ChessBase Reviews

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CDs, DVDs, Software Part 1

For a slight change this time I thought I would now take a look at some of the other CDs which ChessBase now produce. All can be accessed from ChessBase 7 but also work perfectly well without it as all the software needed to run them comes with each CD.

In the Games Column I mentioned my liking for the King's Gambit, so Alexander Bagiev's CD looked particularly interesting to me. His opening comments: "Actually the Kings Gambit is not suitable for top class chess. With optimal play White is the side likely to get problems." confirmed my belief that perhaps this opening was a bit dubious in modern chess. I am still likely to play it from time to time and as the author says a success depends on each individual players' chess understanding. You might not be able to beat a top Grandmaster with it but if you are like me you wouldn't beat them anyway and in any case are unlikely ever to be playing against one.

This CD should go a long way to improving my understanding of how to play this fighting opening. It contains over 16,000 games ranging from old masters such as Morphy, Anderssen, Zukertort, Alekhine and Reti, to modern masters such as Spassky, Fischer, Polgar Sisters, Short, Gallagher, Nunn and Bronstein.

All the games are easily accessed and there they are already sorted into the 29 major variations so you can find exactly what you want at the click of a mouse.

The next CD to catch my eye was "Intensive Course Tactics" by George Renko. It contains well over 4,000 tactical positions and is well organised into categories such as checkmate, passed pawn, zuzgwang, simultaneous attack, pins, skewers, invasion, various drawing methods and a lot more. Clicking on any of the 32 categories takes you straight to positions relating to that theme. Basically you generally get a position on the screen where you have to decide on the best move for the player to make. It does help that you know roughly what you are looking for from the theme selected. The positions are timed but if you get it wrong you are allowed to try again and can accumulate points to see how well you have been doing. I had hours of fun with this CD but that was no surprise as I always used to like chess puzzle books. No doubt it should also help to sharpen the ability to spot tactical opportunities in your own games.

The "King's Indian Structure with f5-f4" CD discusses winning ideas for White and Black in positions with a closed pawn structure like in the mainline of King´s Indian. Basically this CD looks at positions where Black has pawns on f4, e5 and d6 and White has pawns on f3, e4 and d5. Don't let the title fool you as this position can arise from other openings such as the Old Indian, Pirc, Modern, Ruy Lopez, Sicilian and Dutch, and this CD covers them all. It has an elaborate text introduction with links to the most important key games, typical variations and a huge lexicon-like theme-key with all the tactical and strategic middlegame motifs you can learn how to play this structure perfectly. The biggest problem for beginners is formulating good plans to get the best advantage from their games. This CD explains in great detail exactly what plans are typical from the various openings, and therefore is ideal for both beginners and specialists alike. The text content is certainly as good as any book that I have read and once again you have instant accessibility to the relevant games and can easily play through them without needing to constantly reset positions on boards.

In "Modern Ways of Playing the Sicilian", the Cuban grandmaster Amador Rodriguez introduces six modern, partially rediscovered systems with which Black, without extensive theoretical knowledge, can cause his opponent some very unpleasant problems.

In a number of introductory texts the special points are explained in clear language, suitable for amateurs and experts. The position tree allows you to keep all variations in view, with full statistical information on every move. Training positions are also included so you can practice what you have learnt.

Lovers of the Informator book series will be pleased to know that ChessBase produce this series on CD format. Issues 1 to 70 can be bought on a single CD and the subsequent books come on individual CDs. Each single issue includes all annotations, variations, tactical positions and endgames.

It is very easy to download thousands of free chess games from the internet but generally these are just straight game moves with no annotations. For those of you looking for top class games you can't go wrong with the monthly ChessBase magazine on CD. There can easily be a couple of thousand games per issue and each is superbly annotated.

Those of you with ChessBase will be interested in the last two items. ChessBase Opening Encyclopaedia has contributions from many well-known opening experts. It contains at least one survey for each of the 500 opening fields according to ECO standard, so that the database is ideal for setting up a complete opening repertoire, featuring more than 470,000 games, 40,000 of them with annotations, 3000 opening surveys, access to the games with the big opening key "BigKey", big tree of all games for quick overview and statistical access.

The Fritz Endgame Turbo contains four database CDs with Nalimov tablebases. With the help of the Endgame Turbo, endgames with five or less pieces will be played dramatically better, since the programs can use the Endgame Turbo in their search. System requirements: The Endgame Turbo works together with Fritz6, Nimzo7.32, Junior6, Hiarcs7.32 and as analysis engine in ChessBase 7.0. I found it quite fun to set up a position in ChessBase and see if I could work out how to play the endgame. When I got stuck I could simply switch on the Endgame CD, it would prompt me for a CD to insert, and I could then see how to play the position perfectly.