Dear fellow chess player

I have developed a website, where you can practise chess endgames using an interactive simulator. You can play rated/unrated endgames of different difficulty and compete with other website users. Endgames with mate in 2, 3 and 4 moves are also available.

http://chessendgames.com

It's free to sign up. Hope you like it :-)

Cheers
Bo.

On principle, I should delete this post as spam. It's your first and only post on this forum, and it's purely an advertisement for your website.

On the other hand, I checked the website out briefly and it looks like a pretty nice little puzzle site. I'm very impressed by the feature that after I mated with K+Q vs. K in solving the first puzzle it gave me, I got a message telling me that in the future such positions will count as solved without me having to execute the mate! That's a very neat little future (assuming it doesn't at some point give me credit for solving a puzzle in a stalemate position where K+Q vs. K is actually a draw). I'm looking forward to seeing what other "gimmes" I can unlock as I progress through to tougher puzzles! So for the time being I'll leave this thread open, and I'm actually looking forward to checking the site out a little more when I get home.

However, brinch, there's a condition: You need to stick around to answer any questions that anyone may have about the site - actually offer support. If this is a drive-by single post and you're gone for good now then the thread goes bye-bye.

Hi Bob

Thanks for your post. The feature you describe with K+Q, where you only have to demonstrate once, that you know how to checkmate, should not give you credit if the position will result in a stalemate. This feature actually works for K+R as well.

I'll surdenly be happy to answer any questions about my website, and will check frequently :-)

Have a good day
Bo.

Real chess should implement the "you've proven you can do that endgame so you can claim the result" thing. That would be awesome.

If your rating is high enough, your opponent will probably resign before it gets to this particular chess ending :-)

That's not as much fun. I want to be able to test for certifications and stuff. I want "Two Bishops Mate Certification" on my USCF page.

storing and emailing the user's password in plaintext is really bad practice, you should change this.

Cool idea, I played through a few positions.

How are the opponent's moves generated? I figured there was an engine playing random moves that did not change the evaluation, but here the 'computer' just blunders. So I guess they are hardcoded or the engine is intentionally set to lose on easy levels, which seems like a poor choice for training.

I like the way some of the positions aren't winning, very realistic - unless the point is there is actually a way to provoke the opponent to lose them, not sure I like this.

Hi RoundTower

Thanks for your post. The engine is based on the GarboChess software, and should play with the same strength in both easy and hard levels. I did not myself experience that the engine blunders. But as the engine is based on JavaScript, if your computer is overworked at some point, it may not leave time for enough move evaluation, and could result in blunder moves, I suppose.

Cheers
Bo.

That is pretty clever, I did not consider that the engine would be running on the client. It certainly explains why the computer is so responsive.

Unfortunately I think the engine is too weak. Even for beginners, I think it's important for effective training that the computer should play precisely in endings such as these. I have a fast computer and modern browser and I got it to blunder half points several more times (including not mating me with bishop and knight) so I expect this will happen to everyone.

Why not run the engine on the server instead? Worried about server load or the responsiveness of the site? I think these issues could be worked around. Also, if the engine doesn't ponder already, perhaps you can make it ponder and force it to analyse a little deeper.

Hi again RoundTower

Thanks for your thoughts. When I get some more time on my hands, I may look into these aspects.

Cheers
Bo.