HowToPlayCorrespondenceChess

Scid offers currently two main functionalities for correspondence chess.

eMail Chess proceeds by sending the current game via eMail to your opponet once you made your move. To this end an eMail message is created in your prefered email program with the current game attached to it in [ThePgnFormat]. Of course all comments and variations are stripped off before.

Correspondence Chess Servers are supported by means of [TheXfccProtocol]. Here external tools are used to fetch the games from your account(s) and deliver them to Scid for synchronisation. After you made your move this move is sent to your opponent also by means of Xfcc. The fetch and send tool are implemented as external tools for easy extension if other protocols arise.

Postal play: Scid allos support for postal play by adding a PGN file with the proper header information to it's Inbox directory. If the addtionaly header field Mode is set to Postal those games get their proper icon displayed. Note that also the header fields CmailGamename and Gameid should be present.

---TODO---:

Printing of postcards is on the todo, this function will require the additional header fields WhiteAddress/BlackAddress to contain the postal adress of both players.

Observation of games is supported by just adding the URL for the PGN file to the list offered by [Play / Correspondence Chess / Observe Game]. For this fucntion to work a connector for the site in question is required. (See below)

If any of the correspondence chess functions are accessed from the menu a new window opens up. It can be opened manually from the window menu or one can use the keyboard shortcut F12. There are two additional shortcuts:

Ctrl-F12 This will open the correspondence chess window and the default database. It will also process your current Inbox.

Alt-F12 This will open [TheCorrespondenceChessWindow], [TheDefaultDatabase] and also initiate the fetch of Xfcc games in one go.

Please see below for further details.

This window contains the neccessary buttons to navigate through ongoing games, shortcut keys to fetch games by means of [TheXfccProtocol] and sync in eMail based games as well as a console stating which messages where sent or retrieved. Additionally this window conatins a list of ongoing games retrieved from your Inbox directory.

To use the correspondence chess features a database of the type "Correspondence chess" has to be opened before calling any correspondence chess functions. If you do not have such a database yet, just create a new database and set its type to "Correspondence chess" by means of the Maintenance function. Setting the type is important as Scid will recognise the database for synchronisation by this type. As this database is empty after the creation Scid will treat all correspondence chess games it receives at first synchronisation as new games and append them to this database.

If no database of the type "Correspondence chess" is currently opened Scid will remid you of doing so. However, do not open more than one database of this type as Scid then can not recognise the one to use.

Basic functionality

If everything is set up correctly the usage of the correspondence chess functions can easily accessed by the following buttons:
Retrieve the correspondence chess games. To this end the external fetch tool is called and all games retrieved via that way as well as all other games that are stored in Scids Inbox (see below) are synchronised into the current correspondence chess database.
Goes to the previous game in Scids Inbox
Goes to the next game in Scids Inbox
Sends your move to the opponent by either creating a new eMail message in your prefered mail program or by sending the move to a chess server in case of Xfcc.
empties your In- and Outbox directories.
is shown if the game list was refreshed from the server within the current Scid session. The tool tip for this icon shows date and time of the last refresh.
indicates, that Xfcc status icons are restored from saved results. No update has taken place in the current Scid session. The tool tip for this icon shows date and time of the last refresh.
indicates, that Correpsondence Chess plugin(s) were loaded and activated upon startup.

See also the list of Icons and Status Indicators.

Configuration

Correspondence Chess within Scid is based upon a normal Scid database that holds the games and some helpers external to Scid that handle the "non-chess-parts". These tools and parameters must be set up once, and are stored afterwards for future use.

To access the configuration dialog choose [Play] [Correspondence Chess][Configure] from the menu. The details are described in Correspondence Chess Setup. Quitting this dialog by the [Ok] button will automatically store your options.

Retrieving the games

Depending wether you play correspondence chess via eMail or via a chess server the actual retrieval process differs slightly. Generally it results in a set of games in PGN format located in Scids Inbox directory. This offers also the possibility of automatic retrieval via external software.

Once the games are in Scids Inbox invoking [Process Inbox] from the menu will work though the Inbox and add new moves to the games already in the database. Additionally it will add games not found in the current correspondence chess database as new games.

Correspondence Chess via eMail describes the details for the usage of eMail, while in Correspondence Chess via Chess Servers describes the same for correspondence chess servers.

Stepping through games

After games are retrieved they are loaded to Scids clipboard database and new moves are added and stored in the correspondence chess database opened. The most convenient way to step through the games is by the two buttons and which go to the previous and the next game, respectively. The difference to the functions from the [Games] menu is, that these two buttons scroll only between the games in Scids Inbox which are supposed to be your actually ongoing games. Of course the Correspondence Chess database might contain much more games, but normally you do not want to go through all these to find out what your opponent moved in a current game.

Note that a header search is required incorporating some fields that are not indexed by Scid. Hence, storing your correspondence chess games in a huge reference database might not be advisable as the search times may be quite long. If you play a lot and your own database gets quite large, search times can be reduced by moving finished games to an archive database, or by just createing a new database for the ongoing games. Scid will treat all games not existing in the correspondence chess database already as new games and add them automatically. Hence, it is sufficient to open an empty database of type "Correspondence chess" and call [Process Inbox] to import all currently ongoing games.

Equivalent to the two buttons mentinoned are the items [Previous Game] and [Next Game] from the [Correpondence Chess] menu.

An alternate way to jump to a specific game is by double clicking on it within the game list.

Note that if you set up your player names correctly (by means of [My Player Names]) Scid will rotate the board for you to play always upwards. You can have multiple player names. See also My Player Names for details.

Analyse and make a move

All analysis features can be used for correspondence chess games. Variations, annotations etc. can be added just like in normal game analysis. Once finished, Scid will take the last half move added to the game and treat it as the current move to send. No checking wether only one half a move was added or which side to move is done here, hence, only one half move to the mainline must be added! In case a chess server is used Scid also sends the last comment added to the server which might be usefull for communication with the opponent. In eMail chess this can be done by the normal mail message, so there all commments are stripped off.

Pressing the Send button will have Scid to determine the type of the correspondence chess game displayed (eMail or a server game) and call either your eMail program or the external send tool to submit your move. Calling [Send move] is equivalent to this button. Alternatively, [Mail move] can be used to send the current game via eMail. In case of an eMail game this function is equivalent to [Send move]. In case of a server based game an eMail message is generated. Note however, that it will not necessarily contain a proper recipient as eMail addresses are not exchanged in server based correspondence chess.

Observing Correspondence Games

Observing a game of correspondence chess is technically done by retrieving the games PGN notation from the webserver. These games are then fead into the usual workflow of the Correspondence Chess funtions and show up thre as usual games. For this function to work a file named "connector.xml" has to be available in ~/.scid/data. If this file does not exist Scid will try to generate one suitable for observation of games from ICCF Webchess. Additional servers can be added to this file by apending additional server-blocks. To observe a game on ICCF Webchess point your web browser to the page where the notation an the chess board gets displayed. Copy the URL of that page to the clipboard and add it to the list displayed by choosing [Play / Correspondence Chess / Observe Game]. Use a new line for each game to be observed. Close the dialogue by selecting Ok and refetch the correspondence chess games. Now the newly added observed games should show up in the Correspondence Chess games list.

Additional features of the Correspondence Chess Window

The Correspondence Chess window offers additional functions by means of its own menu, which is identical to Play / Correspondence Chess. It is also possible to use the usual scrolling features of Scid, like jumping to the next (previous) game by Ctrl-Down (Ctrl-Up). Hovering with the mouse over certain fields in the game list will also give additional informations as far as they are provided by the server. If you want to copy the current game list to the clipboard one can use the usual shortcuts Ctrl-Ins (or Ctrl-C).