Chess Software

I have been reading some chess books and I was wondering if there is chess software where you can just set out the pieces you want to match a diagram in a book. I would get a lot more out of my reading if I could just set the board up in any position and play a few moves.

I know from experience that Fritz has a position setup feature, then you can play that position against the Fritz engine. I'm sure there are many many chess engines that offer the position setup feature.

If you just want to set up positions, and not necessarily to use an engine, then you could even go with programs such as Scid, Chessbase Light, Chesspad.  There are quite a few programs which can do it.

Thanks. I knew there had to be programs available. I just didn't want to have to go out and try a bunch to find this specific feature.

Try this software, with it you can set up position, play thorugh it, analyze it with strong engine, go through  master games (some are included in package), have match between two engines, or play game over internet. All that, and it's free:

http://www.chess.com/download/view/portable-winboardx--rybka-10b

I use chess.com to do that

You can setup positions and play a few moves by clicking on these little chessboards ...    you can even add comment and post it on your blog ...

Have you tried Penguin?  it is a small application, not too overloaded with functionality, is freeware and available from

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/dashstofsk/penguin.html

It doesn't give hints at to the best moves to make, but it will allow you to store analysed lines of play.  It also has a board compose functionality that might be of use to you.