.KEYWORD chess
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT SHOOTOUT
.TITLE Chess on the Palm OS
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Whether you’re hanging out in the park, passing time before a meeting, or playing against Death in a battle for your very soul, there’s nothing like a rousing game of chess. Chris Phillips has taken a look at two powerful chess programs for the Palm OS and compares them in terms of options, game controls, display, strength of play, and tools.
.AUTHOR Chris Phillips
I’ve read that the United States sent a man to the moon using just the processing power of a 286 computer. Today, many of our Palm handhelds have more processing power than a 486. So, what are we to do with all that power? Play chess of course!
There are a wide variety of chess related programs available for Palm handhelds, including several that will allow you to play against your Palm handheld or another player. A little research revealed that there are two programs that stand head and shoulders above the rest, Chess Genius 1.3 and PocketChess Deluxe 2.0. I spent the last several weeks putting each of these programs through their paces in an attempt to identify which one can be crowned "The King of Chess Applications for the Palm OS."
Before we go any further, I need to let you know I’m no Gary Kasperov. I’m not a competitive chess player. I have never been a ranked player, and I routinely lose to computerized chess programs. I’m writing this for the average person who simply enjoys playing chess. Hopefully, the more advanced players will find this informative as well.
.H1 Background
PocketChess was the first chess program for the Palm OS. Version 1.0 was freeware and was only 28K in size. For several years, PocketChess was the only chess program for the Palm OS. Then, in early 2000, Chess Genius made its debut. Chess Genius was a shareware program that boasted significantly more features and much stronger play than PocketChess. Richard Lang is the author of Chess Genius and is well renowned in programming circles for producing chess games with extremely strong play.
The author of PocketChess was already working on a new version when Chess Genius came out. Initially, the author of PocketChess worked to make the program play stronger, but Richard Lang had over a decade head start. PocketChess could already outplay the majority of chess players, so PocketChess instead focused on new features and the overall appearance. The end result is a choice between two very good programs.
.H1 Chess Genius 1.3
In its default view, pictured in Figure A, Chess Genius (at http://www.chessgenius.com) packs a lot of information on the screen.
.FIG A Here’s the Chess Genius default view.
Of course there’s a chessboard, but you also get a set of timers at the top of the screen for each player, an overall game timer at the bottom of the screen, and a column that tracks and reports each move made on the right side. This is a lot to absorb at first, but after playing for a short time, it all works very nicely together. All these features make the board pretty small, so you had better have good eyes, especially if you’re playing on a Palm m100 or Palm m105. There’s also a toggle in the lower right hand corner that’ll cause the board to expand and take up most of the screen, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B Expand the size of the board with the toggle button.
When you do this, you lose the individual player timers and the column that lists the moves made during the game, but if you tap on the toggle button again, you get this information back. This offers a nice balance between functionality and board size. I immediately jumped into a game and lost within five minutes (yes, on the easy level).
.H2 Options
One of the things I like most about new programs is checking out the options, so rather than suffer another humiliating defeat (at least right away), I turned to tweaking the program. Chess Genius has a variety of options organized as follows.
The Command menu is pictured in Figure C.
.FIG C Here’s the view of the Command menu.
The Options menu is pictured in Figure D.
.FIG D Here’s the view of the Options menu.
.H2 Game control
Chess Genius provides three modes of play: Player vs. Palm, Two Player, and Palm vs. Palm. Chess Genius allows you to save games to a memo file or load games from a memo file. The games will be stored in PGN (Portable Game Notation) format and must be loaded in PGN format. You also have the ability to set up the board however you wish. This is especially useful if you’d like to replay an old game from a specific point in order to study how you could have played better.
Chess Genius lets you move backward and forward through a game one step at a time or jump right to the first or last move of a game. You can also choose to switch sides at any point in the game. Finally, there’s an option to set the time on the clocks to any value between one minute and two hours. You know the drill, if your clock runs out, you lose!
.H2 Display options
Chess Genius will let you modify the display in several different ways. You can expand the board to completely fill the screen, as shown in Figure E.
.FIG E You can expand the board to completely fill the screen.
You can reverse the board to get a different perspective on the game. You can change the colors (or shades of gray) of the squares on the board. You can also choose to enable fast animation, which will make the moves happen very quickly. You had better be paying attention if you enable this.
.H2 Strength of play
I have already mentioned that strength of play is one of the areas where Chess Genius shines. Playing level is selected by choosing how long the Palm handheld can think about its next move. If you select "1 second," the computer won’t have very long to think, and game play will be fairly easy (for some people). You can choose one of ten settings between one second and three minutes. There’s also an additional playing option called Permanent Brain. If you select this mode, the computer will never stop analyzing the game. This will give you the strongest play, but watch out. This mode is very processor intensive and will wear your batteries down more quickly.
.H2 Tools
Chess Genius gives you several interesting tools. One is a feature called "Mate In." This isn’t a mode of game play, rather you set up the board as you want and then Chess Genius will calculate the minimum number of moves required to achieve checkmate.
As with most computerized chess programs, there’s a Tip function that recommends your next move. Chess Genius has expanded on this, however, with a feature that I especially like called "Tutor." When the Tutor function is activated, Chess Genius will evaluate each move you make and then warn you when it thinks you have made a mistake. It doesn’t tell you what the mistake is or recommend a move, so you get an opportunity to reevaluate your move and try to figure it out on your own.
.H1 PocketChess Deluxe 2.0
PocketChess Deluxe (at http://www.pocketexpress.com/Catalog/Catalog.html) presents you with a bigger board by default, which I liked, but also has a myriad of controls and buttons, which I found confusing. In fairness, you don’t need to know what any of these buttons do in order to play chess, but it really bugs me to see something on the screen and not know what it does. Because of this, the first thing I did was to start pushing buttons instead of jumping right into a game of chess. The control icons are arranged down the right hand side of the screen, as you can see in Figure F.
.FIG F Here’s the PocketChess Deluxe main screen.
The very top icon looks like a tiny knight. When you tap on it, a small black square appears in every square on the board where your opponent could possibly move next. The next icon looks like a small sheet of paper. This will allow you to enter up to three sets of notes for your game. Next is a series of icons that look like controls for a VCR. These buttons allow you to step forward and backward through your current game. Below those is an icon that looks like a notebook. When you tap on this, you’re presented with a list of your past games. At this point, you can choose a past game or return to your current game.
Finally, there’s a toggle button. When you tap on this, the board expands to fill the entire screen. One note of caution here: unlike Chess Genius, once you expand the screen, the toggle button disappears. It took me five minutes of hunting to find the command in the menus that would return the screen to normal. Look under View in the Edit menu and choose "Medium."
.H2 Options
PocketChess Deluxe also boasts a large selection of options. The main options screen is pictured in Figure G.
.FIG G Here’s the main options screen.
The Edit menu options are pictured in Figure H.
.FIG H Here are the Edit menu options.
The Options menu is pictured in Figure I.
.FIG I Here is the Options menu.
.H2 Game control
PocketChess Deluxe also allows you to import and export games in PGN format, however it adds to that feature by allowing those files to include variations and annotations. You also get the option to beam games to or from another Palm handheld. PocketChess also comes with a database of famous games and chess problems. I found it very enjoyable to try and solve these problems when I didn’t have time to play an entire game, such as waiting for meetings to start or waiting in line somewhere.
You still have the option to set up the board in any way that’s legal, and with the VCR controls you can step forward and backward through your games as well as skip to the first or last move of a game. You can set the play clock to any value between one minute and nine hours.
So far, pretty much the same options as Chess Genius, right? Well, here is where PocketChess Deluxe begins to make some distinctions. In addition to the options of playing against the computer, playing another human, or watching the Palm handheld play itself, PocketChess Deluxe gives you the option to play another Palm handheld owner via the infrared port. This option already makes me long for a wireless standard to be adopted (e.g., Bluetooth) so the two Palm handhelds won’t have to have their infrared ports aimed at each other. Sounds like a great way to pass the time in boring meetings, eh?
.H2 Display options
I have already mentioned that you can expand the board to fill the screen. You can reverse the colors to see the game from your opponent’s point of view, although this is easier to do in Chess Genius. You can also choose between five different color schemes.
You also have other options available, such as the style of the pieces and the colors of the squares, depending upon which scheme you choose. This really lets you customize the board in a way that appeals to you personally. If you find a combination that you really like, you can save it with a name of your choice. Finally, you can choose between five different animation speeds.
.H2 Strength of play
The options related to strength of play are somewhat more limited than what’s available in Chess Genius. Basically, it’s determined by the amount of time you give the computer to think about its next move. You may set this option to anything between one second and 59 hours, but the defaults are between one second and 30 seconds. The longer you give the computer to think, the harder it will play.
PocketChess Deluxe goes one step farther, with a play option called blindfold. When you enable blindfold, you can choose to make some or all pieces anonymous, invisible, or colorless. When a piece is anonymous, it’s represented by a "?", when it’s invisible, it isn’t represented at all, and when it’s colorless, you can’t tell whether it’s your piece or your opponent’s. This gives you a lot of options for creating some very challenging games.
.H2 Tools
The two main tools that PocketChess Deluxe gives you are the hint feature and a list of pieces taken. You can customize the hint feature to give you stronger or weaker hints depending on how long you let the computer think about the hint. You can set this to be between one and 30 seconds or select a custom value of even longer. The list of pieces taken is a nice feature that I found missing on Chess Genius.
There’s another tool that comes with PocketChess Deluxe that’s not on the Palm handheld itself. PocketChess Deluxe includes a Windows Companion. By default, every game you play is stored in a database on the Palm handheld. When you HotSync, your games are downloaded to your PC. The Windows Companion provides a tool for reviewing and organizing your games using your PC. You can’t play chess on your PC using this tool, but you can step through games and organize them into categories.
After playing with all these options, I did finally play a quick game, and again, I lost within five minutes. At least I’m consistent.
.H1 Conclusion
So, which is better? It really depends on your expectations. Both do an excellent job of fulfilling their primary purpose, which is to provide a challenging chess game. But both go about achieving that in very unique ways. PocketChess Deluxe gives the user many more options on how the game is presented. Chess Genius has stronger playing options. PocketChess Deluxe does a great job of tracking your games and keeping them organized. Chess Genius has a very good tutor feature.
I can see how the strongest players would be drawn toward Chess Genius because of the stronger play. Less experienced players should not be chased away by that, however, because after a few games with the tutor, I was able to defeat Chess Genius routinely at the lower skill levels.
For tournament players and others who are interested in keeping a record of their games and in replaying games to refine their strategy, PocketChess Deluxe may be a better way to go. Your best bet is to download them both and try them. Both programs allow limited play for free, and both programs are priced at $25.00.
In closing, I’d like to thank Richard A. Fowell for his help with the history of each program.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on ChessGenius, visit http://www.chessgenius.com.
For more information on PocketChess Deluxe, visit http://www.pocketexpress.com/Catalog/Catalog.html.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f53c
