When the AI plays itself, the initial board setup looks like this:
You can click Quit at any time to exit the app, or Stop to stop the game, clear the board, and return to the main menu.
Before and during every move, the current player will be indicated at the bottom of the board.
If you want the AI to play a single game against itself, click Play. The AI will play at the speed you set in the preferences (default: 1 second between moves). When the game is done, you can choose whether to play another game with 0, 1, or 2 players.
Once the AI starts playing itself, the Play button is replaced by a Pause button. At any time, you can click Pause to interrupt the game, and click Play again to resume it.
When the game is paused, you can use the back arrow to step back through any number of AI moves, all the way to the beginning of the game. You can also use the forward arrow to step forward through any number of AI moves, all the way to the end of the game.
When the game is paused, you can also override any AI move by making a move manually. When you resume the game by clicking Play, the AI will continue from the new board configuration. This allows you to experiment with how the AI will respond to a given strategy.
If you want the AI to play multiple games against itself – say, to see how well it performs with a given strength, to analyze middlegames or endgames more closely, or to learn about life like Joshua from WarGames by playing qirkat over and over again – click Go!. The AI will then continue to play one game after another until you click Pause, Stop, or Quit. When the game is paused, you can step through moves or override moves as usual. Clicking Play will resume a single game; clicking Go! will return to WarGames mode.