Category: analyzethis

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analyzethis ios

‘Analyze This’ iOS with Auto Analysis!

After a long wait, iOS users of Analyze This app can now finally use the Auto Analysis feature!

With Auto Analysis, the Engine will run through the complete game and give you feedback on the mistakes and great moves played in the game! Not only that, if you want, you can even get verbose comments like ‘Good job‘, ‘Missed a shorter mate. Better is Qxh4‘ or some cheeky ones like ‘Perfect! Tal would have been impressed‘.

An actual classic game analyzed by the Auto Analysis feature!

HOW TO USE AUTO ANALYSIS?

  1. Load a game or simply enter moves.
  2. Tap Menu – Auto Analysis
  3. Choose the time per move for the Engine to think. Premium users can choose upto 30 seconds per move while others can only choose upto 5 seconds.

Please note, this is only the first version of this feature on iOS and we will be improving it further as we go along and receive more feedback from you.

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analyzethis android

Android 10 security and installing new Engine files

Google and Android are increasing the security with Android 10.0 and there are implications for our Android users who install external Chess engines from downloaded files.

Background

Earlier, one could download binary/executable files of Android chess engines. Analyze This app allowed installing these binary files and you could use these Chess engines in the app.

But Google/Android has now made this impossible with new security restrictions on Android. Basically Apps can no longer allow user to locate a binary/executable file and then make it run.

For the tech savvy:

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/10/behavior-changes-10

And starting November 2020, all Apps will be forced to target the new API 29 (i.e. Android 10), which means our new upcoming App update on Analyze This will no longer support installation of external chess engine files.

From Nov 2020, all app updates need to target API 29+ (Android 10)

BUT, this does not affect Chess engines which are bundled into separate apps and support the OEX (Open Exchange Chess protocol)

What should you do next?

If your favorite Chess engine is already bundled in another app, then thats the only way forward. Analyze This comes with the Stockfish 12 binary. Other engines like Leela/Komodo etc can be installed via their respective apps.

Or you can search the Android Play Store for chess engine apps (there are few out there). Once installed, fire up the Analyze This app – Manage Engines and the new engines should get installed.

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analyzethis

LeelaChessZero in Analyze This

Thanks to the Leela team, it is now even more easier than before to integrate the LC0 engine in Analyze This app!

STEPS

1. Download the LeelaChessZero APK file from the official site and install the App on your Android device. At the time of writing, the official apk was lc0-v0.26.3-android.apk. Note this is NOT an app with built-in GUI. Instead, it just supports the Open Exchange Engine format. It needs a compatible App like Analyze This.

2. After installing the above apk, open up Analyze This PRO app -> Menu – Manage Engines. And as soon as you open, the App will detect and install the LeelaChessZero engine!

Now you are ready to analyze with Leela or even play some games using the ‘Play this Side’ option!

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analyzethis ios

Engine vs Engine & Threats on Analyze This iOS!

Analyze This v3.2 with improved ‘Engine vs Engine’ is now available on the Apple App store! Most of these features were already in our Android version since a while. So it was about time the iOS version also got them!

Whats New

  • Improved Engine vs Engine – The earlier update could only play one side at a time. Now its easier to ask the Engine to play both sides. Just select ‘Play this Side’ once. Then after the Engine makes its move, choose the option again. The Engine will then continue to play both sides till the game finishes!
  • Share game link – With the kind of changes iOS and Android platform makes, sometimes it becomes difficult to share a pgn or text with friends. Or a pgn on WhatsApp may look fine on Android but show some weird format on WhatsApp in iOS. We cannot control that, but we can surely try and improve the experience for our users. Not if you want to share a single game, just tap the Menu – Share – Game link. This will create a link to this game. And your friends can tap on the link and it will open right in their Analyze This app! A great way for Students to exchange their game with their coach. Ofcourse, we will improve this feature to make it easier to import and share a collection of games.
  • Show threat – Say you want to understand the threats in the current position or basically understand what would happen if you are not careful, the ‘Show threat’ feature comes in handy. Just tap the engine name and Show threat.
  • iPad layout issues – In this release we also fixed layout issues on the iPad, especially in the Position Setup and Share screen.
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analyzethis android

What’s new in Analyze This Android app v5.3.x

This release took a really long time to be made public due to various other high priority things. But glad this is out and brings in some interesting changes as well as important fixes.
These changes are currently only on Android but we will bring them over to the iOS app in due course of time.

Whats New

Dark theme

Every other app is riding on the dark theme frenzy. It does help save battery as well as your eyes. Some say it even improves readability. This was requested many moons ago but its finally here!

To enable dark theme, please see Menu – Settings -> Dark Theme.

Evaluation bar

Evaluation bar helps you keep an eye on the game’s evaluation without having to keep looking down at the centi-pawn numeric evaluation suggested by the Engine. Each segment of the evaluation bar is worth 1 pawn (so the full bar extends 4 pawns/sections up and 4 pawns/sections down).
When white is winning, you will see the white bar extending upwards toward the black side and similarly when black is winning, you will see the black bar coming down to the white side.
At 0.0 evaluation, both white and black colors will be in equal size. If white is winning, say 1 pawn and engine evaluates the position at 1.0, then you will see the White color of the bar extend up 1 section up)

Improved Chess 960/ Fischer Random support

During the World Fischer Random championship we noticed that Analyze This engine analysis was misbehaving, especially after a O-O (castling) move. This has been fixed.

Syzygy Tablebase support

Syzygy Tablebases help the engine in evaluating certain endgame positions, without really having to spend time searching and analyzing. You can download Syzygy tablebase files for the most commonly occuring endgames (say KP v P, KRP vs KR etc) and store them on your Device.
Then choose this path from inside the Analyze This app – Settings – Engine Options – Syzygy Path.
So whenever a matching endgame position occurs on the board, the engine will automatically start using the endgame tablebases. You will know this works when the engine starts giving very high evaluation and does not deviate much from its analysis. However, we will improve this in the near future and make this even more easier to understand.
You can download Syzygy tablebases from here. But please note these are HUGE. So only download what you need!

Bug fixes & Other Improvements

  • Bugs fixed in Auto Analysis feature. That notorious volume key behavior is now gone. Earlier it was useful for people to use the app and go through it single handedly by using the volume key. But the behavior probably was more annoying for those who just wanted to turn down the volume. 
  • Adding new line at the end of the game is now easy. This is used in cases where a game has ended, but you want to try out some moves, without changing the main line. In this case, just take back the last move, and reenter the same move on the board. This move will now be added as a sub variation!
  • Improved position setup. We think setting up a position is now faster. Say you choose a White Rook and set it on the board. Now to set up the Black Rook, you dont have to explicitly choose the Black Rook from the tray. Instead, just tap the square where you wish to place the Black Rook (it will be shown as White Rook), and then tap the square again. This will turn the Knight to Black! So the toggling works White – Black – Empty – White – Black – Empty and so on.
  • EPD support. Now along side pgn file, you can even see .epd files listed in the App’s game file browser. These are position files you may have received from other chess apps or sources.
  • Lots of other bugs were fixes and subtle improvements made under the hood.
Enjoy and please don’t forget to rate the Apps in the Play Store!

Special thanks to Al Sirutis, Atul Desai, Elaine, Henri Raben, Igor, Lucas Foreest, Miguel Gonzalez, Rahmat Ullah, Roger Davies, Tom Amlin, and others

PS. We have a brand new Forum! Be among the first ones to join and share your ideas to improve the Apps, feature suggestions, bugs or just interact with other fellow chess lovers!
https://forum.mychessapps.com

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analyzethis android

Analyze games or play vs Leela Chess Engine in Analyze This app

UPDATE (Jun 2020): Its now even more easier to use Leela Chess in Analyze This app (pro). Read here.
—
Computer Chess has made a tremendous amount of progress in recent months. And especially, Leela Chess! Earlier, Leela Chess ala lc0 only worked on special hardware.

But recently, its been made to work on Android too! This is fantastic news for so many Android users, which means the Engine can run natively on the phone (without connecting to any cloud service to run the engine)

NOTE

  • This only works for Analyze This on Android. Not in the Analyze This iOS app.
  • Its still a work in progress and these are not official builds. Means there could be some problems that you may encounter
  • Thought lc0 did beat Stockfish earlier, but we cannot currently expect that kind of performance on our smartphones, since lc0 really is powerful when running on a GPU. For the most powerful analysis need, Stockfish would still be a better option for your phone. If you need variety or more human like moves, then go ahead and try lc0.
  • So lc0 will still be quite weak, but it can very well perform at a GM level, depending on your device.
  • The below download links have a built-in “weights file”. In the near future, via an app update, we will provide an option such that you can specify a different weights file for varied strength.
STEPS
To run lc0 engine in Analyze This app (both Free and Pro version):
 
DOWNLOAD OPTION A (Download on PC. Unzip. Copy to phone)
  1. Download the engine with built-in weights. Either this or this (if 32bit armv7 device) or this or this (64bit architecture). If not sure, you can very well download both the zips
  2. Unzip the file. Copy the content which is inside (lc0) onto your phone’s sdcard

DOWNLOAD OPTION B (Directly on phone)

  1. You can download the file directly on your phone. Link 1 (32bit armv7) or Link 2 (64bit)
STEPS IN ANALYZE THIS APP
  1. Now fire up your Analyze This app
  2. Tap Board Actions Menu  -> Manage Engines
  3. Tap INSTALL ENGINE option at the top
  4. Locate the lc0 engine file which you unzipped and copied in Option A OR the one that you downloaded in Option B.

Thats it! If the engine file is supported on your device, you now have Leela Chess working on your Analyze This app. You can analyze your games with a more human touch.

Or you can also play a few games using the Play This Side option!
HOW TO PLAY
Tap the name of the Engine and choose Play This Side. Engine will play the currently selected side, while you can make moves for the other side!
 
 
 
 
 
Categories
analyzethis ios

Analyze This iOS – Help/FAQs

Analyze This iOS : Frequently Asked Questions

  • How to flip/turn the board?

Flipping the board in Analyze This (and most of our Chess apps) is probably the easiest amongst all the other Chess apps out there!
Just swipe your finger top down on the board to flip it!

(Note: To flip the board again, just repeat the same step above. Swiping in reverse order (down-up) has no effect.)
  • Import my own PGN file

There are two main ways you can import your own .pgn file into Analyze This app.

Method 1 and probably easiest of all is that you can import your pgn if you have it in your mailbox or Drive or Dropbox.
Choose the Share/Copy Into option from your App (Gmail, Drive, Dropbox) and then choose “Copy to Analyze This”

After this the pgn will get copied inside Analyze This app and the app should show the list of the games. Just in case the games are not automatically loaded, you can open the pgn by tapping the Folder icon inside Analyze This app.
(Note you should be in the “PGN Games” tab at the bottom to see the folder icon)
 
Method 2 Copy using iTunes
Copy your pgn file from your PC to the Analyze This app’s Document folder using iTunes File sharing.
Please see the section on ‘Copy files from your computer to your iOS app‘ here https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT201301
Once the file is copied, open Analyze This App – Games – and choose the Folder icon at the top right (as shown in the diagram above)

  • Delete a move from the game (added in v2.4)

Tap on a move in the notation to select it. Then tap the same move again and it would show a popup with more options including “Delete this move“. Choosing that option will delete the currently selected move and all moves after that.

  • Promote Variation / Add Comments
Same as above. Tap on an already selected move in the notation. This will show a popup with these options
  • Delete a game from the database (added in v2.3)

Games can only be deleted from the ‘My Games’ database (only games that you have saved. Games cannot be deleted from the pgn file, at this moment)
To delete a game that you have saved in the App, swipe the game to the left to reveal the hidden
  Delete   button. Select it to delete the game.

  • Delete a PGN file from the listing
Sorry, currently not supported
I would love to hear your feedback. Please email me at hello@mychessapps.com
Categories
analyzethis android ios

Analyze This v2.0 for iOS with Stockfish 7 and more!

Hardwork and dedication; this is what this App update is all about! Given our unfamiliarity with the environment and building complex UIs on iOS, we weren’t sure we could pull this off, but here it is… Analyze This v2.0 for iOS!


Whats New?

This single screen pretty much summarizes everything!

  • Stockfish 7

Now you can analyze your games with the latest and greatest version of Stockfish 7 which is rated a whooping ELO 3337! Ofcourse, strength on mobile devices would differ. In a future release, we plan to add an option to change the number of threads/cores the engine uses.You can also start/stop the Engine so you can take a break while you read the annotations or browse through the complete game.

  • Multi PV

Earlier App version only showed a single PV (primary variation) or line. With v2.0, you can now view more engine variations to get better insights into the position.

Tapping the +/- buttons increases/decreases the number of lines. The first line is the best line followed by 2. 3. etc. If you wish to view a longer line, its best to use the device in Portrait view.


  • Improved Notation view

The Notation view now support text commentary if present in your pgn string.

  • Multi-purpose Paste

We have improved the Paste option. You can now paste a complete PGN or even a single FEN string. ex: rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq c6 0 2

It is quite fault tolerant and should ideally accept quotes or extraneous strings and only take what matters. (ofcourse there will be many more improvements coming to this feature and the App overall)
Apart from these changes, we have made several improvements. Hope you will like the App, as you have come to like all our other Apps on Android and iOS.

Ads – We need to pay our developers and feed families. One important change in this version of the App is the presence of full screen Ads. But we have taken care to not annoy anybody with excess Ads and they would probably appear infrequently (moreover, most of the Ads would be related to Chess, so you may actually find them useful. Sample below…)


However, knowing who we are and how awesome our Apps are (and can be!), you could also Upgrade the App to the PRO version at its current low price (via In-App purchase) and enjoy all features and Ad free experience.


PS. Yesterday we discovered a critical bug in Follow Chess iOS (thanks to Steve) which prevented users who purchased the full version of the App (in the past few days), from using all the PRO features. This has been fixed in version 2.0.3 currently in the App store.


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analyzethis android

Analyze This v4.2 – A 10x better PGN Manager!

v4.2.1 of Analyze This (Android) was released to the Play Store today. With this release, the App is now a much improved PGN Viewer/Writer and is thinner/sleeker/faster and comes with better performance! In fact, in our tests, PGN loading was 10x faster than the previous version!

FREE Version
PRO Version

What’s New

☆ Search Board position + Quick game search!
Now the App comes with the ability to search your pgn games for any games that match the currently loaded board position.

Or you can search for any player or even combination, filter games by result or Opening ECO codes!
☆ PGN files load faster + Quick scroll
PGN games loading is 10 times faster than the previous version! You can also quickly scroll down or up by dragging the scroll bar (right edge of the screen)
☆ Stockfish 7
Both Free and PRO versions of the App get Stockfish 7.
On first App run, the latest version of Stockfish will be automatically downloaded. Unfortunately as is known, Critter still won’t work on Android 5.0 and above.
☆ Fullscreen option


☆ Change Notation language to English (non figurine), French, Norwegian etc
Didn’t like the default Figurine Notation? You can now change that or even set the preferred language for the Notation from the Settings – Notation Options. You can also share the game in that language with your friends and coaches!

☆ Many other improvements + bug fixes!
I had lots of other features and requests, but due to delayed release I could not add them all. Hopefully another new update will follow in March!
So download now and send your bug reports/suggestions/features to me at pereiraasim(a)gmail(dot)com

FREE Version
PRO Version

Categories
analyzethis android

What’s new in Analyze This 4.0!

After a long wait, Analyze This 4.0 for Android was released today! Its a big release and I am sure you will all like it. Here is what’s new in it!

☆ Full Automatic Engine Analysis (with verbose commentary!) – BETA
It took me really long time to finish this feature (besides work on other Apps/features), but its finally here! Analyze This is probably the first Android App to feature a full automated analysis with natural language analysis. Yes, not only can it suggest moves, but it can also add verbose comments (in English, for now)
Moreover, the feature has been programmed to not only suggest the mistakes and bad moves, but it also marks good moves and sacrifices! Yes it can add symbols like “!”, “?!” , “??” etc

This is only the 1st version of this feature and obviously there will be some rough edges. I plan to keep improving this feature, so please send your suggestions or remarks based on your experience with this feature.
Free users can only choose between 1-5seconds per move. PRO users can choose upto 20seconds per move.

☆ Stockfish 6
PRO users of the App could manually download and install the latest version of Stockfish 6. Now, its available by default for all users (free and PRO)

☆ Engine Threads/Cores

Now you can choose the number of Threads/Cores/Processors the Engines can use. See Settings – Engine Options. 
Please note that choosing the max number of threads can improve Engine performance, but at the same time, your device may stall a bit and consume more battery. Use wisely.

☆ Automatic Opening recognition
The App now automatically tells you the Opening ECO, name in the Notation. The ECO will also be automatically saved when you save a game!

☆ Undo option in strategic places
From time to time, we all make mistakes! Accidentally deleted the wrong move? Or perhaps you cleared the board in Position setup? Don’t worry, UNDO has got you covered!
A major reason and driving force behind this was to improve the overall user experience.
Undo options have been added in multiple strategic places, so even if you make a mistake while using the App, you can undo it! 
☆ Share board image with different arrow/highlight colors!
Now when you share the Board as image, you can choose from 4 preset colors and highlight the Squares or draw arrows with them! Makes it easy to express ideas.
Not only this, you can even directly Share board image from other Chess Apps installed on your device! Choose to export current board as FEN, and choose “Analyze This – Highlight & Share” option from the list of Apps! You are ready to highlight the board and share it!
☆ Option to hide engine arrow
For those of you who did not like the Engine revealing the solution with the arrow on the board, you may now hide the arrow. See Settings – Engine Options
☆ More space for Notation!
Some of you wanted even more space for the Notation view. Now the 2-way toggle next to the player names, can work 3-ways and provide more space for the Notation (and shrink the Board accordingly)
☆ Touch and hold the board for Quick annotation view
This was a nice feature added in the previous version which quickly helped to add annotation Symbols to the game. Earlier you could double tap on the board to view it, but some times that lead to false touches. This is now changed to long-press. So touch and hold the board to view the Quick annotation View.
In this regard, there is an additional feature in the Analysis Menu, to hide the Engine layout. When not needed, you can hide the Engines currently selected, and make more space for the Board/Notation.

☆ Bug fixes and other enhancements

This version has many bug fixes and lots of other visual enhancements and improvements under the hood!

//What could not make into this release
Unfortunately, Critter cannot run on Android 5.0 and above. I am looking for a suitable replacement, and will hopefully add it in a future release.

Meanwhile, please keep sending your bugs/feature suggestions, and I would be happy to consider them.