Category: Games

Hiarcs Chess Explorer Video Quick Tour

October 1, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The Hiarcs team recently posted two videos (one for Mac and another for Windows) to give a quick tour of their products. The Hiarcs Chess Explorer applications for both platforms virtually look the same and share the same functionalities.

I have a Mac and purchased the Mac version, and here’s the quick tour:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtBdRjtrBDU&w=480]

Yet, I have to reiterate my feature requests I hope we get in the next version:

  • Engine match and engine tournaments;
  • Ability to publish PGN games to be replayable in HTML through javascript;

See also Hiarcs Chess Explorer for PC video tour.

A FIDE Master Title for Elite GM’s

September 26, 2012 / / 0 Comments

William of OnlineChessLessons.net offered a strong argument why FIDE should introduce an official Super-GM title for 2700+ rated chess players.

In 1972 there were 88 GMs and in 2012 there are now over 1200 GMs! However the vast majority (around 95%) of Grandmasters are rated between 2400 and 2699 FIDE. After the recent Chess Olympiad 2012 in Istanbul, there are now a total of 50 Super-GMs rated over 2700 FIDE.

Read more about Should FIDE have a Super-GM title for 2700+ GMs?

Personally, I’m in favor of his proposal of an official distinct FIDE title awarded to “elite” GM’s in order to separate them from, well, the not-so-elite ones. FIDE may not necessarily use a 2700 ELO rating cut-off, but they could devise certain criteria for eligibility.

However, I advise against the use of the “Super-GM” name. Continue reading

Running Fritz 12 on a Mac via Crossover

September 9, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Fritz 12 is a great chess product that unfortunately has no Mac version. I’ve installed it on a Bootcamp partition, and it works great. But I hate rebooting to Windows everytime I need it. Besides, all my files are in the OS X partition.

I also tried running Fritz 12 in a Parallels Desktop. It works fine as well, but then I have to boot Windows on top of OS X, which in the process they’re sharing the same computer’s resources, which proves to be an inefficient environment to run a resource hungry application like Fritz 12. I was only able to assign 3GB of RAM out of the total installed 8GB, and the application can only utilize 1 CPU out of the total 4.

So what about Codeweaver’s Crossover? Well, this is how it looks like: Continue reading

September 5, 2012

Chess is a game sufficiently rich in meaning that it is easily capable of containing elements of both tragedy and comedy.

— Luke McShane

Updates from Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad

September 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Liveblogging has been discontinued from this page since the end of Round 7 of [event]Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad[/event]. To check out the latest about team Philippines in the said event, check out the link below:

Philippines in Istanbul 2012

The score card of the match between the 35th seed Philippines vs. the 4th seed Hungary follows:

Bo.
Philippines
Score
Hungary
1 Wesley So
1/2-1/2
 Peter Leko
2 Oliver Barbosa
0-1
 Zoltan Almasi
3 Eugene Torre
1-0
 Ferenc Berkes
4 Mark Paragua
1/2-1/2
 Csaba Balogh

Below are the links for the Live Games Round 7 Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad:

Continue reading

The Polgar Family

August 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

No doubt the Polgar Family of 3 women chess players and their remarkable achievements could now be considered as one of the pillars of the great and rich history of chess.

Recently, ChessBase reported:

For four years, an Israeli film-maker has collected archive material never seen before, and produced a documentary for Israeli TV that is epic and historic, but also personal and intimate.

And here’s the trailer to the documentary film: Continue reading

Why Not ChessCube?

August 27, 2012 / / 0 Comments

As you read through this blog, you might notice that I’m not so fond of Chesscube.

You know why? Because it’s so full of Flash. And you know what Steve Jobs has to say about Flash:

  • It is proprietary;
  • It has security problems and is the number one cause for Mac crashes;
  • Flash is a battery hog which doesn’t work well with mobile devices;
  • Use HTML5 instead.

And if you have kept up with the news lately, Adobe has removed Flash for Android from Google Play.

Now, have you seen a Chesscube app in the iTunes App Store or Google Play? There’s none, because they can’t do it.

That’s why I’m using an internet chess server like FICS for online play and Chess.com for correspondence chess.

Hiarcs’ Mac Chess Explorer is Now Available

August 27, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Got a message today that Hiarcs’ Mac Chess Explorer is finally available:

At last, after a very long wait, it has finally come for us to check out.

It comes bundled with Hiarcs 14 and costs US$59.95 for the single-core version, and US$99.95 for the Deep Hiarcs (multi-core/multi-processor version).

By the way, there’s also the PC Chess Explorer. But what the heck, we’re only interested in Mac here, right? Continue reading