Pulsar Chess Engine vs Chess Middlegame I

The Pulsar Chess Engine plays Chess and six variants all with multiple levels. The variants are Chess960, Crazyhouse, Loser's, Atomic, Three Checks and Giveaway. Rules included in-app. In addition, there is also a review mode to look at the user's log file with analysis available for non variants. 10 game collections of classic and modern master games are included to look at including Kasparov, Fischer, Carlsen, Capablanca and Morphy 1858 collections. These collections and the log file are searchable. Pulsar values mobility and active positions. In app there is an article with more on its playing style and how to train against it. With the variants, each has its own style. Chess960, Three Checks and Crazyhouse are the more chess like variants and adoptable to learn to play for anyone with interest. The rules of all games are in app. Pulsar has levels of play from beginner too advanced. Games with a time control are the hardest though Pulsar doesn't call the player's time. The time is more to handicap Pulsar's strength, but users will have a clock and can see if it's gone negative if they want to play the time control. The game button - configure game menu item, lets the user control the variant and difficulty. It defaults to Chess at Easy(lowest level) but remembers the current settings when the App restarts. There are choices of pieces and board color schemes. The Pulsar program was originally developed by me for computers starting in 1998 and came to mobile for the first time in 2014. Pulsar's board is accessible to the blind using Voice Over, a screen reader. Tap on a square and it will say whats on it and double tap to move or choose from three move methods. A screen reader can normally read anything with text like a button, but a board is a collection of images. To make it accessible, text must be returned to Voice Over when a tap is in the area of a square. Pulsar began as a chess program and later learned variants. It ran extensively on two servers for many years both at chess and variants. The ratings on the board reflect strength I saw in rated play on handicapped bots. They are not 100% exact but generalizations I made from the various bots I ran at different settings. If in the new game selector, Play vs. Computer is unchecked the user can move for both sides. This is to allow two people at same location to use the App as a board for a game and have the app enforce move legality and results for whatever variant is selected.

Chess Middlegame I course composed by GM Alexander Kalinin is aimed at teaching a student much of the middlegame methods and intricacies through a theoretical section. Typical Plans and Methods in the Most Popular Openings: Scotch, Ruy Lopez, Sicilian, Caro-Kann, French, English opening, Dutch, Slav, Catalan, Nimzo-Indian, King's Indian, Grünfeld, Benko Gambit. The Encyclopedia of Middlegame course contains detailed material about typical pawn structures: Karlsbad, Hedgehog, etc. This course is in the series Chess King Learn (https://learn.chessking.com/), which is an unprecedented chess teaching method. In the series are included courses in tactics, strategy, openings, middle game, and endgame, split by levels from beginners to experienced players, and even professional players. With the help of this course, you can improve your chess knowledge, learn new tactical tricks and combinations, and consolidate the acquired knowledge into practice. The program acts as a coach who gives tasks to solve and helps to solve them if you get stuck. It will give you hints, explanations and show you even striking refutation of the mistakes you might make. The program also contains a theoretical section, which explains the methods of the game in a certain stage of the game, based on actual examples. The theory is presented in an interactive way, which means you can not only read the text of the lessons, but also to make moves on the board and work out unclear moves on the board. Advantages of the program: • High quality examples, all double-checked for correctness • You need to enter all key moves, required by the teacher • Different levels of complexity of the tasks • Various goals, which need to be reached in the problems • The program gives hint if an error is made • For typical mistaken moves, the refutation is shown • You can play out any position of the tasks against the computer • Interactive theoretical lessons • Structured table of contents • The program monitors the change in the rating (ELO) of the player during the learning process • Test mode with flexible settings • Possibility to bookmark favorite exercises • The application is adapted to the bigger screen of a tablet • The application does not require an internet connection The course includes a free part, in which you can test the program. Lessons offered in the free version is fully functional. They allow you to test the application in real world conditions before releasing the following topics: 1. Scotch game 1.1. Scotch game 1.2. The variation with 4... Nf6 1.3. The variation with 4... Bc5 2. Ruy Lopez defense 2.1. Ruy Lopez defense 2.2. Classification of the closed Ruy Lopez 2.3. The closed pawn center 2.4. Positions with the closed pawn center and the open c-file 2.5. Rauzer's plan 2.6. The variation with Bc8-e6 2.7. The center is not blocked 3. Caro-Kann defense 3.1. Caro-Kann defense 3.2. The Capablanca variation 3.3. The Smyslov-Petrosian variation 4. French defense 4.1. French defense 4.2. The Winawer variation 4.3. The classical system (3... Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7) 4.4. The Tarrasch variation (3. Nd2) 5. Sicilian defense 5.1. Sicilian defense 5.2. The system with 2. c3 5.3. Scheveningen 5.4. The systems with e7-e5 5.5. Systems with an exchange Bxf6 gf 6. English opening 6.1. English opening 6.2. English opening, the dragon system with colors reversed 6.3. English opening. 1. c4 e5 (without d7-d5) 7. Dutch defense 7.1. Dutch defense 7.2. Stonewall 7.3. The Iljin-Zhenevsky system 7.4. Leningrad system 8. Slav defense 8.1. Slav defense 8.2. The Schlechter system 8.3. The Meran variation 8.4. The Botvinnik system 9. Catalan opening 10. Nimzo-Indian defense 11. Grünfeld defense, the system with Qd1-b3 12. King's Indian defense 13. Benko gambit 14. The "Karlsbad" pawn structure 15. Typical position with the mobile pawn center 16. The "hedgehog" system 17. Typical pawn structure with an outpost on the half-open d-file