1,500 chess books for the PC Chess club library, and a ton of chess software and chess videos. I felt it gave an edge in training and tournament prep. I am confident that knowing more about chess increases the chance of a win or draw!
I also added Adobe CS 5 (creative suite 5) "Master collection" $2600.00 and a ton of plug-ins and add-ons, along with $2500.00 worth of high end audio software; to amp up the forthcoming video tutorials. I feel chess videos are a good promo and teaching tool. It gives a club an edge in marketing.
I am about to upgrade software for chess...again. lol Our club now has Chess Assistant 11 professional and Deep Rybka 4 along with Rybka Aquarium 4 and the capability/capacity to edit and produce interactive chess books.
We are the only club in the area to have these resources. We provide all the informants ever made, and a large collection of chessbase magazine issues. We have recently added more than listed here. You will find NIC (new in chess) yearbook and NIC magazine in our club. Check eviesays.com for more resources we listed there. After closer inspection, we found an error of 5 million games sited. it turned out to be 6 million game database !
We offer players use of many tools to be an IM or GM. We have shredderchess.com "freezer" program that generates endgame tablebases on the fly, with a ton of tweaks/perks you must see to appreciate. Go to shredderchess.com and check out vids on FREEZER, and see our tournament prep edge.
Openingmaster.com has some cool vids on chess assistant and links to chessbase workshops/articles/tutorials. See the vids, then go to chessok.com and use the search box on the page to learn about CQL and Aquarium and Chess Assistant various analysis methods.
We also have chess position trainer and SCID 4 updated !!! We use free software to run testing and comparisons for visitors to show why "You get what you pay for". We show how to learn on the free stuff for kids in elementary K-5 grades. For 10 yrs old and up or 6th grade and up we use paid software to train with. The only exception being chess position trainer for drill work.
We understand ghetto-poor people may need SCID or chessbase light. We welcome any challegers anytime to put any database up against our chessbase pro version/full version, chessassistant mega, the latest version of our C.O.W. pro we use (chess opening wizard professional at bookup.com); along with annotated games of all informants (as we have evry informant ever made/published) as digital copies loaded on laptop hard drives in each needed format. Chessbase format all informants, ready to use by chessbase. Huge 2010 mega database 65K annotated games w/tons of notes and text comments. 105,000+ (105K) annotated games of informants 1-109. We add new informants issues !
We have books such as pandolfini endgame course and rueben fine basic chess endings and a 5 volume endgame encyclopedia "comprehensive chess endings by Averbach", and lazlo polgar "Chess 5334 problems"... all digital...finally, so you can mouse click through puzzles with a 3-d set/board in virtual reality... for better recall later. Instead of a book and set, you use chessbase or chess assistant to play through games/puzzles... along with "multi-engine multi-variation analysis" so you see what engines think/eval. of all moves. You can use "auto play" feature in fritz or chess assistant to review games at blitz speeds and get a feel for patterns, to speed learning.
Do not use a computer to cheat at chess, use your brain. Just so no one is confused over "auto play" it is a game play back feature found in fritz and in chess assistant and in chessbase. I would not want staff here to embarass themselves by taking down this blog like a similar blog was done. It would make them look very foolish, as this does not violate TOS. We are saying to be smart and trust the good things about chess.com we here; like how friendly,professional, and knowledgeable they are. They are here to help you. Think about becoming a premium member!
I am thinking about doing some nice videos and blogs that will go viral. That may help membership levels here. I have set a physical record in chess OTB which no one has ever done since...90 moves in 20 sec. I was also the top 5% in the nation and on full academic scholarship. I am gifted in sales,PR,marketing,business.
I have played multiple boards blindfolded for practice, and recalled back 60 move (120 ply) games from memory only, 100% accurate, as well as having a photographic memory. Not many at chess.com can say this, so I am pleased to add to chess.com and will be teaching here for free, along with blogs detailing how I got a 2590 elo rating. I will also be doing step by step blogs teaching blindfold chess. You will see nice videos on youtube and nice words for chess.com as time permits.
Look forward to lists of books found to be helpful, as well as dvd and software. I was personally taught by legend Ken Smith of chess digest and smith morra gambit sicilian fame!