[HN Gopher] Show HN: Checkmate Champ - a training tool for chess...
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       Show HN: Checkmate Champ - a training tool for chess tactics
        
       Author : Tommah
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2024-01-20 20:41 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.checkmatechamp.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.checkmatechamp.net)
        
       | tibanne wrote:
       | This is quite fun. I tried the first 5 where you seems to just
       | sac your queen in each. Maybe adding variation in the types of
       | mates could make it more engaging?
        
         | Tommah wrote:
         | IIRC, Reinfeld's book groups the positions by theme. If you
         | click the dice, it will show you a random position from the
         | set, so that should give you a different theme most of the
         | time.
        
       | gurchik wrote:
       | > Positions marked "1001" are taken from Fred Reinfeld's 1955
       | book 1001 Ways to Checkmate.
       | 
       | How did you enter these positions into the app? Manually?
       | 
       | One idea you can try to avoid manual work:
       | 
       | First, download a game database, like for example a Lichess
       | database,[1] or a database of Masters games. After parsing the
       | PGN, check if the game ended in checkmate. If so, then at the
       | very least you have a Mate in 1 puzzle. Using your engine, you
       | can check the last couple positions of the game to see if there
       | was a longer forced mate. If the game didn't end in a checkmate,
       | it's still possible the resignation was due to forced mate, so
       | you can do a similar process to check the final position.
       | 
       | By removing manual entry, you can add a lot more metadata that
       | the user can search for to customize their training. For example,
       | you could add the ability to train specifically on rook
       | checkmates or knight checkmates, or queen sacrifices, or
       | checkmates that occur in the back rank, or endgame checkmates
       | (positions where there are few major pieces on the board).
       | 
       | ^1: https://database.lichess.org/
        
       | AlchemistCamp wrote:
       | Woah! It's been a while since I've seen an HTML <center> tag.
       | 
       | Were you doing web dev way back in the day or is this based on a
       | template you modified? It reminds me a lot of a tool I once made.
       | It was before I was programming professionally but I had a blog
       | and was figuring out bit by bit how to customize things and
       | animate them. Fun times!
        
         | Tommah wrote:
         | I started my board game site back in 2010 as a set of CGI
         | scripts that sent the games to people in HTML emails. Then I
         | turned it into a proper website, then I got it running as a
         | persistent process, then I added this trainer, then I moved the
         | trainer to its own domain. So that <center> tag is probably a
         | decade old. I made my first website in 1999 or so.
        
       | jurassicfoxy wrote:
       | I love curated checkmate training, and I would disagree with the
       | other posters. I would in fact recommend you don't make the
       | training "random", but keep them in line with the book.
       | Presumably, like Polgar Mates, there's a sequence to it.
       | 
       | The main thing I'd recommend is having illegal moves do nothing,
       | and make drag and drop more clear. The "floating ghost piece" is
       | actually not the cursor, and that's kinda not very nice UX. You
       | might try a "click to place" technique instead of drag & drop.
       | 
       | Is this book out of copyright now?
        
         | Tommah wrote:
         | If you don't want to drag, you can click the piece and then
         | click the target square.
         | 
         | > Is this book out of copyright now?
         | 
         | I think so. The copyright term back then was 28 years, and
         | AFAIK the copyright wasn't renewed.
        
       | Euphorbium wrote:
       | I dont want to know exactly how many moves it is in advance.
       | Changes the thinking.
        
       | snissn wrote:
       | anybody have any suggestions for learning openings?
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-20 23:00 UTC)