“The best laid plans of mice and men…” – Robert Burns
As often happens in life, plans made are rarely plans executed. We were just made aware through a Facebook post that today is the last day that Mario’s will be open for an indeterminate amount of time. Consequently, and effective immediately, we’ll be moving our primary meeting location to Brahan Spring Recreation Center on Fridays from 4:30pm to 7:00pm.
We thank Mario’s for hosting us while they could and wish them a speedy return to service!
*Please note that the next 5 meetings will be centered around the Huntsville City Championship. There may be room for casual chess for those who aren’t participating (and definitely before the round starts), but we’ll need to ensure that the playing room remains silent for those competing.*
November 5th: City Championship
November 12th: City Championship
November 19th: City Championship
November 26th: No meeting (Thanksgiving)
December 3rd: City Championship
December 10th: City Championship
December 17th: Casual Chess
We had originally planned to add Friday to the days we meet, not to substitute Friday for Tuesday. So, if you have a Huntsville location that we can move to on Tuesday from 4:30pm – 7pm, please let us know by emailing us here.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the same email link above.
Do you want to improve your chess? Do you find yourself struggling for time between passively watching chess YouTube videos (without setting up the board) and actively studying chess books with 2 side-by-side boards used to construct each of the chess diagrams contained within its pages? Do you make futile efforts to visualize the lines within a chess book since you, like most of us, lack GM level visualization abilities? If so, this article may provide a solution for you with the Android/iPhone Chessify app.
To paraphrase a local chess Master, who I both admire and agree with, “Chess videos are typically used for passive learning, while chess books are only able to be used interactively, which results in active learning. Active learning, by far, is the best way to improve your chess game.” While this may seem like a nail in the coffin judgement against some forms of chess improvement, and I’ve found far stronger players as a whole who credit their success to their tattered chess books, than I have with players who have only watch YouTube chess videos on road trips, I think there is some middle-ground to be found.
Credit goes out to HCC’s Logan Richey for this idea (so if it doesn’t work for you, you can thank him for that too!). Chessify, according to the Google Play Store summary, “…is a must-have tool for chess lovers. It allows the user to scan and digitize chess diagrams from books, journals, pdf files, or other sources at 99% recognition efficiency, which makes its scanner the best chess OCR tool (optical character recognition) in the market.
The app also allows the users to analyze the digitized positions either locally or on cloud servers for free. The strongest chess engines are used for analysis, such as Stockfish 8. The cloud Stockfish engine can be used for free at about 25.000 kN/s speed for 10 seconds.
If you want to play or analyze interesting chess positions and puzzles, Chessify is a perfect and free app for you. Notably, you can also save the needed positions (FEN) in the app’s storage and share them with other chess applications.”
Practically speaking, the way I’ve used the app is to open a chess book and scan the various positions as I encounter them. Then, I can work through the lines on the board myself (or with Stockfish analysis) without having to pause to set up the side by side positions on real chess boards.
Pros:
Quickly scan and work through chess diagrams within a chess book, allowing active participation with a typically passive media source.
Quickly apply an engine to your analysis if you find the book’s recommendations to be unclear, or you don’t want to only take the Author’s word for it.
Bring the ability to study anywhere you can carry a smartphone and a chess book. This may be used instead of, or in addition to, a regular 3D studying regimen. Increasing the number of potential opportunities to study, can only help your game. Whether or not the things we choose to study are actually beneficial is a topic that would provide enough material for 100 additional discussions.
Cons:
The scanning technology is sometimes hit and miss. I find the developer’s claim of “99%” scanning accuracy to be quite a bit of an overestimation, especially for folks like me lazily studying chess in bed, or while on a bumpy airplane ride. I’ve frequently scanned a diagram, only to find that I have 3 Queens instead of a King, a Rook and a Queen in the resulting position. However, it is still much easier to swap out a couple of digital pieces than it would have been to set up the chess board(s).
The app does not appear to allow quick back and forth movement via the left and right arrows of typical chess applications. This results in some of the same difficulty that you will encounter when analyzing similar positions over the board.
Overall:
While I must admit, when it comes to chess tournament improvement, I don’t believe there is any substitute for studying with a real, 3 dimensional chess board, Chessify is a close second. I’m also too lazy, too busy, or a combination of both, to spend much time hovering over a chess board to use this more viable, but more inconvenient method of learning frequently enough to improve my game via a great chess book as much as I can with Chessify.
I know we just spammed you yesterday, but I want our readers to be the first in line for this new chess tech, ChessNoter – a new e-Notation device for USCF rated tournaments.
I realize that I may not be in the majority here, so if this topic is of no interest, please disregard. However, if you’re still reading this article, you must be excited to know that there is a new e-scoresheet approved by the USCF!
As soon as I made my return to competitive chess after a nearly 2 decade hiatus, the first things I noticed out of the ordinary, were the devices that kids were using in place of a paper scoresheet. I did my research and found there were just 3 available. Plycounter, Monroi, and e-Notate. They even track your move times for you, so you don’t have to!
As a chess coach, I’ve only been able to review about 20-30% of our kids games because they are rampant with notation errors. If I can’t review games with them, it’s a lot more difficult for them to learn from their mistakes. Knowing that they spent .0002 nanoseconds considering their move before a huge blunder would be valuable information to pass along to them, as well.
Keeping score accurately is no simple task for me, let alone a first-grader new to algebraic notation. I frequently make mistakes, often costing valuable seconds that I may need later in the game under time pressure. I was instantly sold on the concept. However, when I saw the price tag for these devices, I had to do a double-take. These devices were selling for hundreds of dollars and they looked like technology straight out of the early 1990s!
In spite of all this, after a year of tournament play, I thought it might be a good investment that could really help my game, and I decided to place my order. So what’s the problem? Well you see, you can’t actually buy one. Yes, that’s right. The only devices that were USCF approved for use are not available for purchase.
Plycounter seems to have had some issue with their latest release when they changed from point-to-point to drag and drop piece placement and got rid of the stylus. I’ve been on the waitlist to order one of their devices ever since, with no response from the company to any of my emails checking on availability. Monroi is completely unresponsive as well, and e-Notate’s developer unfortunately passed away. You can’t make this up!
Enter ChessNoter. A relative newcomer to the e-notation scene. When I initially researched the company, they weren’t USCF certified, so I definitely wasn’t going to risk it. I must admit, I was also a little skeptical after learning the process to purchase their software. However, when I learned that they were getting their software reviewed by the USCF QA folks, I had to roll the dice anyway. Here’s what I had to do to get one:
Search Amazon or Ebay for a defective Motorola Nexus 6Click here to search now. Wait, defective? What? It’s actually a ingenious idea. In order to be USCF compliant, ChessNoter has to disable the mobile radio in the phone anyway! I was able to pick up one that “could not connect to any mobile networks,” for around $80. Just make sure the wireless functionality still works. You’ll need that to receive software updates.
Go to ChessNoter and purchase the software. It’s $19.99 with an offer to save 10% on all future orders. It’s an additional $12.15 for shipping and handling to cover the return of the phone.
Print the receipt and mail it in with your new (used) phone. Priority shipping was $7. They’ll replace the Operating System and send it back with your software. That’s it! Joey from ChessNoter even sent me a personal email asking me to email him with the tracking information so he would be expecting it and be able to return the device to me quickly.
I just received mine back in the mail yesterday, along with the official Facebook news that they had received their approval, December 18th. Perfect timing, the gamble paid off! An early Christmas present to help out with chess!
Our oldest son (also a chess player) and I even made an unboxing video. Note… we’ve never made a “vlog” before, and it’s the first take, so there is much to be desired in terms of production quality film-making. However, if you’re willing to endure a painful video to see what it was like to use the device for the first time, here’s a link to the “official” (totally unofficial) unboxing – just fast-forward past the painful parts to get to the good stuff:
Please leave your ChessTech topic suggestions, questions, and comments in the comment section below.
Straight to Ale this week. No Christmas meeting planned.
Greetings,
As a reminder, we’ll be at Straight to Ale this week, and we will not be hosting a meeting on Christmas day. Our next meeting will be after the first of the year.
New Blog Topic – Chess Tech
We are adding a new blog topic and category to our site, called Chess Tech. In it, we’ll be bringing you news of the technical innovations in the chess community that don’t get nearly as much attention as they deserve.
As of now, you’ve all been added to the email list to be notified of blogs of this nature. If you wish to unsubscribe from one or both types of emails we send, please just click the unsubscribe link in that particular email (unless you’re part of the Meetup distribution list. You all will have to leave the Meetup group to be unsubscribed). This will be the first official Chess Tech blog.
Video Library Available with your Paid Membership to the Huntsville Chess Club (and valid Gmail address).
For the low, low price of your $10 annual dues, we’re going to be making a comprehensive video chess library of instruction available to our members for viewing. This library will have 100gb of videos (over 200 hours), featuring opening theory, tactics, strategy, endgames, and GM games. There is something for everyone to improve their chess game.
Important Note* – in order to take advantage of the video library, you must be a paid member, have a valid Gmail email address on file with us, and be able to access a Google Drive. Email huntsvillechessclub@gmail.com if you need to change your email address to take advantage of this great opportunity!
With regard to memberships, we’ve added the capability to register/renew through the website and moving forward will require that you use this method to renew. It keeps the management of the roster much easier. As of right now, we have records of the following paid members registered.
Stephen O’Shea
Michael Key
Bill Melvin
Ed Mullin
Steven Pan
Patrick Dowd
That’s all we’re currently tracking. We acknowledge that the membership record-keeping we (I) have done was not as accurate as we would have liked. If you’ve registered with cash in past meetings this year, please email huntsvillechessclub@gmail.com, and include the approximate renewal date, and we’ll track your membership outside of our somewhat automated process until it expires.
Remember, if you enter a few tournaments per year, the dues will pay for themselves. If you even watch one of the videos, it’s like you’re being paid to be a member!
Don’t miss out! Renew your membership using the conveniently placed form below:
