Chess Hero

[swami]

Brilliant find, I enjoyed this!

Great way to improve the game. Thanks for sharing this with us, Ted.

I hope the author keeps working on it. What a very intelligent and unique idea, I applaud him for coming up with a novelty. Does any other program offer this kind of feature? I don't remember any.

[Christopher Conkie]

Has anyone tried this yet? If so what do you think?

Thanks.

Downloading it now ...

http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html

Doesn't work on x64 windows. Those who used it I know (on 32 bit) said it could be better.

It's a nice idea.

Christopher

It's working over here on my 64bit system.

Here it looks for a log file....Chesshero.exe.log....and then dies.

I even created the file to see if I could get by the error box but no way.

What directory did you install it to? Maybe that's it.....

Christopher

Use Run As Administrator to solve that problem.

Oh not another one. MapPoint wants that as well. See this UAC crap......its really.....well .....crap.

I mean the profile IS an administrator. Who at Microcrap invented this stuff? See if I get them.......

Thanks Ted.

Christopher

[Mike S.]

I think it's great! I found it today, tested it, and immediatly was convinced. I have alrady created a training profile with some of my databases. I especially like the configurability, and the scoring.

Tip: An a bit bigger success margin (e.g. 0.20) makes it easier, while the training effect will still remain good enough for many players. Also, I think long computation time is not required (except for GMs).

Useful to know: Some (UCI) engine settings need to be done using the uci commands, like:

setoption name Hash value 128
setoption name NalimovPath value F:\Tablebases\

(enter that in the "init commands" box in the engine configuration)

I found that if the PGNs of common opening suites are designated as books (book moves), then they don't work for me at the same time for test positions. Therefore, I have given them a weight of 0 in the profile. But the rest works fine in Vista 32.

I like it most when it says "Better than the engine!" which happens sometimes, to my own surprise.

I have reduced the number of tests for the penalties history to 100. So, I hope to see improvements faster (or the opposite....).

[swami]

This software is ideal when GM games are loaded in and you're asked to guess the move. Also, ideal for tactics practice.

I have a few questions though:

* What should I do to ignore positions where I'm asked to solve the move for a completely losing side. A move if correct, shows the evaluation of -7.00. Although it's a best move for the losing side, It makes no sense in standpoint of the user who wants to improve his play.

* How should I set the minimum evaluation of >= +0.25 such that the difference between the best move and the 2nd best is within this limit. Makes the set of automated questions realistic and computer designed!

[Mike S.]

But the rest works fine in Vista 32.

Typical: Just after I wrote that, I had a crash with Chess Hero. On restart, it would take 50% CPU (one core) but display no screen. Reboot didn't help. I uninstalled it regularly, and re-installed it. Now it works again.

I think there may have been something broken in a configuration file it saved (see ..\User\AppData\Roaming\ChessHero\...). It uses xml files for that.