Golden Chess
Quick User’s guide
Introduction
The
main function of a database should
be the search of the information in it contained as fast as possible
with the
available technical facilities. For this, the tools used to build it
are decisive,
as well as the technical and thematic knowledge correctly applied in
its
design, construction and maintenance.
The
selected tools were: (a) the generic
engine MySQL Server 5.0 (of free
distribution), we
consider that it is the most powerful in its area and working range.
Therefore
the databases, charts, and designed or generated indexes for all the
products
Golden Chess, are fully compatible with this tool; (b) the programming
platform
Framework 2.0 to assure the total compatibility of the products Golden
Chess
with the Microsoft operating systems; (c) the programming language
Visual
Basic. NET with completely managed code, to make easier the learning
and the
future understanding of all those programmers and/or chess players that
might
be interested in participating actively in this project, any way they
want to,
collaborating or even working. In this sense, it will be very important
to see
the evolution of the Golden Chess community, as the different upgrades
come
out. You can be integrated, starting from now! In some point, in some
topic,
with some collaboration. You can locate yourself at different levels,
as a
chess player, as a programmer, or simply with your opinion like an
expert user.
Come
and join
us.
First
time
using Golden Chess.
Once
installed the program, when it runs, it begins
with the following operation screen:
Read
carefully
the description for each object in the above screen.
Then
click the lapel <Main Board>, the following
screen should appear::
Again,
read
carefully and identify all the elements that are described in the above
screen.
Some elements will be detailed later on, for the time being it is
enough to be
able to face the following challenge.
Challenge.
A database should be able to respond to
such typical applications like this:
“I
want to see the games of two world champions of
American origin, Capablanca (I ignore if
he is called
José or Raúl) and "Bobby"
Fischer, against
any player, but only those that have been played in the cities of
Buenos Aires,
Mar del Plata, Palm of Mayorca (I ignore
if Mayorca is written with "ll"
or with "y") and Reikiavic (I know how it
is pronounced but I don't know how it is written)"
Is this possible with Golden Chess?
Obviously,
yes
it is possible. We have not still developed an interface that he/she
answers in
the natural language (but we are in our way), however, having the
question in
mind and managing very basic searching concepts in our database we can,
with an
appropriate sequence of "clicks" and entering the key data to obtain
the sought result. To begin the practice we will define:
OBJECTIVE
1.
To bring to the RAM memory all the games of the precedent
requirement
and visualize it in the main board.
Key
data.
·
Good:
¨
the last names of the two
players <Capablanca and Fischer>, and
¨
the
names of the cities <
·
Doubtful:
¨
the
names of the two players <José and "Bobby">, and
¨
the
names of the cities <Palm of Mayorca
and Reikiavic>
PROCEDURE:
STEP BY STEP. (We make a very intensive use
of the mouse, which will be mentioned from now on as less as possible,
in order
to have clearer and shorter explanations, we will only make reference
to it
with the word "click".)
1.
We
click in the lapel <Database>, a reduced list
will
appear from the 32570 contained players in the DEMO base, ordered
alphabetically by last name and name.
2.
We enter for omission in the
lapel <Select Players>. If it
was not this way, we select it. In the input box <From
Name> we write letter by letter <C, a, p, a, b>
and we observe what’s happening. We can already see the name Capablanca: appears José Raúl,
and the accents are not there. Note: Although they should be there.
3.
In
the input box <To Name> we
type "Fisc". NOTE:
we are defining that it "filters" the players alphabetically ordered
from those that begin with "Capab" until
those that begin with "Fisc"
4.
We
apply the players filter: We click in the icon of the funnel. 
(from
now on <to apply filter>) that has an arrow down. After some
seconds of
processing the applied filter reduces our list to 3830 players. Headed
by the
one that interests us.
5.
We
check with a click the column <filter>
the "check box" of the player identified with the <Id=1179>
that is José Raúl Capablanca.
6.
With
the right displacement bar we drag
the movement button completely down. We see several players that call
themselves Fischer. For previous knowledge we know that the appellative
"Bobby" is applied in English to Robert. So, of the whole list we
only mark "Fischer" with the <filter> on those with the
<Id=29273>,
and <Id=2533>, with only two additional clicks. It must be one of
them!
7.
We
go for the cities. We click the lapel <Select
Sites>, we see a very similar appearance to the lapel of
players' selection,
but the list is empty. To bring it to the screen, we click directly in
the
button <to apply filter>, without typing anything. It bring us a
list of
1351 cities.
8.
We
write in <From Name> "Buenos", and in <To Name> "Palm" and in <Site names> "avi". With
this we try to filter alphabetically the cities that are ordered, from
those
that begin with "Buenos" until those that begin with "Palm"
plus those that contain the syllables "avi"
that it is the only thing we know almost for sure of how Reikiavic
is written.
Again,
we click in the
button <to
apply filter>. We see that it brings us a list of 681 cities, it
begins with
We
continue moving down until we find almost at the
end of the list that Palm of Majorca is written with "ll",
and we check the <Id=1291, Palm of
Majorca>, besides, three more lines below you see
"Reykjavik"!! It is written with "y", with "j"
and with "k" (at least this way is in this list), finally we also
check the filter for the <Id=1192,
9.
Everything
looks very pretty, but How do
we unite both filters?. We are already under conditions of applying a
combination of both filters: just besides the icon of <to apply
filter>
there is an icon with a binocular 
(it
Combines all the filters
and then search), we click it. An emergent screen appears whose title
is <Config the
filters to search>, which allows us to interrogate with some few
clicks,
either looking for the union, and/or looking for the intersection of
the different
filters. We have not put filters for “Events”, for
“Openings”, for “Positions”,
for “Games” neither for “Other Item”,
therefore, we remove the mark
respectively the following "check box": <Events>,
<Openings>, <Positions>, <Games> and <Other
items>.
But, we leave the marks in the "check boxes" corresponding to
<White players>, <Black players> and <Sites> that are
the
previously defined ones.
10.
Just
to the right of the frame <Include previous Set> there is a text
square that
contains a global definition, this one is good to filter for the
11.
We
define a maximum limit to the quantity of results (games in this case)
that we
expect, for omission at the beginning is in 100. We choose to increase
it at
1500 for e.g. writing "1500" in the input box of <Limit the count
of items to search>
Our
screen should look just like this:
12.
Lastly,
we give the order of searching by clicking the button <Search>
13.
After
some seconds, it changes the lapel
and it returns us a <Games result
Set>, this means that the result of our search is a group (Set)
or a
lists of games that fulfill the requested
conditions.
The result should turn this way:
In
the example
we obtained a result of 172 games, ordered by <Game
Dates> that is the Date of each game, and exactly in
the 4 cities we requested. Very important: this results list should
always be
finally filtered to indicate which of these games interest us to
analyze or to
see in particular.
14.
In
this case, all of them interest us, and we can select them to visualize
in the
main board with a single click on the icon 
<to
Select all the items>. We
do it. We see how the
program fills the <Filter> column with "checks".
Done that, we are
already under conditions of transferring these games to the RAM memory
of our
PC, where we will be able to see them and to analyze them in the lapel
of the
main board.
15.
Loading
the games in RAM: once
selected
the games of our <Result Set>,
those that we want to transfer to the main board, use the icon
<Paste the
selected games to boards>. A
single
click
will be enough to generate in memory as many boards as necessary and
verifying
the legality of each movement in each one of the games. Now, simply, we
click
on this icon. After some instants, Golden
Chess 2008-M commute to the lapel <Main
Board>, showing us one expanded list with the 172 games: it has
generated in memory 14.362 boards, and analyzed the legality for
442.484 moves
possible from each one of them. It looks this
way:
To
contract the chart with the list of games, we click in the vertical bar
located
on the left of the chart, and it shows us the last game of the list in
the main
board. To change the game, we click in the same bar again, we move with
the
lateral right bar, dragging the central button until seeing the game
that we
want to use, we mark it with a click of the mouse on the selected line,
and
then we contract the chart again. In
this case it
interests us the 8th. game
of the match Fischer-Spassky that we see
has in our
base an <Id=89997>, we select it and we pass it to the main
board. In
particular we want to see the position after the white played 14.Qd2,
we simply
click on the algebraic notation of it and in our screen should appear
the
following:
1.
Visualization
and surfing of the matches on the
database: we
can reproduce the game back and forward with the surfing buttons
(second line
of icons under the superior clock) or we can point to some move in the
text box
with the algebraic notation (English) and click directly on it to reach
the
corresponding position. This is everything for the first session.
If
you arrived up to here, following step by step,
this quick guide, you have reached the first objective. We recommend
you to
practice similar exercises. That you obtain the wanted results only
depends on
your imagination and your ability to outline the queries. As you will
see, we
have taken much more in explaining that in achieving an objective: once
you
have it in mind, the clicks come alone. Everything is speed up within
the reach
of some few clicks of the mouse, no matter how complex is the
requirement
against the database.
Welcome to the community Golden Chess! Enjoy its
superior speed…
Second session of use with
Golden Chess 2008-M Demo
To
work orderly, although it is not necessary if you have
enough practice, we close the program and we run it again. This way we
make
sure of cleaning completely all the charts, boards and searches
generated in
the first session. We go for second session:
Challenge.
A
good database should also respond to more demanding queries, not so
typical,
such as this
“I
will play a tournament and I want to get ready
studying two openings, the varying Sicilian Najdorf
(but I ignore which is the corresponding ECO) and the opening of the
Two Horses
variant Morphy. Specifically I do want to
see games
played in tournaments of
Answer: Yes, of course, let
us see how.
OBJECTIVE
2.
Bring to the RAM memory all the games in a chart filtered by the
precedent
application and to visualize it in the main board.
§
Data key.
·
Good:
¨
the name of the
openings in english: Varying Sicilian Najdorf and Two Horses variant
¨
the abbreviation
of the two countries:
·
Unknown:
¨
the ECOs
of both
openings
PROCEDURE
STEP BY STEP.
1.
We
click in the lapel <Database>, and then in the
lapel
<Select Events>. An empty list
appears.
2.
To bring it to the screen, we
click directly in the button <to
apply filter>, without writing anything. It deploys us a list of
3878
events, alphabetically ordered. We explore with the displacement bar
button and
quickly we notice that the events of
3.
In
the input box <From Name> we write "urs
-
", in the input box <To Name> we write "ursz"
and in the input box <or Event name is like as> we write " and
we obtain
137 events:
Exploring
with the displacement bar we verify that all
the events that begin with "
4.
We
select all of them with a single
click on the icon of <to
Select all the items>.
5.
We
go for the openings. First we select the lapel <Select Ecos>.
Then,
we see the
following screen:
We
can see that here exist the input boxes <From Eco>,
<To Eco> and <Contain
something like>, which allows us to define the filters for
openings: from Eco…, until
Eco… and with
the name of the opening seemed to…, respectively. Additionally a
button switch
appears (AND/OR) that we can use to define the intersection (and) or
the union
(or) of both groups. As in our case we don't know the code eco we leave
all the
input boxes empty and we proceed to fill the chart of openings applying
the
filter. We obtain a list of 10451 opening names! Ordered by ECO, with
its
description in English and Spanish. Too much to look for the eco one by
one.
Then, we write "najdorf" in the box <Contain something like>, and we
apply the filter: now it returns us a much more governable list of
6.
Since
we want to "add" the variable Morphy, this
indicates us that we should "unite" both groups, therefore, we
proceed to click on the switch (AND/OR) so that the word <OR>
appears,
that we will use for this union.
7.
We
write "Morphy" in the input box <Contain
something like>, and we apply the filter: now we obtain 260
variants, we
have added 30 with the word Morphy, but we
are not
interested to include in the search neither the first one (ECO =
B21.22), or
the last variant of the list whose ECO is C77.1, neither the ECOs C32.7 and C33.37. The most practical method
is to
select what we want, exactly in this case, it is first to select
everything
with a click in the icon , and
after unselecting the 4 variants that we don't want, one by one,
clicking on
each one of them to unmark its <filter>
and to exclude them of the search.
8.
We
are already under conditions of
combining both groups of filters, the one of events (event set) and the
one of
openings (opening set). For that we click on the binocular 
(remember that it is
good to combine and to look for) and we configure the screen in the
following
way:
That
is to say,
we remove the mark from <White players>, <Black players>,
<Sites>, <Positions>, <Games> and <Other
items>. AND we
only leave the mark in <Events> and in <Openings>. we
Increase the
limit of prospective results to 2500 and we leave the connector <AND event [SET]> and the
connector <AND opening [SET]>, just as
automatically the program
configures it. Observe that AND is the
intersection for the group of games
related to the events played in USA or USSR, with the group of openings
selected previously and gives us the result "the
games of the database that carry out both
conditions"; if we used the connector OR of the union we would
obtain all the game plays in USA or USSR plus all the games with the
variable Najdorf of the Sicilian or the
variable Morphy
of the two horses, that is to say, "the
games of the database that fullfill one or another condition."
We
click <Search>
and after a few seconds it returns us 595 games in the lapel <Result Set>.
9.
Load
the games in RAM: to
pass them to
the main board we select all them with a click in <to
Select all the items>, and in <Paste the selected games to boards>, after some
instants, Golden Chess 2008-M commute to the lapel <Main
Board>, showing us a chart expanded with the 595 games:
it has generated in memory 47.819 boards, and analyzed the legality for
1.558.255 possible moves from each one of them. When reaching this
screen we
have been able to complete our second objective:
Now what we have left is the chess work: to
study and to get ready for our tournament!
If
you arrived up to here, following step by step, the
second session, and you have some previous experience with other chess
bases
you have probably appreciated that the search power working with big
groups of
data, and its superior speed, have not still been achieved on the
outside of
Golden Chess 2008. Choose your favourite
lines and in few minutes you will have the whole background of
available
material and ready for your training..
Join! the community Golden Chess is beginning to
walk……
PD: Please, if you dare,
don't close Golden Chess, by finishing the previous session we have
leaved the prepared
land for the next session. .
Third session using Golden
Chess 2008-M Demo
A standard search engine for
chess databases should can to also look for certain positions. The
answer speed
usually depends on the good design, the optimization and the quality of
the
underlying programming. In Golden Chess to those three factors it has
added as
bonus value a new mathematical theory of combinatory numbers that
develops the
search speed at surprising levels: you
will find the position that you look for, much quicker and more easily
than
with any other well-known tool before. Surprise you!
Challenge. Taking as base
the group of games that I am studying (the 595 games found in the
second
session)
“I am studying
the games and I found a position in the game Kamsky
-
Wolff (31/12/1992) USA-ch. After the white
move
10.g4…, I want to add to my selection all the games of the
database that
contain this position." Is it very
difficult this with Golden Chess? How slow can get to look for them?.
Answer: No, it is very easy
and the time of search is smaller to 1 second. Verify it yourself.
NOTE: from now on we will
call "View" to the table in memory where are the games residents in
RAM.
OBJECTIVE
3. to
Add to the "View" all the games of the precedent application.
Data key.
·
Good:
¨
The position
that is in screen in the "Main
Board", from the game Kamsky - Wolff
(31/12/1992)
PROCEDURE
STEP BY STEP.
1.
given
the following position:
, that find starting from the search in the second session,
we make click in the lapel <Database>
and then in the lapel <Search
Positions>
2.
he/she
observes the description of the items of the following screen
carefully::
To bring
the position that we want to look for from the main board to a little
board, we
simply click on the button <to Bring
the position from the "MainBoard">, then the mouse changes its
shape and we point on the board where we want to overturn this
position, there
we click and that’s all.
3.
Then
we click on the button <to
Look for position in the database>, the mouse changes its shape
again, and
we point on the previous position.
.
4.
When
clicking on it, the following
dialogue square appears:
just on top of the above position.
The
meaning of
each "check box" to check to configure the search characteristics is
from above to bottom, 1. Quantity of Pieces, 2. material Balance, 3.
Position
of the white pawns, 4. Position of the black pawns, 5. Position of <NBRQs> white, 6. Position of <NBRQs>
black, that is to say of horses, bishops, rooks and queen 7. the kings'
Position, 8. <Flags> Flags (turn to move, castle, pawn column to
the
passant capture, counts of 50 moved, counter of 3rd repetition) and
finally a
"check box" <deep search> to begin a “deep search”.
If two
positions are the similar they should be
the same in the items from the 1 to 7.. If they are also equal in the
item 8,
then we say that they are exactly same or that it is the same position. If we mark the box of
deep search,
automatically the program marks the boxes from the item 1 to 7. We do
it and
with a click in the button <Search>
the search begins. In less than a second Golden Chess finds the 4
coincident
positions of among approximately 38,5 million positions that it
contains the
base of the Demo (500 left K). This is the result: 
Note:
it is
necessary to keep in mind that this list, from the point of view of the
filters
is equivalent (or of the same level) to the one that have defined for
the
groups of Players, Cities, Events, Openings, etc. that is to say, as
anyone of
those groups we can combine it to make an even more complex search..
5.
To
pass to the main board these additional games we select them with a
click in
the icon , and then with another click
in the icon of combining filters we
configure it so that it filters and only combines by positions. That is
to say,
we remove the mark in <White players>, <Black players>,
<Sites>, <Events>, <Games>, <Openings> and
<Others
items>. And we only leave the mark in <Positions>. We filter everything with a click on the
button <Search>, and in the lapel <Games
Result Set> we select those that we want to pass to the main
board with
the button <Paste
the selected games to boards>..
6.
After
carrying out the previous point they are added to the current "View",
at the end of the list, the following four games:
ready in RAM for their visualization and study.
We could leave
the exercise here and consider our
objective completed, but…, as everything in life one thing takes
to the other,
and we want this time to enlarge our
original objective and to add to it all the games that also coincide
with the
position 
that takes place after
the white move 8 Bg2 in the game Ye Jiangchuan vrs. Gelfand, Boris (1-0) FIDE World Cup KO,
1.
For
it, in the lapel of <Search positions>, in the
area
of position buttons 
, the
last on the right is
the one that allows to fade the list of games completely with
coincident
positions to begin a new search. Click
on this
button 
, we clean our
list.
2.
We pass the position to look for with the button 
of copying to some board.
3.
We
configure the search approaches with the button 
of
looking for
positions in the database, just as we made in the previous point 3, we
give the
order of searching by clicking the button <Search>. After some
seconds
(between 2 and 10, according to the speed of our CPU) we obtain 127
additional positions.
We click on the button of selecting
all.
4.
With
the button far-reaching
we configure the combination of
filters just as we made in the previous point 4 (we only leave the mark
for the
group of <Positions>) and when making the combined search we
obtain the
following result set:
and in the
same lapel <Games Result Set> we select all of
them and we pass them to
the main board with the button <Paste the selected games to boards>.
7.
Concluded
the previous point, to the current "View" of 597 games is added, at
the end of the list, the 127 recently found games:
Now, we have a total
of 709 games ready in RAM for their visualization and study.
So
now, we consider accomplished the enlarged objective of the third
session… The team of Golden Chess wishes you the best omens for
what is left of
the 2008, and we hope confidently you go for more…, Golden Chess
Premium
extends the database to more 4.311.000 games up to the 26-05-2008 and
our
service of weekly Upgrade will always maintain you up-to-date with the
last
games played in the entire world; for further information
you can link to www.torreblanca.org.ar
or www.chesshop.net.
Enjoy Golden Chess! And use the
time that it saves you...for what you wish...