***** TrainingBot ***** TrainingBot(C) is an automated player with a database of chess problems submitted by ICC users. "play TrainingBot" or click on its Seek dot to play it, and it will present you with one of these problems. You'll be playing White, and it will play Black. "play ProblemBot" is similar. ProblemBot presents chess compositions, unusual positions with surprising and subtle answers, while TrainingBot presents has more practical training problems, often taken from or adapted from real games. TrainingBot will kibitz what the goal is, who submitted the problem, and the difficulty level (from one to eight stars). If you don't see this message, perhaps you have kibitzes disabled. You can enable kibitzes with "set kibitz 1" or via the Options menu. You can use "say hint" to get a hint, if the problem author put one in. Or "say give" and TrainingBot will tell you the next move. Or "say skip" if you just want to skip this problem. After completing or skipping the problem, you can use "rematch" or "play trainingbot" to get the next problem. Normally, TrainingBot will give you the easiest problems first, and once you've solved all of those it will give you harder problems (as ranked by the author or editor -- some problems are mislabeled.) If you only want problems of level 4 or higher, say, you can do "tell TrainingBot difficulty 4". "tell trainingbot progress" to ask it how many problems you've done and how many remain. To make TrainingBot forget which problems you've already solved, "tell trainingbot erase my record". Please add more chess problems to our database! There are three ways to submit problems. One way is via the web page https://www.chessclub.com/activities/trainingbot/index.html (you may need to authenticate yourself to access that page, by giving your ICC username and password.) The second way is to ask for help. But the best way is with examine mode, as follows: (1) Set up the problem in examine mode. (2) "tell TrainingBot watch me". (or "tell ProblemBot watch me") (3) Make the correct moves, including going back to make alternative good moves for White. (You may omit checkmating moves, if it's a normal TrainingBot puzzle, because it will always accept those as correct anyway.) You can enter alternative defensive moves too, but it's better just to give the one most interesting or natural defense. (4) "kibitz caption ..." and include what the goal is, and a little about where the problem is from. Examples: "kibitz caption White mates in three. [Averbakh - Fridstein, Vilnius 1946]" "kibitz caption White draws. [E. Rudolph, 1912]" "kibitz caption White wins. [fishbait - BulletC, ICC 2000 (analysis)]" (5) Optionally, "kibitz hint ...", e.g. "kibitz hint Undermine Black's protection of d5." (6) "kibitz submit", e.g. "kibitz submit Tactics 4". TrainingBot categories are Mates and Tactics. See "help ProblemBot" for a list of its categories. If you only want problems from a specific category, you can use "tell TrainingBot category " for example "tell TrainingBot category Mates". TrainingBot difficulty categories are supposed to be targeted roughly as follows: 1 rating 600 (By default not shown to players over 1100) 2 rating 900 (By default not shown to players over 1600) 3 rating 1200 4 rating 1500 5 rating 1800 6 rating 2100 7 rating 2400 8 rating 2700 TrainingBot always has the user play White, so if you are adapting a problem from a game, you may want to use the "reverse" command in examine mode to swap the colors. ICC's puzzle editor will look at your chess problem before putting into circulation, but please try to make the editor's job easier by checking carefully to make sure you're not missing a defense that works or alternative way to win. If you want to edit problems you have submitted, you can do that at https://www.chessclub.com/activities/trainingbot/index.html At that site, you can also see the status of your problem, for example whether it has been added to the database. To try out a problem given its problem number, say 402, "tell trainingbot number 402" and then "play trainingbot". See "help agreement" for information about the intellectual property considerations regarding content such as chess problems posted here. TrainingBot can play many games simultaneously, so don't be shy about using it. Message wohl with suggestions and bug reports. If you have comments about a particular puzzle, you could contact the person who submitted that puzzle, or message TrainingBot to reach our puzzle editor. If you are interested in helping with puzzle editing, contact LateKnight. See also: ProblemBot, examine, FEN