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Hot Topic (More than 10 Replies) How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess? (Read 12654 times)
Tartakower
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #18 - 10/06/13 at 23:32:20
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Hi All - my first post here.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is Chess Trainer.  It lets me punch in the lines from my repertoire I want to learn and it quizzes me on them.  I haven't seen that on any other ipad app (though I don't have them all!)

I spend way too much time building silly repertoire plans for tournaments I will never enter and I love being able to sit in front of the tv and work on the more obscure variations in my playbook.  Does that make me crazy?
  
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Antillian
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #17 - 08/30/13 at 11:06:29
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New in Chess now has an iPad app as well - it essentially appears to be a "New in Chess" branded e+Chess Books  app, which is pretty decent.
  
"Breakthrough results come about by a series of good decisions, diligently executed and accumulated one on top of another." Jim Collins --- Good to Great
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #16 - 08/03/13 at 20:53:25
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I am using Stockfish for analysis, it is not a very strong chess engine (at least i-pad version) but decent enough for analysis.
For viewing games with annotations I currently use chess viewer. Since it does not show some chess notations (special signs like +-, -+ and similar ones, I have no idea why it does not) I will try CBase Chess as suggested by ChessFlash in this thread.
I am strongly inclined to buy and use HIARCS since it has a pretty strong built-in engine and you can analyse games from pgn files.(ie. run engine while viewing pgn files) The downside is that it does not show the annotations. That is pretty annoying (...and strange, since it should be a trivial effort to add that function considering they have recently implemented a lot of cool features to their app) I prepare my own pgn files for studying in my i-pad and putting (copying) a lot of annotations in those pgns. So to be able to read annotations is a must for me. If HIARCS adds this function to their product I will buy it without hesitation.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #15 - 06/17/13 at 21:55:30
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Semkov wrote on 03/20/13 at 15:11:41:
I would suggest that you read chess books on Ipad via the new Forwardchess app and analyze critical positions on a powerful desktop machine. Why Forwardchess?
Because:
1. You get a book which looks like in print - easy to grasp the structure, branches, highlighted lines. In short - it is like an epub, but at the same time it is interactive - you can press any move to see it on a board. You can switch off the board to see bigger chunks of text.
2. The text is formatted - nothing similar to pgn viewers which offer a total mess of unstructured variations where I get lost immediately.
3. The technology allows chapters with main ideas, many examples, starting from, say, move 15 etc. A pgn book can offer only commented games - you cannot incorporate many fragments in one game.
4. The book is 30-40% cheaper than the hard copy. You can have free updates.
5. A tablet is not fit for analyzing anyways - it is 10-20 times slower than a decent desktop machine, it cannot handle searches in huge databases. It is not for work - a tablet is an excellent reader, but nothing more.   


I've been using Forward Chess to read the new Dreev book on the Benoni, and I agree with most of this.  I still do get lost on occasion, but not nearly as often as with others.  It's a good reader as far as readers go, but I would not say its great.  The book on the other hand is great, so its been worth putting up with the reader.

The main problem for me in analyzing on the iPad is that, whatever program I'm using, I find it hard to  jump from variation to variation or to record my thoughts and notes.  That kind of analysis is really not do-able on the iPad.  Ask Stockfish to find the tactic you missed -- OK.  Try to figure out which line of the Najdorf to go down -- wait until you get home.    

BTW, I actually think its a mistake to read a chess book with an engine running in the background.  Whenever I do that, I end up checking to see if the engine agrees with the author, rather than absorbing the material.  Better to pay attention to what the author says and go back later to check key positions.  Besides OTB, I've got a much better chance of remembering the plans and ideas, than I do any specific, engine-recommended moves.      
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #14 - 06/17/13 at 21:29:15
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I use my iPad for three basic things:

1. Playing a quick game -- Stockfish, Chess.com

2. Looking up an opening line -- CB Online 

3.  Reading ebooks -- Forward Chess, Everyman Chess Viewer, e+Chess Books

Everything else can wait until I get home.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #13 - 06/13/13 at 15:48:06
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There is always chess.com. It plays quite smootly on the iPad, and even on an iPhone with a small display.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #12 - 05/11/13 at 16:11:58
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Let's give Fritz' and Chess Base's programmers due credit - they have polished their product for years. ForwardChess is young and depends on the readers' reception.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #11 - 05/10/13 at 22:16:07
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I'm not an iPad user, but maybe it would be enough to have support for an engine with a good compromise between strength and hardware requirements - already the idea of "Pocket Fritz" and similar portable versions for many years. They may not play like super-GMs, but for many people they will be good enough to test alternative ideas to the text and guard against tactical blunders, so better than nothing.
  
Improvement begins at the edge of your comfort zone. -Jonathan Rowson
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Semkov
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #10 - 05/10/13 at 22:04:27
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That is a technical challenge. ForwardChess staff is working on it, but it is not easy to make an engine work smoothly together with the rest of the app. To illustrate my consideration, Houdini 3 pro on my home 6-core desktop with plenty of RAM nearly freezes the machine during analysis. Of course, everything can be done, but the cost is a decisive factor. It all depends on the sales - if only a few people are interested in buying chess books for Ipad, there would be no way to finance future development of the app.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #9 - 04/12/13 at 08:25:01
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Hi Semkov,

thanks for your replies.
However, even though I agree with you that a tablet will not replace a desktop for extensive analysis, I think toay's ipad 4 is at least as powerful as a 2000 desktop, where Fritz 3 was running without problems and was already quite strong.
Hence, I don't see any reasons why it would not be possible to read a .pgn file on the Ipad and analyze and annotate games with, say, Hiarcs.
The thing is, I always have my ipad with me, not my desktop: for a quick analysis away from my home, I'd glad to be able to "work" more efficiently.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #8 - 03/20/13 at 22:13:08
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It takes a lot of work to convert a book into an epub-like form and make the moves "active". I do not believe  that it will be possible to set some standard format for all chess books - ever. It will always involve plenty of manual work.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #7 - 03/20/13 at 18:34:04
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ForwardChess may well be a great product. I have it on my iPad and I like what I see so far. However, it really does not address the issue raised by the original poster since ForwardChess can only be used to study books released in ForwardChess format.
  
"Breakthrough results come about by a series of good decisions, diligently executed and accumulated one on top of another." Jim Collins --- Good to Great
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #6 - 03/20/13 at 18:15:58
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ForwardChess is not a product of Chess Stars, it was conceived by Mongoose Press and it is open to all. But I think it best fits the type of books we publish.
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #5 - 03/20/13 at 17:26:47
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This is getting a little close to self-promotion, no?
  
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Re: How do you use your ipad to play/work on chess?
Reply #4 - 03/20/13 at 15:11:41
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I would suggest that you read chess books on Ipad via the new Forwardchess app and analyze critical positions on a powerful desktop machine. Why Forwardchess?
Because:
1. You get a book which looks like in print - easy to grasp the structure, branches, highlighted lines. In short - it is like an epub, but at the same time it is interactive - you can press any move to see it on a board. You can switch off the board to see bigger chunks of text.
2. The text is formatted - nothing similar to pgn viewers which offer a total mess of unstructured variations where I get lost immediately.
3. The technology allows chapters with main ideas, many examples, starting from, say, move 15 etc. A pgn book can offer only commented games - you cannot incorporate many fragments in one game.
4. The book is 30-40% cheaper than the hard copy. You can have free updates.
5. A tablet is not fit for analyzing anyways - it is 10-20 times slower than a decent desktop machine, it cannot handle searches in huge databases. It is not for work - a tablet is an excellent reader, but nothing more.   
  
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