"42N83W" wrote in message
...
Windows XP Pro SP2

I posted in rec.games.chess.analysis last night, and they suggested I
might
get better recommendations here. Anyway, I just got back into chess
with
some office mates but I don't own a single piece of chess software.
So if
one is not new to chess but is new to chess software, where should I
start?
I'm not against spending some money on software (eventually), but for
now
I'd like to get familiar with a typical setup. From lurking and
surfing
I've surmised that I'll need an interface, an engine, some database
capabilities and perhaps some analysis features. I've seen all of
these
available as freeware/shareware. I guess I'm interested in knowing
what
people like, what they hate, what is considered standard, what
products are
intuitive, which aren't, etc. I'm also interested in any sites or
articles
that can explain what all the acronyms stand for. I deal with large
datasets daily, but not databases, so I can get around a computer just
fine,
it's just that I have no idea what the typical files and file
extensions are
for the various software components. I do know what PGN is, but I'm
still a
little unsure of how all software pieces fit together. If anybody
could
care to sum up briefly, in layman's terms, what a typical chess
software
setup consists of and how the different parts interact it would be
greatly
appreciated. Suggestions are obviously welcome as well.

Thanks!

-gk-


Hi -gk-,

I think the best free chess playing software interfaces is Arena. You
can get free chess engines that can easily be setup in Arena for playing
some good games of chess. I really like the design, you can customize
the appearance and have your choice of computer opponents/engines. Its
easy to install Arena and the chess engines, afterwards just run it and
play chess. You can save your games to PGN.

For engines: Crafty, Ruffian are great, and there are many more to
choose from. You can get some commercial/paid software cheap, like try
to find an old version of Fritz (the best for analyzing your games), but
you should analyze yourself also - a link below to the best program for
that: ChessPad, by Mark Van Der Leek.

With Fritz you can save to a Chessbase format database which is a
collection of data files (but only seen as a single file from within
Fritz). Or you can also just save to a PGN database file, which can
store 1 or more games, and can be opened by other software easily.

If you do buy a commercial chess program or 2 then definitely Fritz for
game analysis, and second ChessMaster which has an excellent 2nd cdrom
full of visual training, a boatload of computer opponents from low to GM
levels, and you can make your own custom opponents. It provides a
numerical form of analysis, which is good in its own way, but not as
informative as Fritz. Both programs can be got cheap and are a great
value.

I recommend getting a book or 2 containing master games - and reading
them, playing over the games - try to see their plans on the board -
learn. I picked up one recently with 300 Morphy games and it is great!
I like a couple of Leonid Stein books also - he sure could play some
radical chess - I hope to learn some tactics. Learn to read both new
and old notation because there are some older book out there that are
still awesome. If you get in depth later, take a look at Kasparov's
predecessors (red books) - they are outstanding.

I found an interesting way to analyze some of my games against my
portable Excalibur is to get a spiral bound graph notepad (the one with
the squares) - I write down the game moves, then go back and try to pick
apart my/and the computer's weak moves, look for missed opportunities
and tactics. Its easy to write the moves vertically and there is a lot
of space for annotation to the right. I have tried other notepads, but I
like the squares - its easy to draw a board position if I want. Hope
this helps, matt

Cool links:
Arena:
http://www.playwitharena.com/

Engines (see the Engines selection on the left):
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/

more engines:
http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/ucihistory.html

A free database program (Scid):
http://scid.sourceforge.net/download.html

A nice PGN database chess game viewer/move writer/annotator, my fav
(ChessPad):
http://www.wmlsoftware.com/download.html

I want to talk chess:
http://chess.about.com/library/glossary/blglossary.htm

chess symbols:
http://scid.sourceforge.net/help/NAGs.html