Please advise me on which chess software to buy.

Again, moot point. They are (and probably will contiue to be) the #1 chess sofware company in the world. When you publish your own software and unseat Chessbase as the number one chess software you can say "see, told you so". Until then I believe they still get to say "Checkmate".

BTW, if it annoys you, stop using their product. I use their product, I had to replace a computer, did not annoy me one bit. It is what it is, simple things like that do not annoy me. There are much more important things in life to worry about ..... Like how to respond to 3... e5 in the Old Indian, Ukrainian variation. 

Chessbase (Fritz) is okay... have not found anything better at this price point yet.  Have not really looked either.

The more they annoy me the more I might be motivated to look for better options.  This is my point... no point is moot when you hold the cash. 

For now, Chessbase is still my choice as well.

4. Nf3, e3, or d5  

Drawgood I have a suggestion for you that may help save money as well as enhance you practice

Sessions with a program. First you want a

less confusing program as you say. I have an idea

For you. First think about the hackers the guy wrote about. I know he is right thats why I have always

Played my practice games against computers that are not on the internet my very first-ever computer

For this was made by radio shack. It had a level

For grandmaster play. This was a very good pc in its time. I had a little green paperback games of great players. There were games in there where great masters of the bygone era called mate in 17 yes I said 17 moves. I programmed it in and let it think a long time and the computer called the same mate!

Now the advantage of practicing on a computer with no modem you will never lose you games, and nobody can steal the games or know what lines or type of games your working on. This works well if you are going to play in a tournment when you sit down they have no idea what you will play!

This can help more then you know.

Now dont think I am an idiot for saying this.

I have a chessmaster program I have been using

About 1 year now to practice with. Now there are those out there who think I don't practice or study

But I do nowadays. It has teacher mentor,

Ultimate opponent etc. You can make your own times tournments etc. You can play on any level.

You can even play against grandmasters!

It has their matchs as well. Another thing I like about the software is it will even play some unorthadox stuff on you once in awhile. I use it on an old playstation that is not configured to go on line. This is a cheap all around program your game can grow with at your own pace. Now I am using the older program written for playstaton 2 . I have no idea what the more updated version consists of.

This one has all I need. I have played them all from the early days tasc 2475 tiger fritz etc etc. They all

Play simular some stronger. It is best to find the one that suits your needs as an intermediate player

As it sounds like you may be. I hope this helps good chessing to you.

N

I got Fritz 13 for my 13 year old son and he also uses my ChessKing 3. I recently purchased the newest Silver version, but haven't used it yet. I find the advice from Chess.com and the many tutorials and players invaluable though! No substitute as challenging to me than on this website.

Dr. Patrick Vossen