So it looks like my work and all the encouragement I’ve received is starting to come to fruition. I have automated problem discovery (and in some cases… generation… for variations on a theme!). At the moment, I’m working through the queue to see how I can refine the programs that do the work. Every one in ten problems right now, I’m learning of a change that I need to make, and adding it to my todo list.
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New Problems Coming Down
February 18th, 2010Feature Requests for the ATS
November 18th, 2009Here is where I’m going to keep a list of feature requests/ideas. Mostly because I read about ideas that I like and I know I’ll forget them.
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Adding Problems
November 12th, 2009If you have added a problem via the “Share A Problem” page, please let me know. I’m not sure that it is working for everyone exactly the way it should.
Review: Dinosaur Chess
October 31st, 2009First, what is Dinosaur Chess: Learn to Play? Dinosaur Chess is software for your PC or Mac that helps children learn chess. Convekta is the distributor of the product and sells it on their website as a download as well as a CD. But if you buy it, I hope you buy it through Amazon so that I get a cut. It makes me feel good and want to continue to work on this site.
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Breaking 1500
October 19th, 2009I know. 1500 problems (sorry… I don’t have any advice as to how to achieve a 1500 rating aside from lots of hard work) doesn’t really compare with the thousands of problems available elsewhere, but as one who doesn’t often stick to a project, I get to be proud that I’m still adding problems as I find them. I’m also starting to recognize problems that are more useful than others… trickier and more entertaining, so they are probably getting better a little bit better on average. I’ve become a little bit more discriminating, I guess. Thanks for visiting and keep coming back.
Broken With Mozilla?
September 21st, 2009Despite that I built the site using Mozilla, at the moment the ATS appears to be broken with the Mozilla I’ve got on my machine. I don’t know if it is a misbehaving plugin or if I’ve got a more serious issue. Everything seems to work ok with IE and Chrome, so as a temporary work-around if you are having trouble with Mozilla on this site, please try one of the others.
Edit (5 minutes later): It is apparently an issue with the Skype plugin for Firefox. If you are having issues with Mozilla, and need to use Mozilla for this site, please disable the Skype plugin and try again.
Copy and Paste FEN
August 9th, 2009Would anybody like to be able to copy and paste the position from the “view problem” page (like what you can get to after you’ve missed a problem) to your favorite chess playing software? Well I can. But I haven’t made the feature widely available because I’ve been afraid that someone is going to come along and “steal” all the positions.
Mandatory (?) Voting on Instructional Value
April 6th, 2009I’ve got a hankering to get some more information from the Web. The question I want answered with more certainty is: how good are the problems on the ATS? Look, I know that to a certain extent, any problem is good if you haven’t seen it and it gets you to exercise your chess muscles, but there are some problems that really drive home a point. There are those, too, that while you may pick something up from them, just don’t stand out as brilliant. And there are those that are just sort of… bleh.
The Adaptive Tactics Server Tactical Weakness Blaster
March 8th, 2009The whole point of the Adaptive Tactics Server is to identify the tactical motifs you are weakest at and give you practice specifically in those areas. Each problem in the ATS problem set has been tagged with one or more types. These include such common tactical motifs as pin, skewer, decoy, undermining, etc. Your performance in each of these categories is saved and maintained by the server on the server.
Chess Training is Like Bodybuilding
March 1st, 2009Recently, I re-established contact with an old friend with whom I cut my teeth when I first started playing chess. He now teaches chess, and I’ve asked him to play the role of sherpa/cheerleader in my quest for chess improvement. That being said, I’ve been studying tactics for a while now and I wanted to add some color to my training routine.