Tag: chennai

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android

Introducing the Official App of the FIDE World Championship Match 2013

First time in the history of a World Chess Championship match, fans world wide can follow the action on their Android devices! And not just follow, but immerse into it with this feature packed Android app!

DOWNLOAD

Get it on Google Play

APP HIGHLIGHTS


♚ Live Moves
Follow the live moves on a beautiful Chess board, and watch as the drama unfolds in real-time!

♚ Notifications
Get notified when the game starts or after moves are made. What more, after every game is over, you will be immediately notified of the result*

Sample game notification in the Notification tray during the game and after the game is over


♚ Engine Analysis
One click engine analysis of the current board position with two Strong Chess engines (Critter & Stockfish). Needs ‘Analyze This’ Android app

‘Analyze This’ Android app



♚ Annotated Previous Encounters
Get ready for the match as Sagar Shah (ELO 2373) walks you through some selected previous encounters of Anand and Carlsen, with some entertaining annotations and commentary.



♚ Tactics of Anand & Carlsen
Solve 30 tactical puzzles of Anand and Carlsen (15 each), carefully selected by IM Swayams Mishra (ELO 2434). These are “awesome tactics worth solving”, as he puts it.



♚ Integrated Tweets
Stay abreast with expert opinion and comments with the integrated Tweets. Also, Tweet while you watch the live moves right from the Board screen!



♚ 2 Board Designs
Whom are you supporting? Choose either the “Cool Anand” or the “Hot Carlsen” board design and support your man!

‘Cool Anand’ & ‘Hot Carlsen’ board designs!




♚ Home Screen and Lock Screen Widgets
What if you could follow the action without even opening the app!!? Too good to be true?
Yes, you can! Add the Board widget to your Android Home screen (or Lock Screen!!) and watch as the widget updates automatically when the moves are made!*
The home screen widget can be resized and made bigger!




♚ Match Score
View match schedule (in your local time!) and follow the score as the match progresses

♚ Available in International languages

Thanks to some awesome Chess enthusiasts, the app is available in native Portuguese (BRL), Dutch, French, Czech, German and Spanish languages!**


♚ Optimized for Battery and Data
The app only does its work when the server notifies it that a move has been made, instead of continuously connecting to the server every few minutes. This saves a lot of device battery and data charges. Hence you can always keep your data connection ON and never miss a beat!

TIPS N TRICKS

  • Live Board – Swipe down to flip the board


  • Tactics – Swipe right-to-left to load next puzzle


  • Tweets – Pull down to refresh tweets


FAQs

“Google Play Services not available.” What does this mean?

To save device battery and data charges, the app uses Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) to send moves and other details from the server down to the devices. If the correct version of Google Play Services is not available on your device, then cloud messaging will not work. Instead, the device will resort to pulling moves from the server. This has the following implications:
  • Server will not be able to push any move notification to the device. This in turn means that the device will periodically try and fetch this information, resulting in higher Battery and data charges
  • No move notifications from the server. Hence moves may be delayed
  • Game start/end notification will not work 
  • Home/Lock screen widget will NOT automatically show the latest board position.


With “Google Play Services” error, will I be able to watch live games? 

Yes! However, there will be no moves pushed by the server to your device automatically, nor will there be any game start/end notifications. As long as you are on the “Live Board” screen, the app will show the latest board position and refresh at a 2 minute interval.


How do I add the Board widget to my Home screen?

Click ‘Widgets’ category on your Android device and scroll right till you locate the ‘World Championship Match 2013’ widget shown below:

Then drag it and place it some where on your home screen. The widget will automatically update and show you the latest game position, when the game is in play*.





How do I add the Board widget to my Lock screen?

Lock your device and swipe the lock screen widget till you see the below:
Touch the ‘+’ area and scroll to locate the World Championship match widget.

Then touch to select the widget and it will be added to the Lock screen.

Now when the game starts, you only have to look at your lock screen to see the current game position!*
Adding widgets to lock screen is available only on Android 4.2 and higher

CREDITS


* – Notification feature is not available on devices like the Amazon Kindle Fire etc which do not have the Google Play Services.
Please see ‘Google Play Services not available’ FAQ above for other restrictions for devices that do not support Google Play Services.
Lock screen widgets are only available on devices running Android 4.2 and above. 

** – If you would like to help and translate the App to your international language, please mail me at pereiraasim@gmail.com. Only the App could be translated. The vast amount of Game annotations and commentary will still be in English.

♚ IMPORTANT: The app supports nearly 4200 different Android devices! So there is a possibility that the app may not always look “pretty” on your device. If you are one of those, please drop me a mail at pereiraasim@gmail.com and I shall try to fix it. A bad review will not automatically fix the issue since most likely I would need more details from you! 


DOWNLOAD

Get it on Google Play

Chess reading for the week – Apr 14th

From Chess.com forum : “What music do you listen while playing chess?”
Yes, some people do like listening to music while playing chess. Although this kind of thing is unheard of in the Super GM club, I had a first hand experience when I was paired against GM Mark Paragua and he had his earphones on during the game! I lost that game and drew solace from the fact that maybe he had more inspiration and peace (than me), thanks to the music in his ears!
Head to the forum to see what people like listening to when they play chess!

From chess-news.ru : “The Match Should Be Held On Neutral Territory”
Aaand the politics has just begun. Now with MC “refusing” (not confirmed) to play in Chennai (not confirmed either), the venue for the World Chess Championship is like the Higgs boson; its there but its not. As an Indian Chess fan, watching the Anand vs Carlsen match in person, in Chennai, will be my biggest Chess moment!
“India is not a neutral territory and in addition it will be hard for Magnus to play there because of the climate and food.”
More details in a Norwegian paper (use Auto translate!)

From indianexpress.com : All square: Be it home or away
A nice article on “home advantage” and if it makes any difference in the game of Chess. Talking of Chennai, here is another nice article on the effects of the match on the Indian chess scene.
“Chess, unlike football or cricket, is largely unaffected by factors like the crowd, referee bias, fatigue of the travelling side and familiarity with playing conditions. With all these parameters eliminated, a study used multiple regression analysis to see if home advantage in chess could negate a difference in player strength, as indicated by their rating points (another measure rather unique to the sport, making such a study possible). The advantage of playing at home in this board game proved to be statistically insignificant (Sorqvist).”

From streathambrixtonchess blog : Decisive moment
A nice article with some interesting “decisive” positions from historical as well as critical moments from the Candidates. Do not forget to put on your Chess glasses for this post!
“After showing 0.00 for about an hour, suddenly the online analysis engine went mad after 50.g6?? – and so, as a result, did the viewer.
So what I’m saying is, in a way, that I wish the online engine had been quicker off the mark, or that mine had, because that way, I’d have known. I understand, at the same time, that not knowing is part of chess, part of its very nature, just as the goal that shouldn’t have stood is an intrinsic part of football. Pachman didn’t know for sure what had happened in Bronstein-Keres, and that was twenty-two years down the track. That’s the mystery.”

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes. 50! It is almost worth getting old to hear so many kind thoughts! April 13 of ’13, my lucky number!

There was a lot of “Kasparov” in the news recently since the former champ received a human rights award and he “is ready to help Carlsen against Anand” which he again denied as rumors and also celebrated his 50th birthday on April the 13th (luckily it was a Saturday)!

Not sure when was the last time FIDE wished the World Champion Anand or the World #1 Carlsen on their birthday, but here are kind wishes to Kasparov from the FIDE board. Politicians make interesting bed fellas!

Russian Dissident & Chess Champion Wins Human Rights Award
I think Gary is probably the only Chess player who has suffered cuts and bruises in off-the-board violence.
“UN Watch has decided to grant the Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award to Garry Kasparov for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in Russia,” said executive director Hillel Neuer. “Mr. Kasparov is not only one of the world’s smartest men, he is also among its bravest.”

From chess-news.ru : Born to Play Chess
Nice collection of birthday wishes from his former coach Nikitin to his last conqueror Kramnik.
“At least he visited Zurich and commentated the games which was very interesting, it was pleasant to see him there, everyone was really happy that he came. Let’s hope that he will have chess as a priority. It seems to me that the politics and these kinds of activities … Well, of course that is his choice, but I think that Kasparov is born for something else.” – Kramnik
Kramnik has also been in the news for some awesome extensive interviews (unfortunately in Russian). Hope you did not miss the first part (English). He also has a second big interview here (Russian, but can use Auto translate), or just wait for a proper english translation to appear.
After the brilliant performance in the Candidates, we would have loved to see Big Vlad in action in the super strong Norway tournament in May, but looks like he is not playing in Norway.