WHICH IS THE BEST CHESS SOFTWARE?

I AM LOOKING FOR A SOFTWARE PROGRAM TO HELP ANALIZE MY GAMES AND USE AS A TEACHING TOOL. I HAVE NARROWED THE FIELD DOWN TO THESE 4.

CHESS TIGER
FRITZ
CHESSMASTER
SHREDDER

I HAVE READ A BUNCH OF REVIEWS/SALES PROPOGANDA ON THE WEB, AND THEY ALL PROMISE TO MAKE A BEGINNER PLAY LIKE A PRO.

BUT SERIOUSLY WHICH IS BETTER BASED ON THE FEATURES:

1. USER FRIENDLY INTERFACE
2. TEACHING TOOLS
3. GAME ANALYSIS
4. BOARD/GAME OPTIONS
5.WINDOWS COMPATIBILITY

ANY ASSISSTANCE AND ADVICE WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

Except for Chessmaster, all of them have the exact same tools and interface. The only difference between them is their engine. Personally I believe that the strongest engine you mentioned is shredder, but it's not a big difference. So if you decide on a chessbase compatible program (fritz, chess tiger, or shredder) they will all be the same except for small differences in playing style/strength and analysis. They have an excellent database of games and allow you to create your own databases of your games as well and perform studies and analysis. I would also suggest the chessbase compatible junior, as I think it is the strongest and most humanlike engine.

With Chessmaster you will get something very different. Chessmaster is a much better program for beginners because it has more teaching tools. There are training exercises, vocally annotated games, and tests of playing strength. Chessmaster also has much easier playing strength levels and is much more user friendly. However, the engine is not as strong as the other programs and it is not as easy to analyse a position. It also doesn't have all of the analysis tools that chessbase programs do.

In general, chessbase is a good teaching tool for beginners but the training exercises may be too easy for experts. For people that just want good, easy analysis and an opponent, chessbase is the way to go. But if you want chess lessons from a tutor for a variety of abilities, sacrificing some playing strength and database function, go for Chessmaster.

All the chessbase engines are good: ie fritz, shredder, etc. Chessmaster is the next best--not as adaptable, and the analysis tools of fritz is outstanding.

Excellent response and summary Ark13.

Changing tack very slightly, I am registered to play some correspondence chess and was wondering what the best s/w was to keep a track of a few concurrent games

John

Excellent responce ARK13, I would give you a rec if I could figure out how.

I haven't made up my mind yet but, I'm getting there. One thing that concerns me is compatibility, specifically between chessmaster and windows. I have read a couple of reviews from individuals who were having "serious problems" with chessmaster & windows XP.
Have you heard of or experienced this problem?

Thanks again for your summary, you have been a big help already.

TJN22

Quick question, none of those are compatible with macs, right? I'm considering buying an iBook and it would have been nice to be able to play chess on the go.

Well, to answer your first question, there should be a blue link that says recommend. You can click that to recommend me, I mean someone. Not me, well, but. Not just me. 😛


I'm not sure exactly what you mean by compatability, but I'll take a stab at it. Chessmaster does have some problems with crashing on windows, especially when accessing the opening library, but it certainly isn’t unusable. Also, I don't know if you can copy and paste the pgn files directly into chessmaster (I assume it reads pgn though?) Chessmaster isn't the program for entering, analysing, and storing your games in a database. It's more of a tutor.

Anyway, I could go on and on giving the pros and cons on topics you may not care about. Why don’t you tell me what you plan to use this program for so that maybe I can help your decision better. 😀

The tutorials on CM 10th are supposed to be excellent. I bought this for my brother for X-Mas, and he loves it. I played some bullet games against a guy on pogo.com who claimed to have been playing for only 4 mos. He was wiping me out, and my pogo bullet rating usually hovers around 1900. He said that he has studied exclusively with CM 10. If he's honest (which remains in question), then that speaks volumes for the Chessmaster tutorials. I, however, own Fritz 8. Keep in mind that I have read dozens of chess books, and I doubt that there would be much value in the tutorials for me. I am very happy with Fritz as a playing program, and am only beginning to use it for analysis. For training, I only use tactics and endgame books right now, and occasionally check my games against a database to try to improve an opening.

Good luck,

Brian

I had problems with chessmaster 10 needing a high end graphics card or else the blinking cursor drives you crazy. Oh, another annoying feature of Cm is that it never resigns. And another annoyance is the little messages it gives you after you lose (or win). they all sound alike, generic. the analysis language in fritz, however, is uncanny, almost human in style.

Are there much differences between Chessmaster 9K and 10K? Besides aesthetics?

I don't know, all of my advice so far has been based on chessmaster 9 and fritz8/shredder8/junior9

Originally posted by BLReid
The tutorials on CM 10th are supposed to be excellent. I bought this for my brother for X-Mas, and he loves it. I played some bullet games against a guy on pogo.com who claimed to have been playing for only 4 mos. He was wiping me out, and my pogo bullet rating usually hovers around 1900. He said that he has studied exclusively with CM 10. If he's honest (wh ...[text shortened]... asionally check my games against a database to try to improve an opening.

Good luck,

Brian

Kind of unpractical to use a program while playing bullet games, though.

Originally posted by johnnybike
Excellent response and summary Ark13.

Changing tack very slightly, I am registered to play some correspondence chess and was wondering what the best s/w was to keep a track of a few concurrent games

John

Originally posted by ark13
Well, to answer your first question, there should be a blue link that says recommend. You can click that to recommend me, I mean someone. Not me, well, but. Not just me. 😛


I'm not sure exactly what you mean by compatability, but I'll take a stab at it. Chessmaster does have some problems with crashing on windows, especially when accessing the openi ...[text shortened]... tell me what you plan to use this program for so that maybe I can help your decision better. 😀