I seem to be a perpetual novice. I learned chess over forty years ago,
and I've studied books on it and admired the game all this time. But I
haven't practiced enough to become what I'd consider a decent player
(an intermediate-level player, I guess).

Practice is obviously what I need. But how to go about it exactly?

First off, I don't play against people. I know that may sound weird,
but I'm a noncompetitive kind of guy, and I have no interest in beating
people or being beaten by them. I do all my chess playing against a
computer AI.

A year or so ago, I bought Fritz 8, with the intention of using it as a
chess mentor--to practice and also to review famous games. I used it
for a while but didn't stick with it. Many of its features are too
advanced for me (and its database is enormous). I ended up ignoring
everything except "friend mode" and the handicap/just-for-fun games.

Just recently I bought Chessmaster 9000, because I heard that it has a
"chess academy" that's about as good as CM 10th. Indeed, I've been
enjoying working my way through the chess problems. I'm also impressed
with the way I can play a game, then have CM analyze it, and go back
through, reading the annotations. (Fritz can do that too, I guess, but
the one time I tried it, it took forever to finish the analysis--I ran
it overnight--and then the annotations didn't seem very helpful
anyway.)

I loaded a "famous game" from the CM library and read through it, but
the annotations are so sparse that I didn't learn much from it. I
guess I should try having CM analyze the game first, after which there
should be annotations for more of the moves.

Btw, I hate the CM graphic interface. The windows often can't be sized
to fit neatly, so I'm always having to do without something on the
screen. The small 3D boards fit better, but I hate using them; I
always go back to 2D.

I'm also studying my way through chess books, which of course offer
more in the way of explanation.

But I'm wondering what more I can do to get the most out of CM 9000 (or
Fritz 8).

Another big question right now is time controls. In tournament mode
(for rated games), it doesn't seem possible to have separate time
controls. I don't want to sit and wait a long time for the computer to
make its move, but I don't want to be under time pressure myself either
(I blunder enough without having to worry about that).

I also have a couple handheld chess computers left over from last time
I caught the chess bug. I told myself I'd take the game with me
wherever I went--and I did for a while. One is a pretty high quality
(and fairly expensive) Novag machine that's just been gathering dust.
I bought it because it's loaded with features, plays a strong game, and
yet has only an algebraic LCD display; I wanted to force myself to use
it along with a real chess set so I could enjoy the look and feel of a
standard-sized game.

Anyhow, I hate letting all this hardware and software go to waste.
Years ago, when CM3000 was new, I bought a book called "Mastering the
Chessmaster"--a user guide that told how to make the most of the
software. I could use something like that for today's Chessmaster (or
Fritz).

--Patrick