now press [Ctrl] [>], the program will copy the moves from the selected position until the game’s end, in PGN format, to the WINDOWS clipboard. If you press [Ctrl] [<], the program will copy the moves from the beginning of the game until the selected position, in PGN format, to the WINDOWS clipboard. Once in the WINDOWS clipboard, the contents can be pasted anywhere at the user’s discretion.

To export many games from CCE to the PGN format: 1) Open the list window with these games. 2) Highlight the desired games in the list. 3) To copy these games to the clipboard, press [Ctrl] [Ins]. 4) Switch to the program these games are to be exported to. 5) To paste the games, press [Shift] [Ins].

To export a board position from CCE to the EPD format: 1) Open the Position operations window. 2) In the Position to be saved pane, set up the desired position on the

chessboard. 3) To copy the position to the clipboard, press [Ctrl] [Ins]. 4) Switch to the program this position is to be exported to (This can be

any text processor or a chess program supporting both the EPD format

and WINDOWS clipboard). 5) To paste the position description, press [Shift] [Ins]. Instead of calling the Position operations window, you can simply press either [Ctrl] [/] or [Ctrl] [\], and the current position, in EPD format, will be copied to the WINDOWS clipboard. If you press [Ctrl] [/], the position description will be supplied with the game header and indication whose move it is.

5.4 SAVING A GAME This program does not allow you to save changes in the main lines, but you can save changes in variations. To do this, select Edit | Save game in the main menu

or click on the icon, or press the [Ctrl] [S] key combination. If the current base is not Read only then the game will be saved to disk. Don’t be afraid to accidentally damage the database, because you can restore it from your CD.

Base properties To get 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 undesirable changes from being made to the base. You can also specify whether to show deleted games in the list.

6. PLAYING ENGINES AND ANALYSIS COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS provides complete playing program 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 COMPREHENSIVE CHESS

ENDINGS. This permits you to play against a computer and analyze with different engines. Your CD includes:

• The latest version of CRAFTY. This program by Robert Hyatt is the most popular freeware engine.

• DRAGON. This engine is obviously weaker than CRAFTY, but many users say that playing against DRAGON is amusing.

6.1 LINKING PLAYING ENGINES CRAFTY and DRAGON are built-in and do not require linking. All other programs you plan on using, must be linked to COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS according to the following procedure. Naturally, the program you’re linking to COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS must already be installed on your computer.

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The Engines window, which is intended for linking playing engines, 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].

6.2 ADJUSTING PLAYING ENGINES

After you have linked the desired engines to COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS, you can adjust them. Options, which are common for all the linked engines, are adjusted in the General analysis options and Play Options panes. Specific options of individual programs are adjusted with the help of the Personalities button.

6.3 PLAYING AGAINST AN ENGINE

To start a new game from the starting position, select Engine | Play against an 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 View or Tree mode), select Engine | Play against an Engine | Play from current position in the main menu or press [Shift] [F11]. In View or Tree mode, you can

also click on the icon in the Engines section on the toolbar and then select Play from current position or Play a new game from the drop-down list.

In all cases, the Startup window will appear, allowing you to select an engine, set time control and adjust some other options.

Select an engine from the drop-down list, adjust other settings and press Start. The program will open the base ENGINEGAMES (if it was not already open) and the window for the new game. To play as White (if you selected Human - Computer), simply make your first move, and to play with the black pieces, press the [Spacebar] (or select Computer – Human beforehand).

In the pane 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 time spent by both players is shown above. Two button bars below the chessboard were described in Section 3.4 View Mode.

Use the buttons below the chessboard, toolbar icons and hot-keys.

• To set up a position to play, click on the small arrow to the right of the

icon on the toolbar and select the desired command from the drop-down menu.

• To set time control, click on the icon on the toolbar.

• To stop the clock for a while, no matter who is to move, click on the

icon, and to resume the game, click on it again.

• You can save the game in the ENGINEGAMES base and (optionally) fill in the game header fields. If the game is not finished yet, but you don’t want to continue it, press [Esc], and the program will offer you to Assign game result. Press one of the four radio buttons (1:0, ½, 0:1, or None), click on OK, and the Stop game window will appear. Select the desired action and press OK.

• To adjourn the game, just save it in the ENGINEGAMES base as described above. To resume it, open the desired game in View mode and select Engines | Play against an engine | Resume in the main menu or press [Shift] [Ctrl] [F11].

6.4 ANALYZING WITH ENGINES

Infinite analysis can be called in View mode. Place the cursor at the position you wish to analyze; further you have two options.

1) If you select the Engines | Infinite analysis command in the main

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 last time.

2) If you select the Engines | Infinite analysis… command in the main

menu, or click on the small arrow to the right of the icon in the toolbar and select Infinite analysis… from the drop-down menu, or press [Ctrl] [Spacebar], you will get the Start analysis dialog box with a lot of different settings.

The first method is the simplest type of Infinite analysis and does not require any adjustment. In a few seconds after you pressed the [Spacebar], a pane with results of the analysis will appear.

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 because it is the deepest, and after the analysis is finished, it will be inserted into the notation as a comment.

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To quickly switch between positions in the analysis lines, use the arrow keys or just click on any move in any line in the analysis pane, and the position after 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.

6.5 USING THE DGT BOARD If you find it unpleasant to play on the screen and miss the feel of a wooden board, you can connect the DGT board and play on it instead. The DGT board is an electronic wooden auto-sensory chessboard by DGT Projects from the Netherlands. Once connected to your computer, it permits you to play against the built-in engines, analyze with them, and input your analysis.

Connect the DGT board to COM1 or COM2 port of your computer. Select Tools | DGT board options in the main menu and choose the port. To check the connection, select Tools | DGT board options | Test.

While in View mode, right-click on the notation and select Enable input from DGT board in the local menu. Now you can analyze on the DGT board. When you make your moves in View or Infinite analysis modes, they instantly appear on the computer screen as if they were made with the mouse.

While analyzing the game, you can set up on the DGT board any position from this game or its variations. If you have not mistaken and this position really occurred in the game (or in its variations), it will instantly appear on the computer screen.

7. SETS OF GAMES It is usually more convenient to work from a set of games instead of an entire base. 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 by selecting desired games in the List mode.

7.1 SELECTING GAMES First you have to mark the games you want to select. You can mark games in the list in two ways:

1) By highlighting 2) By coloring

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 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 highlight a game, click on a cell with the game number. To select a game by coloring it, click on this game in the list and press the [Insert] key. If several games are highlighted, pressing [Insert] will color them all.

When the required games have been marked in some way (highlighted or colored), choose one of the following commands in the main menu: Dataset | Create dataset from | Create dataset from highlighted games or Dataset | Create dataset from | Create dataset from colored games. You can also call these commands from the local menu or by hitting [F9]. Note that the new set will be displayed in the same window and the original set will be erased.

How can I quickly select succession of games?

First you have to highlight the games. To do this, click on the first game 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 desired 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 were highlighted then pressing [Insert] would cancel the selection. To cancel the whole selection, call the Edit | Clear selection command.

7.2 CLASSIFYING GAMES AND POSITIONS

To speed up access to games in a database, your chess database management system should have convenient tools for classifying games and positions, and COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS offers you two such tools: the WINDOWS

EXPLORER style classifier and standard classes.

The WINDOWS EXPLORER style classifier is based on the printed edition and cannot be altered (see Section 3.2 Browsing the Contents for its description).

The standard classes allow you to classify games according to any criteria. A class may include any games that you want, and of course the same game may be included in several classes.

COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS offers you 30 standard classes. Call the Tools | Options | Classes command, and a dialog box will appear.

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Two numeric boxes in the Layout section allow you to adjust the number of classes displayed in the List window in the cells next to the game numbers. The classes are also displayed in the View window (in the Game header section below the chessboard).

If you want a class to be displayed, you have to attach some color to it. To do this, right-click on the class name in the Available classes list and click on one of the Colors. To “uncolor” a class, click on the icon.

��Note: One of the standard classes is called Marked. Don’t confuse it with games marked with color. The blue marks are forgotten as soon as the window is closed but the class is stored for future use.

You can include into classes not only entire games, but positions as well. For example, if there are several instructive test positions in a game, you can mark them all. To do this, “color” the Tests class in the Available classes list and make sure that it is displayed in the Layout section. Then, while in the View window, click on the Comments tab in the Game header section below the chessboard. Place the cursor after the move, which has led to the first test position, in the Notation pane. Click on the corresponding class cell, and the highlighted Tests line will appear in the Game header section. (Of course, the same position may

be included in several classes). Repeat this procedure with the other test positions.

You can also include a position in some class(es) in another way. Place the cursor on the move, which has led to this position, in the Notation pane. Click on

the icon in the Comments section in the toolbar, and the Select classes window will appear. Mark the desired class(es) with a tick, type in Comment (optionally), and press OK.

Next time you open this game in the View window, you can jump between the test positions you have marked. To do this, click on the Comments tab in the Game header section below the chessboard, then click on the button, and the Set parameters window will appear. Press the Class navigation button, mark the Tests class with a tick, press OK, and you will return to the game View window. Now you can jump to the next test position or to the previous one by clicking on the or icon correspondingly.

The Dataset | Create dataset from… | command allows you to select sets of games with multiple classes. Clicking on Other class will produce the Select classes window described above. The resulting dataset will contain only those games, which include all the classes you have marked.

To transfer some games from one class to another, select Dataset | Change | Delete classes in the main menu.

To include a game in a class in the View mode, select the Edit | Add | remove from classes in the main menu. To include a set of games in a class in the List mode, call Edit | Add dataset to classes; and to exclude it, select Edit | Remove dataset from classes.

Using filters

Browsing diagrams in the Contents, you can give the program an order to display only those examples that are included in one or several selected classes. To do this, right-click on the browser pane and enable the Use filter option, then call this local menu again and select the Filter settings command. The Selected classes window will appear.

By default all classes are included, but you may exclude any of them. The local menu allows you to instantly Select all or Unselect all.

��Tip:

Leave the Wrong solution class marked and unmark all other classes in the Include pane, and the browser will present only those positions in which you failed to guess a correct evaluation.

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7.3 OPERATIONS WITH DATASETS Select Dataset | Disk operations | Other (The operations used most often, Save to disk and Load from disk, are put as separate items though they can be reached by selecting Other too).

The Dataset operations dialog box will appear. It displays the Current dataset (above), Operation (on the drop-down list), second operand (in the Selected line), and the resulting set.

The following current database objects are included into the Operands list: • All open windows; • All existing classes; • All previously saved datasets.

In the Operation drop-down list you can select the following logical operations with datasets: Join, Intersect, Subtract, Load, Save.

8. CHESS TREES A chess game may be considered as a set of positions connected by moves, and a 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 begins at the starting position and ends at the final one.

The same approach may be used for a set of games and even for an entire database, because every database is a set of games. As far as we know, each game is a set of positions connected by paths; consequently, a database may be considered as a set of positions connected by different paths.

If one approaches a database from this point of view, it’s quite possible that the same position may occur in several different games but the paths leading to this position are different. Likewise, there might be several paths from any position or, in other words, several moves have been played.

Therefore, there are two possible approaches: every database may be considered either as a set of games or as a tree, i. e. a set of positions connected by different paths. COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS offers you good tools for operating the chess trees.

Operating a Tree

To enter the Tree mode, select the Search | Tree command in the main menu or

click on the icon, and the Tree window will appear.

There are several types of trees, but functionally they are nearly identical from the user’s point of view. In the drop-down box you can select one of them: Current base tree, Huge base tree, Direct tree, Evaluations, or Indexer.

The diagram displays the current position, with buttons below the chessboard similar to those in View mode. The path leading to the current position is shown

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in the lower pane, and the statistics of the current position are present in the lower left-hand corner. You can move along the tree either by replaying moves on the chessboard, or with the arrow keys, or by double-clicking on the desired move; the tree will automatically update the information.

The Move column displays a list of moves from this position, some of which are evaluated. 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 data (see below for explanation).

• The Theory column shows information from the Nalimov endgame tablebases.

• The Compute column displays evaluations obtained with the help of computer analysis within COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS.

• The Annotations column shows the user’s comments. • Below the list you can see how many games with the current move

were won by White, won by Black, or drawn (as numbers and as a percentage; the red bar stands for won games, yellow – for draws, green – for losses, and blue bar – for games with an undefined result).

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.

Database with master evaluations COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS incorporates a database with opening evaluations. About 130,000 opening positions and more than 150,000 moves have been evaluated by our openings experts (international masters).

In fact, the database with the master evaluations is a Direct Tree that is stored in the EVAL .HSH and EVAL .ELM files. These evaluations are accessible from both databases and are shown next to the moves in the Move column in any mode that displays the Tree pane. If they disturb you, just turn them off.

CAP data CAP (the COMPUTER ANALYSIS PROJECT) unites a number of enthusiasts from different countries, whose intention is to analyze as many positions as possible. The project includes many branches and mainly evolves in two directions: from the game beginning to its end and from the game end to its beginning.

COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS presents the CAP data in the form of a Direct Tree stored in the CAP.HSH and CAP.ELM files.

Opening book Similar to a human chessplayer, a playing engine may have its own opening repertoire. It is stored in the opening book which allows the engine to recall instantly all the moves it will play in the opening phase of the game. COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS comes with an abridged opening book based on 500,000 positions (CHESS ASSISTANT’s opening book is based on 10 million positions).

Unlike the majority of playing programs, which store every opening book in a separate database, COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS uses text files with settings, basing on which the program picks out moves from several sources. These settings are stored in the CAOBOOK.INI file in the COMPREHENSIVE CHESS

ENDINGS folder and in the COMPREHENSIVE CHESS ENDINGS\BOOK folder.

9. PRINTING The program is capable of printing notations and lists of games. In View mode the Print | Print command prints header and notation of the current game. In List mode the Print | Print command prints the game headers and notations of all the listed games. To print a current set of games, use the Print | Print current dataset command.

Page setup To adjust a page setup, select Print | Page setup. This will bring up the Print options window, with the activated Page setup tab.

Select a printer from the Printer name drop-down list. To adjust the printer, press 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 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 desired 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.

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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 pane.

Print options

The Print | Print options command brings up the Print options dialog box intended to define how a set of games will look in print.

To adjust the appearance of game headers, click on the Game header tab, and the program will suggest six standard headers. To use one, press the Use a predefined layout radio button and select the desired header in the drop-down list in the upper right-hand corner of the window.

To set your own header, press the Customize patterns radio button and define the header layout in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd pattern line. To access any of these three lines, 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.

You can specify the Line spacing in half-lines as well as whether you wish the Name format to be Full or Partial by pressing one of the two radio buttons. The contents of the Empty player string will be printed instead of an undefined player name, while the contents of the Empty field string will be printed in the other undefined fields. If the Empty field string is empty, “?” will be printed in undefined fields.

To adjust the appearance of game notations, click on the Game notation tab.

Print preview

To see how the games will appear in print, call Print | Print preview, and the Print Preview window will appear. In the Zoom box you can enlarge or reduce the picture on the screen (this does not affect the printing). To print all the pages, click on Print All, or to print the current page, click on Current.

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 the pages over by clicking on the < and > buttons. You can also type the page number in the left box and press [Enter]. The << and >> buttons jump to the first and last pages correspondingly. To close the Print Preview window, press Close or hit [Escape].

Exporting

The Print | Export | Rich Text Format menu command converts a current set of games to the RTF format, which is widely used in desktop publishing. Selecting

this command will bring up the Save as window in which you can set the exported file name.

To adjust the layout of the RTF documents, select Print | Print options in the main menu and then click on the RTF setup tab.

10. MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS Select Tools | Options in the main menu or press [Alt] [F9], and the Options window will appear. It has nine tabs that allow you to adjust the appearance of different windows in different modes. For example, to choose fonts and colors for the chessboard, notation, list etc., click on the Fonts and colors tab.

The objects that can be modified are displayed in the Element section. Clicking on a plus sign next to a folder icon brings up a list of the enclosed elements. Select the element you wish to adjust and set the Font, Color and Align. If an option is dimmed then the default settings are used. See the results of the changes in the Preview section.

Dear customer, Thank you for using this product.

Your notes and suggestions are most welcome. Because we at Convekta Company value your comments, we will use the information you provide to continuously improve our products. Thank you for your cooperation.

Please contact us: Mail: Convekta Ltd., PO Box 302 c/o IPS Suite 2, Global House, Poyle Road ColnBrook SL3 0AY Berkshire UK

or

Convekta Ltd. c/o IPS 666 Fifth Avenue Suite 572 New York NY 10103 USA

E-mail: Support: support@chessassistant.com Sales: sales@chessassistant.com

Internet: http://www.chessassistant.com 39

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