Here is a tutorial that I built awhile back. I haven't worked on it for awhile though and some minor changes have been made since I have last updated it. I admit that it looks a little lengthy. One thing that I note is that you probably want to go with the PGN option rather than the FEN option. The FEN only provides a static position with some information about that position like en passant and castling rights. The FEN doesn't provide the list of moves.
In the little toolbar right above where you type a message you will see a little game board that looks like a chess board. Click on that and a new window will pop up to get you started on inserting a diagram/game/puzzle. Your computer might or might not try to block the pop up window. If it does then usually holding down the ‘ctrl’ key as while you click on the chess board will allow the window to pop up.
There is also a help file that will give you a little information. You can click on the ‘?’ in the toolbar to access this.
In the pop up window chess wizard will ask ‘What would you like to create and insert?’ Here are the three choices:
Diagram
Game or sequence of moves
Puzzle, problem, or challenge to be solved
We will first talk about game or sequence of moves. The other two options are discussed briefly later since the tutorial can be followed for those options as well.
Game or sequence of moves
After selecting this option and clicking continue chess wizard will ask you ‘How would you like to begin?’
Start with a blank board
Use a FEN string
Use a PGN file
The quickest way usually is to use a PGN file. We will start with that and then talk about the others briefly.
Use a PGN file
If you want to display a game from chess.com then you want to select Use a PGN file because chess.com offers a move list for every game. First, go look for the game of interest and click on the moves tab (You can do this before opening chess wizard too.) Highlight the move list and press ‘ctrl-c’. This will make a copy of the move list to the computer memory of the move list. Other types of computers might or might not be the same with the short cut keys for copying and pasting.
Now back to chess wizard. Paste your move list in the big box under where it says Use a PGN file by clicking on the box and pressing ‘ctrl-v’ to paste your move list.
Example:
You can see the moves tab on the right side of the screen. The following is what you need to highlight and copy to computer memory.
Note: You can see that these moves have links. Chess wizard will ignore the fact that they are links and just treat them as text.
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Bg7 6. Be3 d6 7. Nc3 Nf6 8. Nd5 Nxe4 9. Bd3 Nc5 10. Bc2 O-O 11. O-O e5 12. Nxc6 bxc6 13. Nb4 Qc7 14. f4 Bh6 15. Qf3 d5 16. Bxc5
If you want to display a game that did not happen at chess.com then you can still copy and paste the move list from elsewhere to the chess wizard. However, chess wizard might not be able to read everything alright.
If you do prefer to type in the PGN (it is not necessary to enter by hand here since you can play out the moves in the game editor) and game details (this is only optional) yourself then you want to make sure you use this specific format for the game details. Each pair of brackets must be on a separate line but not necessarily in this order. It is case sensitive so [Eco “B00”] will not be accepted (It will not display a pgn error when you try to continue, but you will not see it get displayed in the game details tab).
[Event "type the event name here"]
[Site "type the site name here"]
[Date "year.month.day"]
[Round "type the round number here"]
[White "type white’s name here"]
[Black “type black’s name here"]
[Result "type the result here"]
[WhiteElo "type white’s rating here"]
[BlackElo "type black’s rating here"]
[ECO "the opening ECO code goes here"]
type the move list carefully here
retyping the result here is optional
Example:
[Event "NSB-03.Kongress"]
[Site "Altona"]
[Date "1872.07.24"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Anderssen,Adolf"]
[Black "Neumann,Gustav Richard"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "0"]
[BlackElo "0"]
[ECO "C77"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.Bxc6+ bxc6 7.h3 c5 8.Nc3 g6
9.Be3 Bg7 10.Qd2 h6 11.g4 Ng8 12.Ne2 Qf6 13.Nh2 Qe7 14.Ng3 h5 15.O-O-O h4 16.Ne2 Rb8 17.c4 f5 18.Qa5 f4 19.Bd2 g5 20.Nf3 Bf6 21.Nc3 c6 22.Qa3 Nh6 23.Na4 Qc7 24.Rhg1 Nf7 25.Qc3 Qa7 26.Qc2 Bd8 27.Bc3 Rg8 28.Qd2 a5 29.Qe1 Bc7 30.b3 Nd8 31.Qd2 Ne6 32.Qc2 Bd7 33.Rge1 Nd4 34.Bxd4 cxd4 35.c5 Ke7 36.Kb1 Rb5 37.Rc1 dxc5 38.Nxc5 a4 39.Nxd7 axb3 40.axb3 Ra8 41.Qb2 Kxd7 42.Kc2 Ra5 43.Kd1 Ra2 44.Qb1 Rxf2 45.Nd2 Qa2 46.Re2 Rxe2 47.Kxe2 Qxb1 48.Rxb1 Ra2 49.Kd1 c5 50.Rc1 Ba5 51.Nf3 Kd6 52.Rc2 Ra3 53.Ke2 Rxb3 54.Nxe5
1/2-1/2
You must enter at least one play otherwise you are going to get a null error when you try to continue without a move list. You must check for errors in your move list. Here are some guidelines:
You want to put “.” after each move number (ex: 1. e4 e5 is accepted and not 1 e4 e5 leaving the “.” out.).
All castling moves use capital “O”s rather than using the zeros (ex: 5. O-O is accepted which uses the letter “O” and not 5. 0-0 which uses the number “0”.)
Some Fun with the PGN File
Since you can manually type in your move list in the Use a PGN file selection box then you can make some interesting diagrams. Chess wizard does not actually check to see if the moves with the ‘check’ and ‘checkmate’ symbols actually do deliver that ‘check’ or ‘checkmate’ in the game. Also, chess wizard does not check to see if check or checkmate occurred in the game and to see if they were actually displayed correctly in the PGN file. +, #, !, !!, ?, ??, ?!, !?, +!, +!!, +!?, +?!, +?, +??, !?, #!, #!!, #!?, #?!, #?, #??, and some number of ‘*’s can be placed after each of the moves. These are all accepted symbols whether they are actually correct or not.
Here is an example you can check out. Copy and paste the following move list as a PGN file and look at the preview. It is very interesting.
1. e4+ e5# 2. d4+?? exd4+? 3. g3* d5!! 4. Bg2#?? Qe7#!! 5. Ne2** h5******* 6. c3?** Qg5!! 7. Bxg5!?* Na6 8. h4?* c5!! 9. Qa4 Bd7+ 10. Bh3# Nh6!! 11. Qxd7??
You can type in a tree of variations. Chess wizard will not detect the differences in colors. You just have to make sure you have each parenthesis paired off the right way. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 (2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 (3. f4 exf4)) Na6
Use a FEN string
Here is some information on FEN strings:
If you don’t have a pgn file but you do have a FEN string then this selection is the quickest. The FEN string has all the information available to set up a position.
Start with a blank board
This is the slowest but easiest way to insert your diagram/game/puzzle. You start from scratch. One thing about setting up a position with this selection is that sometimes removing pieces from the board don’t actually come off. One way to be certain that the pieces come off is to click ‘clear board’. This will leave only the kings on the board, and then you can add back the pieces. One possible reason why pieces don’t always get removed by dragging them off is that maybe they don’t come completely off if you drag them off the top edge or the left edge. This might need some experimenting.
Diagram
You may choose to show a position rather than a sequence of moves. After selecting this and clicking on continue then the chess wizard will ask you how you would like to set up your diagram. You can follow the tutorial for Game or sequence of moves on the three different options. Notice that you can enter a move list in the PGN file option. If you choose to do this and click ‘continue’ then you get to select your position from the move list and click ‘use position’. Everything else is the same as stated in the Game or sequence of moves.
Puzzle, problem, or challenge to be solved
The tutorial to set up a puzzle is the same tutorial as to show a sequence of moves. The difference is that the user must try to figure out your mainline. You can enter multiple variations, but it will only see the mainline as the one “correct” line as the user tries to solve the puzzle. When the user is ready to view the solution he/she will be able to see all the comments and variations that you have entered.
Editing the Game
After answering how you would like to start you will be brought to the board. You will see four tabs
Game Editor
Game Details
Design
Preview
The help icon in the toolbar right above where you type your messages has some information on these. The tutorial will talk mostly about Game Editor. The other three I will go through briefly.
Game Editor
Entering Multiple Lines
When it comes to entering lines you may wish to enter more than one line. You may enter a few moves and decide to branch off into multiple lines. To do this enter one line you would like to show as the mainline of play. The mainline will show up as black in the move list. The moves will be stored in the move list. Go back to the desired spot by clicking the arrows or just by simply clicking the move in the move list that you would like to go back to. Make a new move. Now you are entering a sub variation of your mainline. This will show up as red in the move list. You can continue to make any number of moves in your new variation and it will all show up as red to help distinguish the differences in variations.
Black = first line
Red = second line (branching off of a black line)
Blue = third line (branching off of a red line)
Grey = fourth line (branching off of a blue line)
Grey is the last color used but you can still enter more variations if you wanted to but they will all show up as grey. This means that you will see grey lines branching off of grey lines.
Here is an example of a tree of variations:
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 (3…d5 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Nc3 (5. c4 Qe6+ (5…Qd8 6. d5 (6. dxc5 Qxd1+ 7. Kxd1) Nb4 7. a3 Na6) 6. Be2 Nxd4 7. Nxd4 cxd4 8. Qxd4) Qd8) 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Bg7 6. Be3 d6 7. Nc3 Nf6 (7…f5 8. exf5 Bxf5 9. Nxf5 gxf5 10. Qxh5+) 8. Nd5 Nxe4 9. Bd3 Nc5 10. Bc2 O-O 11. O-O e5 12. Nxc6 (12. Nb5 a6 13. Nbc3 f5 14. b4 (14. Re1 f4 15. Bxc5 dxc5 16. Qf3) Ne6 15. Re1 Ned4 16. b5 axb5 17. cxb5 Ne7 18. Nxe7+ Qxe7 19. Bxd4) bxc6 13. Nb4 Qc7 14. f4 Bh6 15. Qf3 d5 16. Bxc5
Deleting Certain Lines
Lets say that you entered multiple variations but now you want to delete a certain variation completely. There is the ‘delete moves’ button but it only deletes the moves made after the current move. For example, you just entered:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 (2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 (3. f4 exf4)) Na6
And you want to delete (3. f4 exf4) but clicking on the move 3. f4 and clicking ‘delete moves’ does not do exactly what you want because it would just delete everything from the black’s third move on in that colored variation (which is just 3…exf4 all by itself) and leave 3. f4 alone. You can use the ‘promote variation’ button. Click on any of the blue moves (3. f4 or 3…exf4) and then click on ‘promote variation’. This will promote the blue variation to the red variation. The rest of the red will turn to blue as shown in the example.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 (2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 (3. Nf3) exf4) Na6
Now you can click on 2…Nc6 and click on ‘delete moves’. This will delete 3. f4 exf4 since this was the rest of the red line. The (3. Nf3) will now become red again since that is the only branch for move 3.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 (2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3) Na6
You have now successfully deleted the original blue line (3. f4 exf4). Now to delete the new red line you would just click on 1…e5 and click ‘delete moves’ and you will be left with this:
1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3
Notice that we could have clicked on the move 1…e5 from the line:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 (2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 (3. f4 exf4)) Na6
and then click on ‘delete moves’ to get:
1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 (3. f4 exf4)
Game Details
If you didn’t enter any game details in the PGN file then you can manually enter the details here. Details are optional.
Design
Here you get to you get to choose the board color, piece style, board size, alignment, and the option to show coordinates. Some prefer to see small diagrams because these are quicker to download and they don’t take up much space even though the move list and annotations might get cramped up in the small spaces.
Preview
You get to see what it looks like after submitting your post. You get to play through all the move variations and read the annotations like as if you already posted. If you are 100% satisfied with the preview then you can click ‘insert’ and you should see a diagram placer in your message. You will see what you saw in the preview when you click ‘submit’.
- Could you please tell me how to post a game on these forums please and thank you ( if you could walk me through it well that would be greatly appreciated - please and thank you )
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So I tried posting one game on the Game Analysis forum and tried posting one game on the Game Showcase forum
- I wasted about one hour doing so
- I thought I posted the games but instead all I succeeded in doing was in both instances posting one static game position
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- this is what I did both times
- I went to forum
- went to topic
- typed my comment about the game
- opened new tab
- went again to chess.com and found the game
- copied the " FEN "
- went back to the game I was trying to post
- on body clicked " chess board "
- Got the " Wizard"
- choices - Diagram
- use FEN string
- use a PGN file
- chose use FEN string
- pasted my FEN string
- pressed continue
- pressed " enter moves "
- skipped " comments " pressed next step
-pressed " insert "
- pressed save and preview
- pressed submit
- well once again it did not appear to work
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- so once again
- Could you please tell me how to post a game on these forums - please and thank you ( if you could walk me through it well that would be greatly appreciated - -please and thank you )