CHESS SOFTWARE...which one?

if you want a cyberpartner, schredder classic will be very interesting (human like and thrilling to play at 1600 elo, i think it is the only one who can do that, not hiarcs or chesstiger or worst houdini can reaaly reduce his way to play)

if you want to analyse your game fritz 5.32 is better than all the other engine, because you can understand the answer of fritz 5.32 (and it is free).

if you want a db soft, scid vs pc.

If youre just loooking for a chess engine, it doesnt really matter which one you get (Just my opinion) They are all rated over 3000, so i dont see what more any human will get out of a chess engine rated 3100 versus 3000?

I have chess king 4.  Its really good, i think youll be happy with it.

Only thing I can not figure out is how to play against the software I installed tonight CB Reader and stockifs 5.  I am trying to play a game vs the computer and looking for the playing strength  where I can adjust it.

Any help would be appreciated.

After all is said and done I downloaded scid VS PC latest 4.12.  It was so simple to start playing the program and easily you can adjust the playing strength.  I looked at he engines it it already has stockfish in it. If need be I will install stockfish5 in it.  Since this is easier to "operate" I will be using this one but wil keep CB Reader on my computer also. 

In a few months I hope to be up to par on the software.

Well, my English is not very good, but anyway just my 5 cents:

I didn’t know that it is possible to play against Scid, but I doubt this is the best software to play against the engine, because it is a database software (but I could be wrong, of course).

Anyway, my suggestion is arena http://www.playwitharena.com/

Well, and the best software IMHO is Fritz.

On the other hand you don’t need the latest version. Fritz 8 is good enough, it runs under WIN7 64 and with stockfish. I got it for 3 Euro on a second hand market, years ago.

If you buy the latest Fritz version you will pay for the online access to the Fritz-server. I am sure the server is not bad, but you can play on chess.com for free.

Another server where you can play for free is fics http://www.freechess.org/

They require another interface. Here Babas chess is very common http://www.babaschess.net/

As to the database: some people like SCID, but if you really use the database then IMHO chessbase will be worth the 100 bucks (the small version).

A 5 million game database is for free on http://icofy-blog.de/ and if you want to keep it up to date you can download every week the latest games from http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic

All these games are without comments, but the engines are so unbelievable strong nowadays, they can comment the game for you.

It makes sense to buy commented games if you want to know the ideas behind an opening (lets say the Sicilian Najdorf), but this kind of software (book) must be paid, anyway.

Well maybe its the engine that is playing, says it is running on stockfish and toga. Whatever it is it comes set up and you can start playing. I still can't figure out how to play Chessbase with the Fritz and stockfish engines attached. 

My 2 kopeks:

I have an older version of chessbase (10)  I also have Fritz 11, Aquarium 2011 and Chess Assistant 11.  The last 2 came as a package - I essentially got CA for free.  My thoughts on what I have:

I really want to like Chessbase.  It has a nice UI overall.  But it crashes on all my computers, I have had occasional db corruption issues (very infrequent), and find it pretty slow.  Chessbase will analyze your positions, but I don't remember it doing a complete analysis of a game - it would throw the game over to Fritz for that.  

Fritz.  Has a basic database module built in.  Searching is again pretty slow but it's a very nice package that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.  I like the analysis features and its a good ui if you'd like to play the computer.  Some things are hidden or placed in weird spots, but that seems to be the norm for all chess apps.

Aquarium.  I personally don't know why more people aren't using Aquarium. Has nice database features, the best way to have a computer assist you in analysis (using their interactive mode - iDEA), and overall a decent interface.  I keep coming back to Aquarium because in addition to the above, it's ability to search it's database is very fast compared to the chessbase products.  I mean REALLY fast.  Doesn't have the database bells and whistles of chessbase.  And it's affordable.  BTW - the best feature on Aquarium?  The little arrow icon on the bottom left corner of the board that flips it's orientation from white on bottom to black.  Why isn't it always like this?  Relegating that to the ribbon - and therefore making it hidden at times depending on what you're doing - is daft.

Chess Assistant.  Feels like you're working in 2002.  However, the database search is as fast as aquarium, only more robust.  You want to do some kind of weird search - CA will take care of it.  It has the most customizable analysis features I've seen - Aquarium seems to have taken these features and cleaned them up to make it more workable.  I think CA has more features than any database software out there.  Just figuring them out is a challenge.

Problem with CA is a somewhat steep learning curve for the UI, and I've always had trouble getting it to insert analysis into games.  There be some bugs there, or I haven't configured it's 1000+ options correctly.

Best feature of CA?  The "Join" feature which allows you to select multiple pgn files (from, e.g. TWIC) and have them appended to your database.  This seems to be a multi-step process in other apps.  If someone knows of an app where you can select the pgn files from a folder and drag them into a database within an app please let me know.  Seems like an intuitive solution that is never implemented ...

So I have to give the nod to Aquarium.  I really don't know why it's not more popular other than the fact that Chessbase is the de facto standard.  

Note that there are a slew of online features in the latest versions of fritz and chessbase that look pretty fantastic, and aren't on offer by anyone else.  However, I really have trouble settling in with chessbase as it seems so slow after using the ChessOK products.

"app where you can select the pgn files from a folder and drag them into a database"

You dont need an app for that. pgn is just a plain text file. The good old DOS command "copy" does the job.

E.g.

copy *.pgn all.123

It creates a file all.123 which contains all games. Then rename it to pgn.

The last step (rename) makes sense. If you would create a file all.pgn I am not sure if DOS will try to copy the destination file into itself (cyclic copy), which causes an error.

Copy command won't help anyone using the native chessbase or chess assistant db formats.

In Scid vs. PC you literally just select import pgn and then group select all the pgns.  Really fast and painless.

Try going to https://www.shredderchess.net/ and register for a free account.  You can then play (online) various computer opponents of varying strengths.

The whole business of trying to get programs like Stockfish or Houdini to play like a beginner or intermediate player is problematical, at best.  It sounds to me like you should get Fritz or Shredder - that's if you're looking for a sparring partner and not just an engine for analysis.

download chess 2012 or 2013 by Filip Hofer, in free version it comes with 7 difficuty levels ranging from beginner to expert. Purchase the Pro version and you also get the master, vice-master and GM difficulty. Its a very clean software and a great tool for beginners.

For PGNs:

copy /b *.pgn all.pgn

otherwise you'll get EOF byte at the end of the new file. And just like "cat" on GNU/Linux, it won't copy the contents of the destination file.

OK - I have to admit my knowledge of DOS is pretty poor.  I only use bash, and don't run windows except in emulation.

However, I'm just talking about a simple operation.  Say  you download the last 10 files from TWIC.  I think it would be nice to be able to open the folder you downloaded the files to, and be able to drag the files onto whatever database you have running at the time and have them appended to the open database.  Chess Assistant does this via the "join" command, which I find nearly as handy. 

I'm not experienced in how most people organize their games, but I basically have a giant database with all games I've downloaded from the net, based on chessok's hugebase.  And I keep it updated with files from TWIC.  It's currently at about 5.5 million or so. . . I also keep a database of my own games, as well as a few annotated collections I've gathered over the years.

Back on topic, though.  The thread got me to reexamine Chessbase a bit more.  It's does have a lot to like.  While Chess Assisstant may have even more features, it is mind-bogglingly confusing to find options.  Much easier to find things in Chessbase.  And there are all those training courses CB offers for sale, which can't be used properly in anything but chessbase's products.  That may be enough for me to choose one of their products if I were starting over.

You can also get a copy of one of their older versions - Fritz 13 or Fritz 12 - for $30US or even less.

I have only tried scid vs pc (vs mac actually for me) and think it needed work on the mac side.  I understand the pc build is much better.  Free is always a good thing ;-D