Full
analysis
This is
a very powerful function which has repeatedly won prizes (specifically
in 1996, 1997 and 1998 the Herschberg Award of the International
Computer Chess Association) for the best computer generated
commentary of a chess game.
The program
not only annotates games at very high quality and in natural
language, it is also the only program that can identify tactical
categories and “tries”. The latter are inferior
moves which were not played but which are of great interest
to human players. “Naturally White cannot capture the
bishop because of...” is typical for the kind or didactic
commentary you will get.
The evaluation
profile also gives you a clear picture of how the game developed
and when decisive mistakes were committed. Remember that you
can click on any place in the evaluation profile to jump to
that position in the game.
You can
call up the automatic analysis for the game loaded on the main
screen, but you can also use it in the database window. There
you can select several games for analysis.
In the dialog
box there are a number of different options. If you simply click
“OK”, the analysis will start. You can stop the
automatic analysis by clicking the “Stop” button
that appears in the menu bar. These are the options you have:
Calc
time: This is the minimum time the program will spend
on a move. If it creates variations, the same amount of time
is spent on each move of the main line. Naturally, the more
time you allocate the better the quality of the analysis.
Threshold: Here you specify when the program should consider a move a mistake.
If you enter a high value (e.g. 300 = three pawn units), then
only grave blunders will be considered. If you set a very low
value the number of “Better is…” commentaries
and variations will increase.
Last
move: This sets a limit for the analysis. Analysis
always starts at the end of the game and goes backward, ending
with this move (i.e., “1” = analyse from move 1
of game).
Reference
DB: If the program has access to a large database,
it can generate some very interesting reference commentary,
quoting recent games that are similar to the current one and
identifying the novelty. Click the “Reference DB”
button and show the program which database to use.
Storage: This is relevant when you automatically analyse a number of
games from the games list. the program must know whether the
annotated games should replace the original entries or if they
should be appended as new entries to the end of the database.
Verbose/Graphical/Training: Normally the program annotates games with the help
of variations and commentary symbols. If “verbose”
mode is on it will also include commentary in natural language
(“This throws away the game” or “Black must
return material”). “Graphical” allows the
program to include coloured arrows and squares in its annotations.
“Training” makes it generate quiz questions like
“How would the (inferior) move x be refuted?” or
“Why didn’t White play x takes y?” These questions
come up when you are replaying the game. The program will even
set time allowances and award points for training positions.
Side: Here you can restrict the analysis to the player of the white
or black pieces, or to the winner or loser.
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