Playing on the Internet

It is possible to use the program to play against another human being, somewhere on the Internet (actually, the only requirement is that the other person is using this program (or another one that supports the same protocols (none exist at present)) on a computer system with which you can communicate via standard TCP/IP protocols - this can be the same physical machine, another machine somewhere on your private LAN, or another machine anywhere on the Internet).

The procedure to do so is quite complicated, because the program makes every effort to make playing the game nearly as real as convenient as actually sitting across a physical board.

The program does not provide all the facilities of an Internet Games Server, such as Java-Shogi, or the Internet Go Server, as it is designed only for one player to play one game against one other player. Therefore it is helpful (all but absolutely necessary, actually) to have some other means of communicating with your opponent, such as talk, or IRC (or email if nothing else is possible). The procedure for playing a game is as follows:

  1. Establish a date and time for the first session of play, who is to take Black, and what handicap, and time limits, etc., will be used. (You would normally do this by email).
  2. Establish a talk, or IRC session (or some other means of communication).
  3. One player starts the program and does a Settings->Internet->Wait for a connection. This causes the program to wait for a connection on port 9959 (the default). If, because of firewalls, you cannot use this port number, then do a Settings->Internet->Wait on alternate port, instead. You must arrange with your opponent to agree on a port number, in this case.

    Actually, before doing this, you may need to do a Settings->Internet->Database access, in order to set up the Restart Database. If you are unable to run with a restart database, then if one player or the other loses the connection, or if you need more than one session to complete your game, then you will need to find some way to manually restart the game. Saving the game, then manually reentering the moves, is a possible, though laborious, procedure.

  4. The other player starts the program, then uses the Handicap and Settings menu to set up all the parameters for the ensuing game. (This step is not necessary if a game is being re-started, and the Restart Database is in use). The possible settings that you might want to change are:

    Many other settings (for instance, everything on the Edit Menu, and the Debugging Menu) are disabled for an Internet game, and others are irrelevant. However, the following settings are honoured, but they are honoured independently for each player:

  5. This player then does a Settings->Internet->Connect. He (or she) will firstly be asked to chose a setup file (where more than one possible setup is possible for a given handicap), and then be presented with a dialog that summarises the Connection Settings. The meaning of these is as follows:
    Server Address
    This is the Internet address where your opponent is playing. It may either be an Internet Domain Name (such as colina.demon.co.uk - an excellent choice!), or an IP address (such as 158.152.133.150 - another excellent choice!).
    Server's port
    This is the port number that your opponent is waiting on. Unless you have agreed otherwise, this should be the default of 9959. You will only need to chose another port, if this port number is already in use (for instance, other people may be playing on that machine), or you have problems with a firewall.
    Legal moves may (not) be shown
    This determines whether or not the players can use the mouse to discover whether or not moves are legal, and what pieces can bring influence on a given square. To correspond with a game over the board, you should not allow this. But since your opponent can easily cheat on this (by starting a second copy of the program, for instance), and since Take-back is not possible in Internet mode (so slips of the mouse cannot be corrected), it is best to allow this, in practice.
    Handicap is ...
    This tells you which handicap and setup file you have selected.
    I am
    Black or White.
    Black's time allowance is
    hh:mm:00.
    White's time allowance is
    hh:mm:00. Note that it is possible to have a time handicap, as well as a pieces handicap.

    If you are happy that you have got all the setting right, select OK. If not, select CANCEL, adjust your settings, and try Connecting again.

  6. Then, if the opponent has the Restart Database set up correctly, you will be presented with a dialog entitled "Save in Restart Catalog". This saves all the information that you need at your end, to restart the ensuing game. It also contains additional information, (such as the handicap, and the date of commencement) to serve as a reminder to you of which game this is (you may have several unfinished games going on at once). Therefore, fill in the Opponent is: and additional comments fields, so you can be sure to select the right game, when you come to restart it. Then select OK. The information is saved in the file ./FILES/restart.catalog. This ia a straight ASCII file, and you can freely edit it with a text editor (don't use a word processor on it - for that matter, never use a word processor for anything). In particular, the details will remain in the file forever, until you delete them manually.
  7. At this point, both players will see the "Press Ctrl-B to begin" (well, if you get a Connection refused message, then either you have typed in the wrong address, or your opponent is not waiting for a connection) message turn yellow (as in any other game). The board will then be loaded. One player will see the message Black (or White) to play. That means it is your opportunity to start the game. The other player will see the message The enemy is thinking, and will see the opponent's clock ticking (when the opponent actually moves, you may see a jump in the clock's time, as the clock's actually run independently on each computer, and the time remaining is transmitted, along with the actual move. This way, netlag has no unfair effects).
  8. Both players now make their moves, in turn. If either player loses the connection (on the server side, you may be asked if you want to remove the game record from the restart database. Don't reply NO, unless you never want to attempt restarting this game), or if you run out of time in this playing session, then you will need to restart the game at some time. To do that, the person who ran the server (i.e. did a Wait for a connection), does exactly the same as before. The other play howerver, has a different (and simpler) procedure:
  9. Don't bother with any settings. Instead, do a Settings->Internet->Restart a game.
  10. You will then be presented with a list of unfinished games (from your ./FILES/restart.catalog). Select the game you wish to resume, then select OK. If all goes well, the game will be resumed whence it terminated (on the server side - if the server fell over, and the other player makes a move before discovering this fact, that move will have been lost).

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