Scanning Board

[Malka Sedano]

I'm just starting to dabble in chess again after a long hiatus. I recently bought "Fritz for Fun 13". It has some nice training features including one I'm using now that chooses at random a position from a database of 1.5 million games or so and then challenges you to find all pieces that can be taken (legally) within a minute.

Now it has become clear to me that there must be some systematic way to go about examining the board. Do you do it by rank or file, diagonals or another way entirely? And is there a way to get back to scanning the board, in case some positon/threat/opportunity/etc presents itself and you get derailed?

There are some good "checklists" that let you know what good players are thinking about and what you may be doing wrong or missing (even very good players like Kotov's book Think Like a Grandmaster)... but people don't play chess with a ridged checklist or use a certain way to scan the board every time, after you play often enough it becomes habitual to check for these things. In real game planning your next move is more free form than some lists and methods suggest.

That said, I suppose one way would be to start with queens and work down, rooks, bishops, knights, and for each scan their attack path for an opposing piece. In a real game you don't need to re-check every piece every time, mostly it's enough to notice the pieces that move... just remember pieces that move sometimes uncover an attack of the rook or bishop behind them.

Slip one of the four note-taking templates (or any document) in the back and use the stylus to start writing on the semi-transparent writing tablet. Blackboard reusable notebook Letter templates include Dot Grid, Blank, Planner and Lines.

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This topic is about getting board positions into a chess app from images in pdf files or web pages, or from a camera. It's a very handy function, as we see a lot of board diagrams in a lot of places these days. But it is tedious and often inaccurate to try to put in all the pieces manually.

With both apps, I found the best way to get scans of board diagrams located in a pdf file, for example, is to first take a screenshot, making it as large as possible on the screen to improve FEN accuracy. Then I directed these two apps to the screenshot image on my phone so they could generate a FEN for it.

2. You have to sign in with Google/Log in with email. I hate this kind of data harvesting. Why on earth do I need to sign in to a Google account to scan chess board diagrams? It's digital leeching of the worst sort.

4. There is a restriction on the number of scans in any 24-hour period. I think I managed 25 - 30 scans or so before it stopped working. If you want more, you have to pay a monthly or annual fee. This restriction is not mentioned in the app description.

1. The app is half the size (26 mb)
2. There is no need to log in to Google or give your email address.
3. It stores less data on my phone.
4. There is no restriction on daily scans, at least from my experience.

Incidentally, the process of getting a board diagram from a pdf or web page would be much easier if publishers put the FEN under each diagram; then we could just copy and paste that into the chess app of our choice. But oh well.

This seems like a silly noob question...but I am a silly noob. Sitting at around 600 (and floating there in both tactics and in 30 minute games) I've noticed I give away material or extend the game considerably sometimes because I just don't see the moves needed.

I know that the trope I read all the time is "tactics, tactic, tactics", and I have been doing tactics for around an hour or so a day in addition to my daily games. I've noticed significant improvement in my ability to see attacks and play smart - but my problem seems to consistently be missing important moves for pieces. Especially in regards to 2 and 3 move mates.

One thing I do is I look for pieces under attack, and start to evaluate moves from there. If no pieces are under attack, I look around the board at pieces that I can improve their positions on. My issue seems to be target fixation:

Here, the actual move is to move the queen in for a mate in 2, however my first instinct is to notice the queen is protecting a square I can put my knight on, and guarantee a capture of their rook at h1. I don't think I made a terrible move, however it appears I have trouble spotting these easy mates. Additionally, sometimes I fixate on the check and put pieces in peril unnecess

Skill in chess is all about pattern recognition. You are doing the right thing with the extra tactics training, and as you said, you can definitely see improvement, right? Unfortunately, that is a slow process with no easy shortcut.. but don't worry, if you follow the path you are on, you will be able to spot a mate like in your example easily one day.

In fact, you already do see patterns ("Enemy rook trapped by own knight and pawn, I can win it with my knight on f2"), which is good. Your main problem is that your "map" of patterns is still very incomplete. And of course, it is only natural to focus on a pattern you see immediately and which is already favorable for you, instead of one that you don't know by heart yet. As said, the right priorities will come with time as you fill the blank spots on your map.

It is a good idea and might accelerate this process a bit if you try to get into the habit of ALWAYS calculating all possible checks each move. Especially point blank checks with a queen are rarely a bad idea (this is a pattern too, one that you want to have higher in your priority list). In all honesty, your example isn't that obvious a mate to see at first glance as you might think. The king first looks to have a lot of space to flee to on the queenside. My instinct in a real game (where you don't get told that there's a mate in 2 now) would probably be something like: "Let's see.. point blank check! Always good! Let's do that. Now, before I move, let's check his escape. d1 and d3 (pattern: point blank queen checks only offer 2 escape squares in the way a knight moves). Hm. Kd1 is an obvious mate (pattern: king at border, queen can move right next to him and is protected there), but d3 is kinda out in the open, which is bad when I only have 2 pieces to attack him further. But wait! The pawn on d5 covers c4 and e4! These are the escape squares from a queen check on d2, so this actually is mate, too! Cool."

Long story short, when I start calculating Qf2+, I don't see the mate either, it only becomes obvious after a few seconds of calculation. Hopefully you can draw some hope from that - you are only missing some links, not the whole chain ;)So, keep up your work, focus a bit more on calculating forcing moves (checks), and you should be fine. Good luck!

Playing regularly, and playing a lot of games, will normally improve your sight of the board. Constant practice is a method for improvement in chess as in other disciplines. The more positions you see, the more familiar you will become with them and start recognizing familiar patterns. In the position you have shown, you should immediately focus on the weak f2 square, and you should be looking for mate or a check first rather than just winning the rook, since ending the game quickly if possible should be a priority. The move 1..., Qf2+ leads to mate in two no matter where the white king goes, either to d1 or d3, by 2..., Qd2#.

An initial assessment of material is always a good idea, followed by subsequent layers of assessment: possible tactics, pawns structure, piece activity, etc....I usually look at my side as say to myself: Q-M-M-M-R-R (M being minor pieces - no other distinction at this point); then the opponents side: Q-M-M-R-R...In this case, I'm up a piece so trading down is my major strategy - any move I make should fall within this theme.

I am looking to invest in a 3D scanner (UK) to prepare existing floor plans and elevations in Vectorworks (currently 2018). I know these are not cheap and have ongoing costs but the suppliers seem to be very unhelpful when I mention VW.

A small suggestion would be to test scanning with a phone first. You will get the feel for what you want and need from a base and entry level. The picture was scanned with an iPhone 13 Pro Max using the free app Scaniverse. The place in the picture is about 180 sqm and took about ten minutes to scan in a single session going from room to room and sniffing around like a dog. Accuracy about 1%, so you still need to cross check with real measuring. Models can be imported into VW in several formats.

Phones having ladar has a definite advantage compared to photogrammetry as it's much faster. On the Apple side it means iPhone 12 Pro models or later, and later iPad models (check before buying). You can scan with Android devices too, but my knowledge is limited there, so ask around.

Their OBJ files come into VW in scale though you have to rotate then to get Z face upwards. Point clouds work with DTM. Have used their STL to 3D print without doing anything, Nice movies can be generated in seconds. Their USDZ can be used directly for augmented reality on Apple devices without installing anything, Very fast. Pretty good indeed for a free app.

I have been trying to get the Avalon-MM design programmed on my Stratix V GX FPGA Development Kit. I finally got it to compile on an old version of Quartus since the newer versions are not compatible with the design. I have tried to then program my board with the design but I run into the error above. I have been able to program the board successfully in the past and have no idea why it stopped working now. I made sure all the DIP switches are in the correct factory default positions but that did not fix the issue. I am on my second FPGA board since the first one stopped working like my second just stopped and also gave me the same error. Everything suggested to me to fix it requires that I can program with the board in Quartus or can connect to the BTS or BUP which I cannot do. The BTS gives me the error: "Connecting to the target... java.lang.Exception: No USB Blaster detected. Please check connections and restart the program". When I try to program on Quartus, it will recognize the USB_Blaster II but gives me the error "Unable to scan device chain. On-board programming hardware is disabled". Please help, I have had nothing but problems with these FPGA boards, with Quartus not programming, designs specific to my FPGA not compiling, other issues and now this.

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