Stupid Chess Mac OS

adminMay 30 2021

Stupid Chess Mac OS

(This is a short story/guide on the best way to install ChessBase on a Mac, including Macs without a DVD drive.)

Free Chess Mac
Stupid Chess Mac Os Download

The best free option I've found for chess engine & interface on Mac are Sigma Chess interface with the Stockfish Engine. I can also recommend this setup. Use it on my iMac to great success. Also, the built in Chess.app is so incredibly stupid that even a beginner like myself can beat it without thinking.

Recently, I decided to embrace my inner hipster and get a Mac. (If you don't know what a hipster is, this handy flowchart from the youreahipster tumblr might help:

If you don't know what a hipster is, but you've seen American Psycho, check out:

Analysis is powered by the Stockfish chess engine, the strongest free chess engine in the world. Play two-player games on the beautiful chess board, or get instant accurate analysis of any game. Stockfish is a powerful chess analysis app. You're getting top-notch analysis that surpasses the strongest human chess grandmasters. In the Chess app on your Mac, choose Chess Preferences, then select Allow Player to Speak Moves. When you see the feedback window (it shows a microphone icon with a fluctuating loudness indicator), press the shortcut key (the key you specified in Dictation preferences), then speak a command. Try not to hesitate while speaking. Download sigma chess for mac for free. Games downloads - Sigma Chess by Ole K. Christensen and many more programs are available for instant and free download. Meld is a free, open-source, and cross-platform (UNIX/Linux, OSX, Windows) diff/merge tool. Here's how to install it on: Ubuntu; Mac; Windows: 'The recommended version of Meld for Windows is the most recent release, available as an MSI from https://meldmerge.org'.

If you don't know what a Mac is, then the rest of this post isn't going to be much fun for you.)

My new MacBook is smart, sleek and sexy. I've named her Adelaide. 12 years ago, after 'a series of unfortunate events', I started naming my computers after Australian cities. That's another story, but I accept your judgement in advance.

However, there was just one tiny problem with my new toy, and it's exactly the same reason as to why you won't see any macs floating around at top-level chess tournaments, and the same reason why not one of my GM friends takes a mac to tournaments:

Macs don't run ChessBase.

Well, technically that's not true. A Mac is hardware, but the operating software that comes with a Mac - in my case, the imaginatively named 'OS X Mavericks' - can't handle ChessBase. Or, more accurately, ChessBase doesn't produce an OS X compatible version.

(Notice that in what follows, I will continue to use impressive-sounding computergeek terminology in order to appear like I know what I'm talking about. Of course, in reality, I really don't know very much about computers - besides which cities make appropriate names...)

You might well ask why ChessBase doesn't make a Mac-friendly version. It's a good question. Actually, ChessBase did make a Mac OS version a while ago, but apparently it didn't sell very well, so they canned it. Part of the reason could be that Macs weren't as popular a decade ago as they are now in our hipster-flourishing era. Or part of the reason could be, as was recounted to me, that the Mac Chessbase software was 'perhaps the worst-ever commercial Mac software ever created.' In any case, it doesn't exist for sale anymore, and ChessBase staff told me last year that they have no plans to introduce a Mac-friendly version any time in the near future.

Well, that's an issue. There are other ChessBase alternatives that work on Macs, such as Shane's Chess Information Database (SCID) and Mac Chess Explorer. For the casual player, these are quite sufficient. For a tournament player who is constantly using chess programs for on-the-go preparation, opening analysis and integrating other ChessBase products, this isn't really an option. This is a real shame, because ChessBase as a program is objectively really terrible: it's buggy, barely developed between versions, and gives the user neither decent control nor innovation. However, there's simply no alternative out there for the serious player.

My next attempt to install ChessBase was to investigate running a virtual copy of Windows. This is basically the equivalent of running Windows from within Mac OS X. The main programs you can get are Parallels, VMware and VirtualBox (the last one is free). There are two main disadvantages of this method. The first is the cost: You'll need to spend 50 euros or so on the virtual-machine software (unless you get VirtualBox), as well as buy yourself a copy of Windows to install. Well, so be it.

The second disadvantage, however, is the loss of processing power. Particularly if you're going to do some heavy engine work, your computer isn't going to be very happy with running two operating systems as well as blasting Houdini on full speed. Think of it like wearing a dinner jacket over the top of an old coat: Sure, it still looks pretty much the same, but things are going to get hot and tiresome if you do too much work. For the serious analyst, this is super annoying.

My next attempt was to check out Wine, which is a 'compatability layer'. To be honest, I don't know what that means. From what I can tell, however, it tries to take all the little itty-bitty Windows code in a program and translate it into something Mac-friendly. The result is that MOST features of MOST Windows programs will work on OS- mostly. Think of it like disguising your old coat to look like a dinner jacket: it'll get you in to most things, and you won't be hampered much, but there are going to be one or two functions you'd like that'll reject you.

It's free software that relies heavily on its user community, so as you can imagine, the most popular programs are the ones which get most of the work. ChessBase, unfortunately, isn't one of them. Apparently, at least according to their program directory, older versions of ChessBase (such as CB9) worked 'reasonably well', so I thought I'd take my chances with my ChessBase 12, the latest version. I have to say, it's not very easy to get the thing to run. It was originally designed for Linux people, who I associate with being far more computer-savvy than myself. After bumbling around for a couple of hours, I eventually got to the final stage of 'running' my ChessBase through Wine on my Mac. Unfortunately, it was a no-go. To be fair, the Wine site says that this is a risk for untested programs, and it also might just be that I'm not sophisticated enough to get it to work. But if you too think of yourself as a point-and-click sort of user, take my advice: this isn't the way to go.

(Intermission: If you think it's hard being a hipster, you wouldn't believe the stuff Australians have to deal with...)

Finally, I was down to my last attempt: Boot Camp. This is Apple's integrated software to run a full version of the Windows operating system on your machine. Basically, when you turn on the Mac, you get to choose whether to run OS X or Windows, so there's no loss of CPU power in ChessBase (you do have to allocate some of your harddrive space to a second operating system, of course). The problem for me was that my MacBook doesn't have an optical (DVD) drive, so I couldn't install a Windows disk, even if I had one (which I don't).

Fortunately, a while ago Microsoft commissioned a company called Digital River to provide .iso downloads for all their Windows 7 versions. You can find the downloads here (and yes, this is totally free and legal). Basically, Microsoft wants you to be able to download and install Windows 'for free', because Windows only works for 30 days without an activation key - which you have to buy from Microsoft, of course.

Once you have the Windows 7 .iso file, the Boot Camp instructions are incredibly simple to use; you can google them for yourself, if you have any troubles, and there are plenty of websites offering advice. Next, boot your computer holding down the 'Option' key and choose to boot to Windows. Then, install ChessBase. Obviously, make sure you have a downloadable version if you don't have a DVD drive. If you're using an .iso file, you'll have to install VirtualClone (free!) to mount it: http://static.slysoft.com/SetupVirtualCloneDrive.exe

One final problem: If you don't already own Windows 7 (and thus an activation key) you might be wondering what to do to keep your Windows copy going after the 30-day trial. Believe it or not, it's actually really difficult to legally buy a licence from the Microsoft website. Your best bet is actually to go to any computer store and buy a brand new copy of your Windows 7 version (make sure you get the same one; don't buy Windows 7 Home if you downloaded and installed Windows 7 Professional!). You won't need the disk, of course, but just the code on the back. Then you can manually activate it like this: http://www.wikihow.com/Activate-Windows-7

Note that Microsoft DOES NOT sell individual activation codes. If you google around, you'll find plenty of sites willing to sell them to you; these are most likely illegal (although, apparently, most likely safe as well). There are also different sneaky ways of disabling Microsoft's ability to check after 30 days whether you've got a legal copy or not, including how-to videos on YouTube by 12 year old kids (seriously, kids, what are you doing?!). It doesn't matter about the method; after 30 days, if you're running Windows and you haven't bought an official copy, technically you're doing something illegal.I wash my hands of thee.

Anyway, finally, you'll end up with a full-power version of ChessBase on your Mac, and of course, now you have the ability to install any other Windows-only programs you might have as well. You can be both a chessplay AND a hipster! Hurray!

(You made it this far? Well done. Here's your reward: The Bondi Hipsters. Steer clear if you're easily offended.)

Intro

Not everyone knows that all Macs come with a full-featured chess game. Even fewer know that this game is completely accessible, and can even pull some nice tricks to make the experience better for the visually impaired. Below, I will explain the different ways to move around the board, make moves, get help, and set up the game to speak hints and moves. Please note that you do not need to know how to play chess to read this article. In fact, once you know how to use the app, you can use the hints feature to help learn the game.

This article is a companion to the podcast I did on Chess.If you prefer to listen instead of read, there you go.

Setting the Settings

Once you open Chess, press command-comma to open it's preferences. This is a simple window, with no tabs, toolbars, or anything else to worry about. Use control-option-right arrow to move through the different items here:

'Style' and 'Speech' are just two category names we can ignore.
The 'Board' popup button lets you choose what sort of look your board has. VO-space to activate it, up or down arrows to move through the options, vo-space or enter to select one, escape to close the menu without choosing anything. This selection makes no difference to the game play, it is purely visual.
'Allow Player To Speak Moves' is a checkbox that tells the app if it should let the player be able to speak the desired move. You hold down the Command key and say something like 'pawn A 2 to A4'. If you uncheck this box, speaking moves will not be allowed. Note that this feature does not always work very well, at least in my experience.
The 'Pieces' popup button is another visual aspect that has no bearing on game play. The same keystrokes for handling the Board popup menu apply here.
'Speak Computer Moves' is what lets the computer speak what it does. This is probably the most important setting, as it is how you know when the computer takes its turn, and what piece it moved. Make sure this is checked.
'Speak Human Moves' is a checkbox which, if checked, will cause the computer to speak the moves you make. This is useful if you are playing against another person on the same Mac; whenever either of you moves, you will hear the computer say what the move was.
Next is the menu to choose the primary voice. This voice is used for speaking the opponent's moves. By default, it is set to 'default voice', which means it will use the speech settings found in the Speech tab of the Dictation and Speech area of System Preferences. You can choose a different voice here if you want to.
'Alternate Voice' lets you pick a voice to use for speaking your moves and any hints or other information you request from the computer. I suggest choosing a voice different from the primary, so that it is easy to hear which side spoken text belongs to.
Note that you cannot change the speech rates for the voices, only choose which voice is used.
The slider is how you decide the difficulty of the computer's AI. The higher it is set, the longer the computer can think and the 'smarter' it will be. To move this slider, interact with it and press vo-down arrow to lower it, or vo-up arrow to raise it.

Starting a Game

Now that your preferences are set up, let's start playing a game. Chess games are just documents, so you can have multiple ones open at once, you can save them for later, you can open saved ones, or you can erase them. For now, just press command-n to make a new game. You will find several options in the resulting dialog:

Variant allows you to choose what sort of game this is. The Mac includes several variants, with 'regular' (a normal chess game) selected by default.
'Players' is where you pick the sort of game you want. The only thing worth mentioning here is that if you choose Game Center Match, you will get to invite any friends you have in Apple's Game Center to play. You can also tell the app to pair you with a random person if you want to. All this will happen in a separate dialog when you press the 'Start' button.
If you chose 'Human Versus Human', there are no additional options to configure. If you chose a Game Center match, there are three radio buttons that let you pick the color you want to play. If you chose to play the computer, there is a slider to control the AI's intelligence level for this game. The slider is set to where you put it in the Chess preferences, but you can change it if you want to, and the setting will apply only to this game.
You are ready to play. Press enter, or vo-right arrow to the 'Start' button and hit space.

Navigating the Chess Board

Once your game begins, you should land on what VoiceOver will call 'Board Group'. This is the grid of squares that make up the chess board; interact with it to begin exploring the board. If you were not placed there automatically, go to the bottom of the window, or use vo-right arrow until you find it.

Each square in the grid is labeled according to the piece it contains, that piece's color, and the square's coordinates. For instance, the white rook in the lower left is at A1, so the square is labeled as 'White Rook, A1 button'. Each square is a button, because that is how you move pieces (more on that in a moment).

The board is navigated just like a grid; vo-right moves you right, vo-down moves you down, and so on. If you have enabled cursor wrapping in the VoiceOver Utility, moving beyond the end of a row or column will cause you to loop around the board and land on the next row or column, just like in a table. If you have not enabled that option, you will simply go nowhere if you try to move outside the board.

To move around more quickly, you can enable Quick Nav by pressing the left and right arrows together. This lets you use only the arrow keys, instead of having to hold down the VoiceOver keys as well, when moving around the board. If up or down arrows are not moving you up and down the columns, use the up and right arrows together, or up and left together, to move through the rotor options until you hear 'navigation'.

The other way to navigate is by using the Trackpad Commander. This is available on all MacBooks with a multi-touch trackpad (in other words, pretty much all of them built within last five or so years) or any Mac with a Magic Trackpad connected to it. Enable this by holding down the VoiceOver keys and rotating two fingers clockwise on the trackpad. Once turned on, this Commander lets you flick one finger left, right, up, or down to move through the squares on the board (as with Quick Nav, if up and down flick are not working, turn your rotor to 'navigation').

The other advantage to using the Trackpad Commander is that you can explore the board by touch. The squares are rather small, even if you make the Chess app full screen, but it is no worse than doing this on an Phone screen. There is nothing to enable to get this working; so long as Trackpad Commander is on, and you are interacting with the board group, simply touch near the center of the trackpad and start moving your finger around. VoiceOver tracks your focus, so if you wanted to, you could use a finger to examine the board, the navigate with the arrow keys, and your arrows will start moving you from whichever square you last touched on the trackpad.

Moving Pieces

To move a piece, focus VoiceOver on the piece's square in whichever way you like. Select it by activating it (squares are just buttons, after all). Now move to the square to which you want the piece to move, and select again. If the move is legal, you will hear the name of the target square spoken and nothing else; if it is an illegal move, the name of the target square is spoken, but the Mac will play an error tone (sorry, there is no indication for braille users; move to an adjacent square and then back to the target square to see if it now contains your piece or not).

If you try to make an illegal move, the piece you selected will be deselected. That is, you cannot try to move a pawn three squares, realize your mistake, and then try to activate a square one ahead of the pawn. You have to go back to the pawn, select it again, and then try the move again. Also note that there is no indication of the status of a piece. That is, if you select a pawn for moving, there is no way to tell it is selected by using that square's label.

Hints and Help

Free Chess Mac

To hear the last move played, press command-left bracket, and to get a hint, use command-right bracket. Note the speech used; if you are playing the computer, the last move played will be spoken using the primary voice, while hints (or your moves in a human versus human or Game Center game) are spoken using the alternate voice, as are hints. This is why it is a good idea to set each voice to something different.

There are other options available as well, all in the drop down menus (vo-m). These menus let you manage saved games, end matches, view a full log of past moves, open the help file for Chess, and more.