CHESSBD walkthru

CHESSBD walkthru - playing

Once the game starts (either you accepted a challenge, or someone else accepted your challenge), play begins on the main ICS board. Here are the main features available to you. There is actually a lot more than this, which you can learn about by exploring the menus, and by reading the CHESSBD help file.

Whose turn.
You can tell whether it's your turn to move because at all times the board window says either WHITE TO MOVE or BLACK TO MOVE at the bottom.
In addition, you can tell whose turn it is by looking at whose clock is ticking. The side to move's clock is displayed in blue, constantly ticking down. The other side's clock is displayed in black.
The side to move actually has two time numbers shown: mm:ss > MM:SS. The left mm:ss is the time left (minutes and seconds) at the start of the turn. The right MM:SS is the time left (minutes and seconds) now. Be aware that this is only an approximation of the time, not corrected for lag.
When you submit your move, there may be a noticeable lag time before the server's acknowledgment arrives. During this time, the board position and SIDE TO MOVE display will reflects your move, but the clock display keeps decrementing the clock on your side, with the notation (lag=MM:SS). If you are using TIMESEAL, then the lag time will not really be counted against you; if you are not using TIMESEAL, then up to that amount of time will be subtracted from your clock.
Moving a piece.
Click on the piece you want to move, hold the mouse button down, and drag it to its destination square, then release it. (If you've changed the dragmove option with Options|dragmove..., click on the piece, then click on the destination square.) You cannot move until it is your turn: you can begin your move by picking up a piece, but you must not release the piece until it is your turn.
- Promoting a pawn.
  If you want to promote to a queen, check the autoqueen checkbox in the ICS arena, before making your move. (It is normally checked, unless you unchecked it.) If you want to promote to something other than a queen, uncheck the autoqueen checkbox before making your move; a dialog box will pop up asking you what you want to promote to.
- Making illegal moves.
  If you try to make an illegal move, the program normally will just restore the board and wait for you to make a legal move. This can cause problems if you are playing chess variants such as kriegspiel or suicide. You can turn off legality checking by checking the variant checkbox in the ICS arena. Or, you can simply type the move in ICS telnet window.
Ending the game.
The game can end in many ways. I won't attempt to cover all of them. The most common are:
- Checkmate.
  You don't have to do anything.
- Your opponent resigns.
  You don't have to do anything.
- You resign.
  To resign, select User|resign.
- Draw by agreement.
  To offer a draw, or accept a draw offer by your opponent, select User|draw.
- Draw by repetition.
  Draw by repetition is not automatic: you must claim it. Select User|draw.
- Abort.
  You can unilaterally abort your game on move 1. After that, you can abort by mutual agreement. Select User|abort to request an abort, or to accept your opponent's abort request.
- Flag.
  If you have autoflag checked in the ICS arena, or if you have the server's autoflag variable set to true, you don't have to do anything. Otherwise, you have to "call" the flag when your opponent's time goes negative. Click the flag button in the ICS arena.

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--- Don Fong, May 1998