Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

Chess

Mac OS X comes with only one game, but it's a beauty (Figure 10-2). Chess is a traditional chess game played on a gorgeously rendered board with a set of realistic 3-D pieces. You can rotate the board in space, as described in Figure 10-2.

The program is actually a 20-year-old Unix-based chess program, GNU Chess, that Apple packaged up in a new wrapper.

Playing a Game of Chess

When you launch Chess, you're presented with a fresh, new game that's set up in Human vs. Computer mode—meaning that you (the Human, with the light-colored pieces) get to play against the Computer (your Mac, on the dark side). Drag the chess piece of your choice into position on the board, and the game is afoot.

If you choose Game → New Game, however, you're offered a pop-up menu with choices like Human vs. Computer, Human vs. Human, and so on. If you switch the pop-up menu to Computer vs. Human, you and your Mac trade places; the Mac takes the white side of the board and opens the game with the first move, and you play the black side.

Tip

The same New Game dialog box also offers a pop-up menu called Variant, which offers three other chess-like games: Crazyhouse, Suicide, and Losers. The Chess help screens (choose Help → Chess Help, click "Starting a new chess game") explains these variations.

Figure 10-2. You don't have to be terribly exact about grabbing the chess pieces when it's time to make your move. Just ...