7 April 2012

Club Officials


Chris Griffin
Secretary

John Lunn
Treasurer

John Lunn
BDCL Team 1 Captain

Ken Wise
BDCL Team 2 Captain

Phil Maddocks
WDCL Team 1 Captain

Ken Wise
WDCL Team 2 Captain

What chess program do you use? - Choosing the best one for you

Chess programs have revolutionised competitive chess in the world today. Even grandmasters regularly employ the use this 'new generation' tool. They can be used for opening preparation, position analysis, training & tutorials, and for most, live online games. The most popular today include Fritz and Rybka.

With the numerous options in the market today, most likely you already have a particular preference. I'd say the choice of which program to use is completely up to the user. Many are generally stronger than  human opponents and would suffice for almost any level of training. The open source software Crafty is more than suitable for players' needs and also can be used with a range of unique graphical user interfaces (GUI) (e.g. Crafty Chess interface).

Another particularly useful feature needed is game data storage (i.e. a chess database). To maintain organisation, view previous games, research opponents, track progress, and better still, get rid of those bulky score sheets, it's best to go digital. A popular tool is Chessbase which comes at a premium. Chessx is a free option when has some quite remarkable features.