Search mask, Manoeuvres.

 

 

Searching for manoeuvres retrieves sequences of moves. This is unlike the position search which provide a static picture and is insufficient when you interested in finding out how a certain position has come about. In addition, the manoeuvre search can be used to find a wide range of tactical motifs.

 

In the above example we are looking for games in which a white bishop moved from somewhere to f7 capturing a pawn ("wB??f7xP"), the black king recaptured the bishop ("bK??f7xB"), after which a white knight delivered check on g5 ("wN??g5+"). "Check move order" means the moves must have occurred in that order, "Length" that it had to be within three ply, "Mirror horizontal" that it could be a black bishop capturing on h2.

 

How to define a manoeuvre

  Colour: The boxes W, B and WB select which side makes the move in question.

 

   Piece: The piece type is selected from the list of pieces that appears when you click the arrow down symbol. Use the question mark to denote an arbitrary piece.

 

   Squares: The start and destination square are given in long notation (“e2e4”). Use the question mark as a joker: For example, “?3?3” means any move along the third rank, “??h7” means from anywhere to h7. You must first delete a question mark before entering a number or a character in its place.

 

   Capture: If the check box between the squares and the destination piece is clicked on, then the move must be a capture. You can specify which piece is to be captured in the pull-down menu on the right. Once again “?” means any piece, and “0” means that the move only counts when it does not capture anything.

 

   Promotion: You can specify whether the move should be a promotion and to what piece.

 

   Sacrifice: Click the “sacrifice” checkbox and give a material value (in pawn units) to find manoeuvres in which material was sacrificed for a certain period of time (this must be specified under “Length”). The program checks whether the moves defined won or lost material to the specified extent.

 

   Move window: This defines the area of the game in which the program is to search for the manoeuvre in question. The “length” value refers to the maximum number of ply (half-moves) in which the whole manoeuvre must occur.

 

   Check move order: In a manoeuvre over a number of moves you may or may not want to restrict the search to games in which the moves occurred in a specific order.

 

   Not: Switching this on will retrieve games in which the defined manoeuvre did not occur. Example: White promotes to a knight and Black does not capture it in the next five moves.

 

Examples

wQ??g?

wB??h6

Suggested move window settings: 5–40, length 8.

 

wNf3e1

wNe1c2

wNc2e3

wNe3d5

and perhaps also:

b???d5xN

wP??d5x?

Suggested move window settings: 5–50, length 20.

 

wB??f7xP

bK??f7xB

wN??g5

Suggested move window settings: 5–40, length 3.