Many chess-playing programs are intimidating for beginners, even at the
easiest level, because they have a large opening book and can calculate
dangerous combinations far beyond the analytic powers of most beginners.
At its basic level, CLUELESS has absolutely no tactical or strategic sense,
and no opening library. CLUELESS simply selects a move at random from the
universe of legal moves. This makes it easy to beat, although it can still
snap up the occasional hung piece and make surprisingly agressive raids.

CLUELESS randomly selects the light or dark men for itself. Moves are
accomplished with mouse clicks. You can click first on the man to move or
first on the target square. If a move can be specified by one click,
CLUELESS will make that move immediately. Otherwise it waits for the second
click. The target for an EN PASSANT capture is the pawn to be captured. The
target for castling is the king's ending square. Pawn promotion is automatic
to a queen (I'm aware there's a famous problem that requires the passed pawn
to be promoted to a knight). Check against the human side is announced. The
touch-move rule is in effect. You can exit a game by pressing the ESC key.

The current release includes a second level of difficulty, designated
DUMBER. In DUMBER mode, the program examines all of its possible moves and
chooses the one that gives it the highest number of attacks. It will usually
open with the king's pawn and then bring out the queen. It can't see how you
might respond to its move, so it will hang pieces with abandon.

The third level of difficulty in the current release is called DUMB. At this
level, the program anticipates your possible answers to its moves and tries
to conserve its attacking resources. It is much less likely to hang a piece,
and you'll often need a two-move combination to beat it.

A more precise analysis of your possible answers adds power to the PATZER
level. The TORTOISE level looks ahead to its second move, and your possible
answers to the second move are analyzed in the INFINITY level.

If you try to play one of the upper levels with anything slower than a
Pentium-class processor, you'll see that this level of analysis requires a
lot of work for your computer. Intermediate-level players will normally play
stronger moves in less time than a computer that uses "brute-force" analysis.
The human player will consider only a tiny fraction of the possible moves,
using judgment to quickly eliminate certain lines of play. This program
calculates every possible outcome, but only as far ahead as time permits. To
beat the program, practice looking further than two moves ahead!

CLUELESS is written in PowerBASIC 3.0 and compiled for an 8086 processor or
higher. It should run on any version of DOS or WINDOWS. It requires a VGA
monitor and a mouse.                                                          


                            THE RULES OF CHESS

Chess is normally a contest between two players who alternate moves across
a board of 64 alternating light and dark squares. A light-colored square
should be in each player's lower right corner. One player moves the light
men and the other moves the dark men. The object is to capture the opponent's
king. By convention, the king is never actually removed from the board;
instead, we say "Checkmate" to indicate that the king cannot avoid capture
on the next move (this is a corruption of the Persian saying "Shah mat!"
meaning "the king is dead!"). It is considered polite to say "Check!" when
threatening the opponent's king. Some players will also warn you when
attacking your queen. The player with the light-colored men goes first.
Captured men are removed from the board.

In the beginning, the men are placed on the two "ranks" closest to the player
who will move those men. The rank closest to you has the eight "pieces" and
the second rank has the eight "pawns". There are four empty ranks between
your men and the opponent's men. The order of the pieces as seen from the
light-colored player's side of the board is:

ROOK     KNIGHT     BISHOP     QUEEN     KING     BISHOP     KNIGHT     ROOK



                                THE MOVES

PAWN

moves only away from the player along its own "file"
cannot jump over or capture a man directly in its path
can move one or two squares on its first move
can move only one square after its first move
may capture opponent's man diagonally one square ahead to left or right (the
     pawn is the only man that captures differently from its normal move)
if opponent's pawn moves two squares to land beside your pawn, you can
     capture opponent's pawn exactly as though it had moved only one square,
     but only on your next move (this move goes by the French name EN PASSANT
     which means "in passing")
if your pawn reaches the opposite side of the board, you may replace it with
     any piece of your color, regardless of how many of that piece you have
     on the board ("pawn promotion")


KNIGHT

moves two squares in any direction and then one at right angles, always
     landing on a different color from its starting square; a knight in the
     center attacks eight squares
captures enemy man by landing on its square when moving as above
may jump over any man (the only man that can jump)
                          

BISHOP

moves diagonally, any number of squares, always staying on the same color
captures as it moves
cannot jump over any man


ROOK

moves on the ranks and files in a straight line any number of squares
captures as it moves
cannot jump over any man


QUEEN

moves like a bishop or like a rook at player's option on each turn
captures as it moves
cannot jump over any man


KING

moves one square in any direction with several limitations
cannot move into check, nor can player leave own king in check
captures as it moves
cannot jump over any man
once in the game, before king has made another move, it can move two squares
     towards one of the rooks ("CASTLING"); the rook, which must not have
     been previously moved, goes on the same move to the square the king
     passed over; no man can stand between king and rook before the move;
     king cannot castle out of check nor castle over a square attacked by
     enemy man, nor, of course, castle into check; this is the only move by
     which you can shift two of your pieces in one turn


THE GAME ENDS

when one player is in check and cannot get out on the next move, the opponent
     wins

when a player not in check has no legal move, the game is drawn ("STALEMATE")

when the same position occurs three times in a game, with the same player to
     move each time, the game is drawn ("by repetition")

after fifty consecutive moves by each player during which there has been no
     capture and no pawn move, the game is drawn ("fifty move rule")

[end]