Hello everyone,

I received a gift certificate for an online chess store for Christmas.  It is for $40, and I'm willing to put in another $40 to spend up to $80 on something.  I was thinking of some type of software over books or boards.  Does anyone have a good suggestion?  I have no chess programs at the moment.  I am currently rated 1807 on the site.  I really like the Chess Mentor here, but I don't think you can get that on the site i have a gift certificate for.  Are there any similar programs?

Thanks in advance for your recommendations. 

If you don't already have one, why not purchase a good chess engine?  Fritz, Rybka, (or even Chessmaster)...

Don't be in a hurry and shop around.

I know some people like Chessmaster...  I have it for playstation and it is pretty good with cool features and chess mentor like scenarios.  I have no other chess programs but i think it's pretty cool.  I'm pretty sure there is something for PC.

Buy a older ver, of chessmaster series like cm 9000 or cm 10000 if you add 40 get cm 11000 its called chessmaster grand master edition. the newst chessmaster comes with a database of about 7850000 games the 9000 a database of 504000 games.Then never spend money again except as in your case someone gives it as a gift.Check out some of the great FREE chess download programs here at this site an look at Zarkon Fischer.com for all the best Free downloads after you download portable winboard x an fritz 5.32 or scid orchessbase light 2007 an much more it will open your eyes as as there a lot of great free stuff go to arena chess goggle that name an download the arena 2 program do the 18mb download as its a exe file comes with everything you will ever need with a eazy install wizard have fun downloading.

what's the difference between fritz and deep fritz?

don't be in a hurry think first and buy 

Deep fritz is programmed to take advantage of multiple CPU's. The regular fritz only uses a single CPU.

The best chess program is Rybka 3. It's the world champion computer chess program. However, the most user friendly is Chessmaster.

If you are planning to buy new computer, buy new computer with window vista. There has a chess software program in the package.

chess titans is weak.