The Kenilworthian has a very detailed review of ChessLecture.com.

We all know that slowly working through problems and annotated games in front of the board is probably the best real practice for classical game situations, especially for the young. But we also know that we have work to do, kids to feed, and lawns to cut and that most of us also have less and less time for classical play. It would be great to work through deeply annotated games or opening analysis at a real chess board, but for most of us that is just not going to happen any time soon. As I suggested in my review of Chess Openings for White, Explained, there are the chess books we buy because we would like to read them and then there are those we actually find time to read because they are user-friendly. ChessLecture.com is the most user-friendly mode of chess learning available and it is one you will actually use.

As someone who really likes ChessFM, I can see there being a value to ChessLecture.com.  My only problem is time.  So much to learn…so few hours!

Browsing my website logs, I’ve noticed that some ChessUp users have been hotlinking to my images from their forums / blogs.

In general, I am fine with this.  Hey, you guys like the tool…I’d be crazy to complain about that.  All I ask is that you be kind and post a little link on your webpage to my humble site.

But I do have 2 point that I think everyone should be aware of:

1) If you run a forum and users are able to post links to scripts on other websites, that is a pretty big security violation.  You can trust me…but what about some other site where a guy has embedded a malicious PHP script?  This is one of the reasons I created the ChessUp Forums.  Users can link to my image creation script, but ONLY when the script is coming from my own site.

2) I reserve the right to embed a text link to my site in images if they are hotlinked.  It will not be ugly and surely won’t be as intrusive as a watermark, but it will probably just be some small text at the bottom of the image that says “http://chessup.net”.  If you want to avoid that, you can always download the image that you create with ChessUp and host it on your own servers.

Cliff Notes Version of this post: I’m not against hotlinking, but please provide credit somewhere on your blog if you are going to use my bandwidth.  Additionally, I may put a text link in hotlinked images.  And be sure your forums are secure.

ChessUp now has forums!

The forums are open to everyone. Categories include general chess talk, puzzles, and ChessUp’s chess diagram tool. (Who knows, there might even be more forums added in the near future…)

So, the $24,000 question: can you post ChessUp diagrams in the forums?

Of course! And it’s pretty simple, too. You don’t even need to download the image.

So stop on over and say “hi”. While you’re there, why not register and take our first poll? It is voting season, after all.

See you in the forums…

UPDATE: I’ve added an unregistered forum. Anyone can go there and post messages without registering. Why not go take the poll?

In the spirit of Halloween and dressing-up, I created a new style for the ChessUp website today. No, it’s not scary and has nothing to do with Halloween…but then again, those kids that dress up like football players don’t really have much to do with Halloween, either, now do they?

The header graphic came out way better than I expected. I found a nice stock footage image of a king piece and then built the rest of the header around it. I also replaced the website’s background pattern with a new one.

I tested the re-design in Firefox and Internet Explorer 6.  I didn’t notice any problems, but please let me know if you do.

I have another big addition to this website in the works. Stay tuned…

So I’ve been on a bit of a chess binge this past week. The problem is that I’ve had this horrendously difficult take-home exam to work on, so I’ve been staying inside most weeknights and taking my breaks by playing on the Internet Chess Club.

Unsurprisingly, my rating has plummeted.

I was hanging tough in the 1400’s for awhile (even teasing 1500 from time to time), but now I’m down in the 1200’s. I can bounce back…when I play someone who is <1500 and I absolutely positively focus 100%, I quite often win. But when I play half-heartedly and am distracted, I lose. (Duh).

Another big problem is that I’ve been playing too many low ranked players. You should try to avoid playing people who are more than 100pts lower than you. I do my best when I consistently play people who are at my level or better. But sometimes, no players in this range answer my game requests, so I loosen up the requirements and end up playing an 1100.

I can’t wait until I pass this exam in tommorow. Then, the work on reparing my ICC rating will begin…

I disabled the comments for ChessUp.  I hate that I had to do that.  Nothing seems more self-centered than a blog without the ability to post comments.

But the spam was getting to be annoying.

I despise spammers.  I hate what they do to my email inbox.  I hate what they do to my webpages.  I hate what they do to perfectly good domain names.

If you would like to contact me, I would love to hear from you.  The About/Contact page has a way to contact me.

My on-again off-again affair with the Internet Chess Club is now on again.  I signed up for a year long membership (at the student rate).

I did the math, and it was about 10 years ago that I first started playing on the ICC.  I remember all-nighters on the ICC during high school Christmas vacation.  My family had a little room in the attic for our computer, and I’d endure the freezing New England winter to play (Yes, we had a space heater, which was really good at warming half of your body).  Ahh, the memories.

And the LAG.  My God, it was unbearable some nights.  We had a dial-up connection at the time, probably a 14k modem.  It could be painful at times.

My handle is SpaceRook, so if you see me online, let’s play!  I like 2/12 and 5/12 times.  My rating hovers around 1400, but my goal is to stabalize in the 1600’s.

A ChessUp user sent me some feedback asking about pre-defined color styles.  (Style = square/text/background colors).  I think this is a great idea.
Of course, now I actually have to come up with some pretty styles.

If anyone has any suggestions, leave them in the comments or send me some feedback.  I’ll try to come up with some on my own.  Also, give your style a descriptive name.

If you need some inspiration, be sure to check out the gallery.

There was a bug where choosing “Black To Play” would make the diagram say “White To Play.”  The issue has been fixed.

Just a simple update: I added algebraic chess coordinates to the side of the chessboard on the main interface. So, now users see the letters “a-h” running along the bottom of the board, and the numbers “1-8″ running along the left side.

For users running in an 800×600 resolution, you’ll probably get a horizontal scroll bar now.  I tried to avoid this for as long as possible, but I simply needed more width.  I recommend running your system in at least a 1024×768 screen resolution for best results in all programs, not just ChessUp.