In the last couple of weeks, we improved Chess Moves app on Android and iOS to make it even more blind-friendly.
This release has two important changes: * AICFB users can login to the App with their AICFB usernames and play official tournaments! * An edit/command box has been added under the Chess board (for accessible users only). This way, one does not need to scan the board to make the move. Instead can simply type the next move or any command, and it will just work! Faster way to make moves, especially when in time trouble!
Commands supported:
To make moves, enter: e4 or d4 or nf3 etc (lowercase). For castling both 00 or kg1 works. For long castling 000 or kc1. Likewise kg8/kc8 for black. For piece capture, both nxg5 or ng5 work. For pawn promotion g8q
Its been a difficult time for every one around the world! Some people, especially in China, Italy, Iran, Spain have suffered more.
We received an email from one such user from Iran. Although most of the App's major features are free and available for all, it makes sense that people get to use ALL the features, especially when there is so much time now at hand.
Hence, with immediate effect, ALL Follow Chess users get a 1 month complimentary PRO subscription valid till April 26th 2020!
If you have already signed-in to the App, it should unlock all the features automatically (both Android and iOS). If not, please login to the App from the side drawer menu.
WHATS NEW * Remember when you would open the App and sometimes find that the status of the event is showing LIVE even if the event is NOT or the event may have started but it shows the next round time instead of LIVE? Some very important changes under the hood to provide accurate status of tournaments. Well thats fixed.
* Sometime back, one Twitter user had mentioned this:
And this was always a dilemma for us. Whether to have quick access to standings as soon as you open the app, or only from within the Event stream. Why not both? Now its easy to view standings and all games from the multi-board screen. Just swipe right-to-left!
* Other improvements to the Chat to make it more social.
We have a new Beta version out today. It has bug and crash fixes and other enhancements.
One important thing which I always end up wondering in a given Chess position is the opponent's threats. Now its easy to find that. Just tap the Engine name and choose 'Show threat' The engine will run and show you the moves for the side again.
This release took a really long time to be made public due to various other high priority things. But glad this is out and brings in some interesting changes as well as important fixes. These changes are currently only on Android but we will bring them over to the iOS app in due course of time.
Whats New Dark theme Every other app is riding on the dark theme frenzy. It does help save battery as well as your eyes. Some say it even improves readability. This was requested many moons ago but its finally here!
To enable dark theme, please see Menu - Settings -> Dark Theme.
Evaluation bar Evaluation bar helps you keep an eye on the game's evaluation without having to keep looking down at the centi-pawn numeric evaluation suggested by the Engine. Each segment of the evaluation bar is worth 1 pawn (so the full bar extends 4 pawns/sections up and 4 pawns/sections down). When white is winning, you will see the white bar extending upwards toward the black side and similarly when black is winning, you will see the black bar coming down to the white side.
At 0.0 evaluation, both white and black colors will be in equal size. If white is winning, say 1 pawn and engine evaluates the position at 1.0, then you will see the White color of the bar extend up 1 section up)
Improved Chess 960/ Fischer Random support During the World Fischer Random championship we noticed that Analyze This engine analysis was misbehaving, especially after a O-O (castling) move. This has been fixed.
Syzygy Tablebase support Syzygy Tablebases help the engine in evaluating certain endgame positions, without really having to spend time searching and analyzing. You can download Syzygy tablebase files for the most commonly occuring endgames (say KP v P, KRP vs KR etc) and store them on your Device. Then choose this path from inside the Analyze This app - Settings - Engine Options - Syzygy Path. So whenever a matching endgame position occurs on the board, the engine will automatically start using the endgame tablebases. You will know this works when the engine starts giving very high evaluation and does not deviate much from its analysis. However, we will improve this in the near future and make this even more easier to understand. You can download Syzygy tablebases from here. But please note these are HUGE. So only download what you need!
Bug fixes & Other Improvements
Bugs fixed in Auto Analysis feature. That notorious volume key behavior is now gone. Earlier it was useful for people to use the app and go through it single handedly by using the volume key. But the behavior probably was more annoying for those who just wanted to turn down the volume.
Adding new line at the end of the game is now easy. This is user in cases where a game has ended, but you want to try out some moves, without changing the main line. In this case, just take back the last move, and reenter the same move on the board. This move will now be added as a sub variation!
Improved position setup. We think setting up a position is now faster. Say you choose a White Rook and set it on the board. Now to set up the Black Rook, you dont have to explicitly choose the Black Rook from the tray. Instead, just tap the square where you wish to place the Black Rook (it will be shown as White Rook), and then tap the square again. This will turn the Knight to Black! So the toggling works White - Black - Empty - White - Black - Empty and so on.
EPD support. Now along side pgn file, you can even see .epd files listed in the App's game file browser. These are position files you may have received from other chess apps or sources. Lots of other bugs were fixes and subtle improvements made under the hood. Enjoy and please don't forget to rate the Apps in the Play Store!
Special thanks to Al Sirutis, Atul Desai, Elaine, Henri Raben, Igor, Lucas Foreest, Miguel Gonzalez, Rahmat Ullah, Roger Davies, Tom Amlin, and others
