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Software choice

#1

Hello
I have finish step method with chess tutor and I want to buy a software to play against and train. I need to have correction. Is Fritz or Chessbase the right choice? Or l’aube Hiarcs or chess assistant? Thank you

Hello I have finish step method with chess tutor and I want to buy a software to play against and train. I need to have correction. Is Fritz or Chessbase the right choice? Or l’aube Hiarcs or chess assistant? Thank you
#2

I think you can play Stockfish here. It is free and you can adjust the strength. I have never heard someone wants to buy any chess software to play againts these days.

EDIT:
If you want step by step commentary by AI while you play, check Learn Chess with Dr Wolf app for Android.

I think you can play Stockfish here. It is free and you can adjust the strength. I have never heard someone wants to buy any chess software to play againts these days. EDIT: If you want step by step commentary by AI while you play, check Learn Chess with Dr Wolf app for Android.
#4

scid is another option if you want a software that can do a lot of chess stuff. its free. it doesnt need windows.

scid is another option if you want a software that can do a lot of chess stuff. its free. it doesnt need windows.
#5

I purchased Fritz 17 in 2020 and found out that it's pretty bad compared to the Fritz 11 and 13 that I had before. Some features don't exist anymore, and some others were merged into a single one; for example, sparring mode and friendly mode are now one single mode and it doesn't work great. I could go on for hours, but the point is that the quality of that software isn't what it used to. I wonder if they got rid of all the old developers at some point and replaced them with interns.

I can't say anything about other companies' products, but Fritz and the other products that use the same interface aren't worth your money. Now, the last good Fritz I knew was Fritz for Fun 13, and it happens to be on Steam. It has mixed reviews because people didn't like that the playing window and the database window are basically different programs, and also something about the key activation. If this Steam version is exactly the same as the one I got on CD, then it's pretty good because it has the old features. That one might be your best option, even if it's 10 years old.

I purchased Fritz 17 in 2020 and found out that it's pretty bad compared to the Fritz 11 and 13 that I had before. Some features don't exist anymore, and some others were merged into a single one; for example, sparring mode and friendly mode are now one single mode and it doesn't work great. I could go on for hours, but the point is that the quality of that software isn't what it used to. I wonder if they got rid of all the old developers at some point and replaced them with interns. I can't say anything about other companies' products, but Fritz and the other products that use the same interface aren't worth your money. Now, the last good Fritz I knew was Fritz for Fun 13, and it happens to be on Steam. It has mixed reviews because people didn't like that the playing window and the database window are basically different programs, and also something about the key activation. If this Steam version is exactly the same as the one I got on CD, then it's pretty good because it has the old features. That one might be your best option, even if it's 10 years old.
#6

@ArnaultD said in #1:

I want to buy a software to play against and train. I need to have correction.

In addition to the software mentioned above, the Banksia GUI: https://banksiagui.com/ and PyChess: https://pychess.github.io/ are also worth a look.

And, I've written a tutorial for chess GUIs, if you're unfamiliar with their use: https://lichess.org/@/CaseyReese/blog/how-to-use-a-chess-gui/tZNkxV7p

@ArnaultD said in #1: > I want to buy a software to play against and train. I need to have correction. In addition to the software mentioned above, the Banksia GUI: https://banksiagui.com/ and PyChess: https://pychess.github.io/ are also worth a look. And, I've written a tutorial for chess GUIs, if you're unfamiliar with their use: https://lichess.org/@/CaseyReese/blog/how-to-use-a-chess-gui/tZNkxV7p
#7

Thank you for your answers. Maybe i don.t express correctly what i search. My question is more about using software like fritz or chessbase or chessassitant is it good to progress? Is is relevant to play chess ? How people use them : to play, analyze, to work endgame? Middle game ?

Thank you for your answers. Maybe i don.t express correctly what i search. My question is more about using software like fritz or chessbase or chessassitant is it good to progress? Is is relevant to play chess ? How people use them : to play, analyze, to work endgame? Middle game ?
#8

@ArnaultD said in #7:

Thank you for your answers. Maybe i don.t express correctly what i search. My question is more about using software like fritz or chessbase or chessassitant is it good to progress? Is is relevant to play chess ? How people use them : to play, analyze, to work endgame? Middle game ?

You buy software for a few useful features; not really for the engine itself. Basically you buy an interface where you can play in different ways that are tailored to your needs, and also gives you features to turn files with games into training material. For example, Fritz used to have a "friendly mode" where it adapted to your strength the more you played with it, but did it without throwing the game in an obvious way; this is a pretty neat feature that you can't get on this site. In other interfaces you will be able to open the engine settings and change some parameters, and maybe you could use that to try and get something similar to the friendly mode, but Fritz's one was automatic and pretty polished. Basically you pay for the convenience of features like that one.

You don't strictly need that kind of software. You can do many of the same things online, though not all of them, and definitely not the most niche ones. Then there's a middle ground, which is subscriptions that let you use roughly the same stuff on the cloud; for example, I think there's a Fritz you can use on your web browser as long as your membership isn't expired. I haven't used it, but I looked at it and it has many of the features of the offline version, but not all of them. If you just want to play and/or solve tactics then you don't need anything other than this site.

@ArnaultD said in #7: > Thank you for your answers. Maybe i don.t express correctly what i search. My question is more about using software like fritz or chessbase or chessassitant is it good to progress? Is is relevant to play chess ? How people use them : to play, analyze, to work endgame? Middle game ? You buy software for a few useful features; not really for the engine itself. Basically you buy an interface where you can play in different ways that are tailored to your needs, and also gives you features to turn files with games into training material. For example, Fritz used to have a "friendly mode" where it adapted to your strength the more you played with it, but did it without throwing the game in an obvious way; this is a pretty neat feature that you can't get on this site. In other interfaces you will be able to open the engine settings and change some parameters, and maybe you could use that to try and get something similar to the friendly mode, but Fritz's one was automatic and pretty polished. Basically you pay for the convenience of features like that one. You don't strictly need that kind of software. You can do many of the same things online, though not all of them, and definitely not the most niche ones. Then there's a middle ground, which is subscriptions that let you use roughly the same stuff on the cloud; for example, I think there's a Fritz you can use on your web browser as long as your membership isn't expired. I haven't used it, but I looked at it and it has many of the features of the offline version, but not all of them. If you just want to play and/or solve tactics then you don't need anything other than this site.
#9

@ArnaultD:

Lucas chess.
I use:
PLAY | Play against an engine <Basic Configuration, Help (Tutor) Configuration>
COMPETE | ELO Rating
TRAINING | Games
TRAINING | Resistance Test
COMPETE | Competition with Tutor

AFTER you play a game you can run an analysis that shows an evaluation graph plus info in tables. It also can show like 10-15 alternate variations ranked by evaluation score for each game move if you request.

You can preset the Tutor (Expert Assistance) to offer feedback DURING the game (you can decline to accept a suggestion) and it allows you a preset number of takebacks that you can adjust. When you play an selected engine (many like 100+ available), you can limit it and/or provide a desired level of Tutor feedback so that you are competitive and can win 30-40% of the points. As your results improve you could reduce engine limits / degree of Tutor support or just jump up the ladder to the next stronger engine.
Lucas has lots of Tactic / Training Position collections sorted by themes / Levels1-5.
I also play blindfold games versus a ladder of weak engines using Lucas.
Lots of fun.
You can search on 'Lucas Chess' in this General Chess Discussion forum or search in YouTube.
Cheers!

@ArnaultD: > Lucas chess. I use: PLAY | Play against an engine <Basic Configuration, Help (Tutor) Configuration> COMPETE | ELO Rating TRAINING | Games TRAINING | Resistance Test COMPETE | Competition with Tutor AFTER you play a game you can run an analysis that shows an evaluation graph plus info in tables. It also can show like 10-15 alternate variations ranked by evaluation score for each game move if you request. You can preset the Tutor (Expert Assistance) to offer feedback DURING the game (you can decline to accept a suggestion) and it allows you a preset number of takebacks that you can adjust. When you play an selected engine (many like 100+ available), you can limit it and/or provide a desired level of Tutor feedback so that you are competitive and can win 30-40% of the points. As your results improve you could reduce engine limits / degree of Tutor support or just jump up the ladder to the next stronger engine. Lucas has lots of Tactic / Training Position collections sorted by themes / Levels1-5. I also play blindfold games versus a ladder of weak engines using Lucas. Lots of fun. You can search on 'Lucas Chess' in this General Chess Discussion forum or search in YouTube. Cheers!
#10

Essentially it depends on your operating system, your budget and your needs.

Chessbase and ChessAssistant are chess database management software. You can't play there. Both are commercial (Chessbase €200-500; the difference between Mega and Big databases are basically annotated games, though annotations are not updated, they can be quite dated, so may not necessarily have a value for you, other than a historical one, €80 for Big database, just the games that one should be able to dump to PGN with their free Chessbase Reader, though they have changed their database format recently, so might depend on what they use now; and ChessAssistant €95, with older versions €50-75) and come with chess databases (9.75M for Chessbase and 8M + 600k correspondence for ChessAssistant). ChessAssistant's interface hasn't been updated for years, we are talking about like the early 2000s, so it looks really dated. As far as I can remember both are Windows only (though ChessAssistant runs fine under Wine).

Fritz (€80, 1.7M games), you can play against the engine. Windows only.
ChessOk Aquarium (€50, same database as ChessAssistant, so ~8.5M, older versions €25-40). You can play against the engine. Great analysis functionality, often used by correspondence players for that reason. Supports CBH in read-only format. Windows only (can run under Wine, but tree building functionality won't work, which is a huge selling point, so essentially no Linux support). It hasn't been actively developed in recent years, can be somewhat buggy, so a separate Data folder and periodic backup of it would be advisable.
There is also Chess King (€70-90), somewhat similar interface as Aquarium from the same company, so I suppose you'd get the same database as well. Haven't tried it.

HIARCS Chess Explorer (commercial, €75-150, Mac and Windows, no Linux; 600k chess database). Supports read-only CBH. Same dev worked on ChessX. Haven't tried it.

Chessquid (€29-99, 4M games in the Pro version, haven't tried it). Looks like it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

As for the free alternatives, you have SCID (https://scid.sourceforge.net) or SCIDvsPC/Mac (https://scidvspc.sourceforge.net). SCID supports SCID5 format, which means much larger databases, SCID4 is limited to ~16.7M games in one database, and ChessX (https://chessx.sourceforge.io PGN only). Open source, run on various platforms including Mac and Linux. There is also Scidb, doesn't run on Windows, supports CBH readonly databases. Do not come with any chess databases. So you would need to get TWIC (https://theweekinchess.com/twic ~2M games, might need to use Wayback Machine for earlier issues; name format doesn't include the full first name) and/or Caissabase (4.85M when doubles are removed and it has quite a few of them, names are in all kind of formats, it's messy in other words) for OTB games. And maybe Lichess Elite Database (https://database.nikonoel.fr) for online games.

Would also mention Nibbler (https://github.com/rooklift/nibbler), just an analysis GUI for Lc0. Lucas Chess (https://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com to play, for tactics, can deal with databases as well). And Banksia GUI (https://banksiagui.com free, though not open-source, haven't tried it). Arena Chess GUI (http://www.playwitharena.de free, though not open-source, Windows and Linux).
En Croissant is something new as well (https://github.com/franciscoBSalgueiro/en-croissant haven't tried it yet). Looks like it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Personally, while on Windows, I used Aquarium (I had Chess Assistant as well, but basically never used it), SCID and Lucas Chess. Nowadays, on Linux I just use SCIDvsPC.

Essentially it depends on your operating system, your budget and your needs. Chessbase and ChessAssistant are chess database management software. You can't play there. Both are commercial (Chessbase €200-500; the difference between Mega and Big databases are basically annotated games, though annotations are not updated, they can be quite dated, so may not necessarily have a value for you, other than a historical one, €80 for Big database, just the games that one should be able to dump to PGN with their free Chessbase Reader, though they have changed their database format recently, so might depend on what they use now; and ChessAssistant €95, with older versions €50-75) and come with chess databases (9.75M for Chessbase and 8M + 600k correspondence for ChessAssistant). ChessAssistant's interface hasn't been updated for years, we are talking about like the early 2000s, so it looks really dated. As far as I can remember both are Windows only (though ChessAssistant runs fine under Wine). Fritz (€80, 1.7M games), you can play against the engine. Windows only. ChessOk Aquarium (€50, same database as ChessAssistant, so ~8.5M, older versions €25-40). You can play against the engine. Great analysis functionality, often used by correspondence players for that reason. Supports CBH in read-only format. Windows only (can run under Wine, but tree building functionality won't work, which is a huge selling point, so essentially no Linux support). It hasn't been actively developed in recent years, can be somewhat buggy, so a separate Data folder and periodic backup of it would be advisable. There is also Chess King (€70-90), somewhat similar interface as Aquarium from the same company, so I suppose you'd get the same database as well. Haven't tried it. HIARCS Chess Explorer (commercial, €75-150, Mac and Windows, no Linux; 600k chess database). Supports read-only CBH. Same dev worked on ChessX. Haven't tried it. Chessquid (€29-99, 4M games in the Pro version, haven't tried it). Looks like it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. As for the free alternatives, you have SCID (https://scid.sourceforge.net) or SCIDvsPC/Mac (https://scidvspc.sourceforge.net). SCID supports SCID5 format, which means much larger databases, SCID4 is limited to ~16.7M games in one database, and ChessX (https://chessx.sourceforge.io PGN only). Open source, run on various platforms including Mac and Linux. There is also Scidb, doesn't run on Windows, supports CBH readonly databases. Do not come with any chess databases. So you would need to get TWIC (https://theweekinchess.com/twic ~2M games, might need to use Wayback Machine for earlier issues; name format doesn't include the full first name) and/or Caissabase (4.85M when doubles are removed and it has quite a few of them, names are in all kind of formats, it's messy in other words) for OTB games. And maybe Lichess Elite Database (https://database.nikonoel.fr) for online games. Would also mention Nibbler (https://github.com/rooklift/nibbler), just an analysis GUI for Lc0. Lucas Chess (https://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com to play, for tactics, can deal with databases as well). And Banksia GUI (https://banksiagui.com free, though not open-source, haven't tried it). Arena Chess GUI (http://www.playwitharena.de free, though not open-source, Windows and Linux). En Croissant is something new as well (https://github.com/franciscoBSalgueiro/en-croissant haven't tried it yet). Looks like it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Personally, while on Windows, I used Aquarium (I had Chess Assistant as well, but basically never used it), SCID and Lucas Chess. Nowadays, on Linux I just use SCIDvsPC.

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