Alpha Centauri 2

Other Games => Other Games => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on September 20, 2013, 12:09:22 AM

Title: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 20, 2013, 12:09:22 AM

Funny thing.  I've been busy with moving hosting of My Custom Factions Page (http://alphacentauri2.info/My%20Custom%20Factions/Custom%20Factions.htm) here last night and today, and in the course of tracking down all the links to the old location (to edit to point here) at the chess club website I used to webmaster, I discovered that a .pdf of a little one-sheet dealy I whipped up about eight years ago, How To Play Chess, is VERY popular.

Does my ego good, it does.

I collect chess sets, and it's always bothered me that the rules sheets that come with them almost NEVER give the complete moves, let alone correctly.  Castling is rarely described, and en passant almost never.  I could write a humorous chess magazine article compiling all the stupid misinformation, like the one that asserts that the oldest player goes first.

I set out to make this just to prove that the complete moves and rules for casual over the board play (tournament rules fill a thick book) could be fitted legibly on one standard sheet of paper.  -Well, turns out they can, and I had half a page left over to go into the most basic of beginner strategy.  This covers everything you need to begin very well, I think, or it wouldn't be linked all over creation.

Maybe you don't know how to play, or want to teach a kid or two - have a look at the attachments.  If you've got something that will open the .doc version with the formatting intact, you can print out a much prettier copy that way... 

EDIT: I finally got MSWord running on my current rig for use in a similar (SMACX) project, and happened to have a look at the .doc version that was attached to the OP - the diagrams are gibberish if you don't have the diagram font I used installed (which I no longer do). I think I lost the font when I deleted the large Windows folder from the old drive to make space for SMACX stuff, so simpler to remove the .doc attachment and point everyone at the .pdf attached to the second post for printing-hard-copies use.

EDIT2:  I found copies with the diagrams embedded as images in both Word and Works formats, so I've added the attachments to the OP.  For the Works version, the same instructions apply as to Word - the margins should be preset for you, and just run off front and back of the page.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 20, 2013, 01:04:55 AM

Ah.  I don't know where I saved the .pdf version, so I had to download it from the club website.  I'm mostly just posting this because the search engines can read .pdfs...

Also included is a follow-up I did with a sample game to teach chess notation and more strategy...

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Arbee on September 20, 2013, 07:12:25 AM

Well now, this is an interesting bit of information.  I used to play chess in the library during my lunch period in high school, could've used some of this information then, but I can definitely use it now, haha.  This is too cool.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 20, 2013, 07:34:05 AM

:D

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: JarlWolf on September 20, 2013, 05:19:22 PM

Speaking of chess.... would you folks care to play a few rounds of it sometime? I just need a place to play it and I'll do it.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Arbee on September 20, 2013, 05:28:38 PM

I'd be up for getting my ass kicked. XD

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 25, 2015, 02:27:54 AM

So, I had a scoresheet file laying around and thought of you folks.

It's certainly not the cheapest way to get neat printed scoresheets, but convenient and easily customizable - so a source of easy little gifts for chess cronies, especially young ones.

If you have MSWord, all the margins and orientation should be already set up for you.  Print out the .doc attachment, turn the stack of copies over and repeat - repeat again on the other side and cut the results in half.

If you don't have Word, the .gif version attached is of lesser quality, but customizable in whatever you have that will open and edit .gif files.  To print, set the page orientation to horizontal and the margins to minimum it will allow.  Print out the file, turn the stack of copies over and repeat - repeat again on the other side and cut the results in half.

Enjoy. -And do let me know if the little top logo in the .doc version shows, or anything here's borked.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 25, 2015, 02:33:05 AM

Okay - for good measure, here it is in the .rtf format that everybody running Windows will be able to open with WordPad. 

Unfortunately, .rtf doesn't seem to save margins and page orientation, so you'll need to File(in the WordPad version I have, annoyingly, the unlabeled pull-down top left over Paste)>Page setup>change the orientation to Landscape>and margins to Left: .1, Right: (anything under half the page, but) .5, Top: .25 and Bottom: .251 (I don't think .001 is even a pixel's worth, so .25 for balance if it'll let you).

Then follow the printing instructions in the previous post for either version - both sides of the page is optional, of course, according to your needs v. the ridiculous cost of printer ink.  Probably a bad idea to try to skimp on paper at the expense of any ink, actually, and I never used all the backs - saved space in my notebook when I did, though.  There's two lines of the tiny tournament stuff at the top crammed into the lines above in this version, but still legible, IMAO, and should still make a crisper-looking copy than printing the .gif.

These are all specially modified for you guys, BTW -and the .gif created- the original club version I made embedded an image for the entire logo to make word placement balance the two-knights image better top-to-bottom, but that would have been more trouble for the end-user to alter easily...

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 25, 2015, 04:26:46 AM

404 on a lot of these links

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 25, 2015, 04:29:39 AM

First two posts?  t_ras did something involving moving all the attachments to a new folder a year or so back, and it seems to have borked everything from before last year.  Gimme a minute, and I'll edit and reattach.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 25, 2015, 04:30:30 AM

 :danc:

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 25, 2015, 04:33:48 AM

They should load now...

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 25, 2015, 04:40:20 AM

they do, looks good, interesting that you used a different point per piece system than I do.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 25, 2015, 04:42:44 AM

It's the one I've always heard in like, every chess book I ever read.

Again, .pdf versions for best printing.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 25, 2015, 04:45:54 AM

I use most those numbers although I give queens a higher value throughout wheras knights go down in value after the midgame and bishops go down in value after one is taken (really you could look at is as the first bishop is 4 and the second is 2.)

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 25, 2015, 04:50:10 AM

Well, there are nuances to those values I didn't have room for; a knight is usually worth a bit less than a bishop, for instance, and all values depend on the game and fluctuate wildly according to many strategic and positional factors.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 25, 2015, 01:00:13 PM

I just realized that Chess is anOther Game...

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 26, 2015, 12:53:25 AM

Which is why the chess thread disappeared :D

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 26, 2015, 02:43:15 AM

I only made Other Games about a year ago - someone in 2k PR/marketing led me on before disappearing.  I wish I knew how to get arrested with those jokers - and that they'd figure out that cheesing off a venue, however small, is a very bad idea.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 26, 2015, 03:46:08 AM

They're only trying to draw traffic to the 2k boards anyway I bet.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 26, 2015, 04:22:49 AM

I've worked free media marketing, and THEY'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 26, 2015, 04:37:15 AM

At least they keep Sid making games...

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 26, 2015, 04:40:17 AM

Now you're doing it wrong.  They haven't released a Sid game in -what?- eight or nine years?

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 26, 2015, 04:41:26 AM

CIV BE is technically a sid game

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 26, 2015, 04:46:10 AM

No, not even technically - it was a junior developer team (who prefer CivRev ;goofy;) that made it.

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Metaliturtle on June 26, 2015, 04:59:43 AM

oh well at least ummm... not EA

Title: Re: How To Play Chess
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 01, 2015, 02:11:07 PM

I found copies with the diagrams embedded as images in both Word and Works formats, so I've added the attachments to the OP.