Computer programs for chess compositionI’m going to speak about some of the most popular solving programs for chess composition. Of course, I can comment only the programs I use, so I’ll start from them. But first of all I’d like to tell THANK YOU! to all the programmers, who spends their time to write these programs, to improve them, to answer user’s questions and who still have to hear our critics sometimes… |
N Queens Problem is a famous puzzle in which n-queens are to be placed on a nxn chess board such that no two queens are in the same row, column or diagonal. In this tutorial I am sharing the C program to find solution for N Queens problem using backtracking. Below animation shows the solution for 8 queens problem using backtracking.
Popeye
Popeye is a chess problem solving and testing software which supports orthodox and fairy chess genres. The program was originally created for MS-DOS in 1983. Under Windows it works in command prompt. The last version is available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/popeye-chess/files/
The advantages:
| Inconveniences, the users might have:
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I’m going to show on the examples (for Windows):
- How to install popeye
- How popeye works
- How to avoid some frequent problems the users have
- How to use interfaces programs together with popeye
WinChloe
![Solve Chess Problems Program Solve Chess Problems Program](http://www.kotesovec.cz/trent_2014.jpg)
![Program Program](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126357443/451869057.jpg)
WinChloe is a software devoted to chess problems written by Christian Poisson. The program supports fairy pieces, conditions, shows themes, has a big database. It is really very powerful! Also, I’d like to add a comment that Mr. Poisson replies to the emails very promptly!
The advantages:
| Problems, the users might experience:
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I’m going to show some actions you can do with this program, and also useful options and settings of it. Please also leave your comments/questions for me to know what might be useful to write about!
Ankona
Ankona is a web-based program for diagram imaging, storing and solving chess problems, written by Ilja Ketris (Latvia). The site ankona.ch is commissioned by the WFCC. The program uses web interface, has it’s own databases of problems and authors, uses popeye as a solving engine. So, at Ankona you can use all the pieces and conditions which uses popeye. This is my primary soft.
The advantages
| The disadvantages
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Olive
Olive by Dmitri Turevski is a free open source cross-platform graphical front-end for Popeye chess software and more. Named after the fictional character Olive Oyl, girlfriend of Popeye the Sailor.
Windows self-extracting archive you can download from http://www.yacpdb.org/#static/olive. Currently available: olive-0.13.6.exe
Highly recommended! Hopefully, some more details will come….
Jacobi
Jacobi by François Labelle can solve fairy proof games. The program is a web app that runs in your browser and requires no installation. It can solve proof games that Popeye struggles with, which by itself is a good enough reason to add Jacobi to your toolbox. There are also new possibilities like allowing undefined pieces in the diagram of a proof game.
How to try Jacobi for people in a hurry:
– Find an example problem that interests you from the documentation page.
– Click on the corresponding “Load in solver” button.
– On the solver page, click “Start”.
(François Labelle)
– Find an example problem that interests you from the documentation page.
– Click on the corresponding “Load in solver” button.
– On the solver page, click “Start”.
(François Labelle)
See also an article: Solving program Jacobi equipped with constraints – a new tool to check proof games
(by Michel Caillaud, Nicolas Dupont, François Labelle)
(by Michel Caillaud, Nicolas Dupont, François Labelle)