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What is the best software to input positions for training?

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rodneyzeng
rodneyzeng
Aug 7, 2012
0
#1

This post is a bit related to another post by me.

I have some good tactics books and want to input the positions into computer so I can train myself at any time. I wonder what is the best software to do this.

Basic requirement is: easy to set up position, hide solution until corresponding correct move is made, timer is optional but good feature.

Now I can use chessbase11 to input positions and insert training questions. But it does not work very well. Sometimes the questions are ignored and no window pops up.

Any suggestions? Thanks...

MrEdCollins
MrEdCollins
Aug 7, 2012
0
#2

This is a good question.  I evaluate, test, and use most every piece of chess software that's out there, and even I'm not sure what would be best.

I can tell what two are probably NOT best... my two favorite GUIs... WinBoard and Scid vs PC.  Both can read epd files, and both can page through the file, one position at a time, displaying the position on the screen, but both won't "hide the solution until the proper move is made on the board."

When I load epd test suites (a collection of positions) for tactics testing, I usually just study the position myself, until I think I've figured out the best move and then just check the solution.  I don't actually make the move on the board.  If I'm wrong, I'm wrong and when I see the solution then I'll immediately know it.  I don't continue "guessing" or trying other moves.

One place to download a few test suites (that are normally used to test  chess engines, but are good for humans too), is this site:

https://sites.google.com/site/strategictestsuite/

A google search will turn up lots more.  I have dozens of different test suites, several of them containing hundreds of positions each.  Some of the test suites are tactical, others positional, others both.

If readers are not aware of the epd format, it's an ascii text file.  One position in the file might look look this:

8/1B3k2/4Rbp1/3Pp1p1/5p2/5P1P/3r2PK/8 b - - bm g4; id "arasan 12.1";

The first part is the position, in FEN notation.  It's Black to move and the best move is g4.

I'll continue to look for something that might work for you.

rodneyzeng
rodneyzeng
Aug 7, 2012
0
#3

Thanks again for your detailed answer!

I found there is a similar post in this forum and many people recommended scid. I used it on mac several month ago and it was good, but today I found there is an script error for its PC version and many people complained about this error.

I like the puzzle or tactics training on chesstempo.com, and the feasible way that I found up to now may be input the positions in chessbase, and export the db to pgn file, then use the javascript from chesstempo.com to make a tactics training page. A bit coding work is needed but the page would work anywhere, even on iphone and ipad.

If anyone finds a better way, please let me know. Any idea is appreciated!

MrEdCollins
MrEdCollins
Aug 7, 2012
0
#4

And just to clarify, I don't use Scid.  I don't even have a copy of it.  The original author, Shane Hudson stopped working on it years ago.  "Scid vs. PC" is a usability and bug-fix fork of Scid and is still currently being maintained.

http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/

rodneyzeng
rodneyzeng
Aug 8, 2012
0
#5

Cool. I did not notice Scid vs. PC is a name and bug-fixing fork of Scid. I just tried it.

I met the same error of missing close-brace as I met in Scid. But I figured out that it is caused by the non-unicode language setting in Windows. If a non English language is set, then the close-brace character in TCL script would be interpreted to another character and causes the error.

I will continue to give Scid vs. PC a try. Thanks!

MrEdCollins
MrEdCollins
Aug 8, 2012
0
#6

From the above link:

Scid is a huge project, with an interesting history. Originally authored by Shane Hudson from New Zealand, it combined the power of Tk's GUI and the speed of C, to produce a free Chess Database application with Opening Reports, Tree Analysis, and Tablebase support. It gained quite some attention, as it was arguably the first project of its kind; but after writing over a hundred thousand lines of code, in 2004 development stopped. Shane never contributed to Scid again. He was generally reported to be seriously ill, and today has little if no contact with the current Scid community.

Two new versions of Scid appeared around 2006. The first was ChessDB authored by Dr. David Kirby. With some good documentation and the ability to automatically download games from several web portals, it became popular. But at the same time Pascal Georges from France was making strong technical improvements to Scid. Frustrated with Scid's dormancy, and because of disagreements with ChessDB's author, Pascal released his own tree, Scid-pg, which included UCI support and numerous Player versus Computer features.

But subtley, and with some controversy, he began to adopt the name Scid as his own. Some people objected, especially Dr. Kirby, with whom a flame war began, but Pascal's efforts to gain ownership of the Sourceforge Scid project eventually succeeded.

Under Pascal, and with the help of numerous contributors, Scid again strode forward. Pascal wrote a Tree Mask feature, and in 2009 he upgraded the database format to si4, all the time making speed and technical improvements to the neglect of the interface. Very recently, Pascal has contributed less to the project, but it still thrives as a feature rich database application, with a strong community headed by a core group of programmers.

But along the way, there exist other Scid projects. Chessx, by Michal Rudolf from Germany, is a rewrite of Scid using the powerful libQT API, popularized by KDE-4. Originally called Newscid, Chessx still grows, but with a much smaller feature set, and lesser popularity than Scid.

Scid vs. PC (by Steven Atkinson from Australia) began around mid 2009. It was started in response to Scid's poor User Interface and bloated design. Forked from Scid-3.6.26, it has several new features and regular updates from Scid, but is mostly an effort to tidy Shane's frenetic code base, improve the user interface , and add polish to Scid's rich feature set.

Finally, another project is reaching public release. Scidb, by Gregor Cramer from Germany, is a total rewrite of Scid. It thoroughly utilizes C++ and a heavily customized Tk interface, and includes Chessbase database support and among its features.

rodneyzeng
rodneyzeng
Aug 8, 2012
0
#7

This is very informative.

I fixed the script error without changing locale setting in Windows. Using a text editor, I opened scid.gui file, removed the embedded tcl files of other languages except English. This makes the starting faster and no error.