English Chess Forum

At around £200 for the mega package is it worth it , do I need the full package. I am looking at it since I think with loads of games on line now everybody is better prepared for your openings in tournaments , what I think it might give me

A way to have a tree structure of my and opponents openings
A way to play down full GM games in the variations to get a better point of the opening

I currently just use Fritz , maybe I can do some of this with Fritz but its just a case of preparing with limited time etc.

Do many people use it , do they find it value for money etc . What do you use it for that you cannot do without it

Thanks in anticiaption

If you have to ask (more sense than money) then the answer is "No".

There are plenty of good, free alternatives out there.

I personally like Scid vs PC - http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/ . There are plenty of big databases out there and with weekly updates from TWIC there is no need to fork out your hard earned cash if you are prepared to do a bit of work.

Scid is definitely very capable for that sort of intended use at least.

Having played David Gostelow recently, I have to confess he was one of my easier opponents to prepare for. A scan of his games recorded that he always played the London system either with 1. d4 and 2. Bf4 or with 2. Nf3 and 3. Bf4. After that, there is the variable as to whether they are likely to play c4 or not and whether the Bishop will go to e2, d3 or c4. Careful study of my games might reveal that in recent years I have always met the London system in exactly the same way, but I may vary the move order before the tabiya. In this case I used a move order with an early c5 to clarify that c3 was going to be played.

Personally I prefer it when people have the courtesy to play 2. Bf4, since they are usually declaring their intent to play a London whilst if 2. Nf3, they might be intending 3. c4 or 3. Nc3 after 2. .. e6 or 2. ..g6

All I really want from such software is the ability to construct my personal opening tree. Then, after a game, I would at least be able to identify the point at which I forgot my preparation. Does Scid do that?

Probably but it might be very slightly convoluted.

You can build PGN files very easily, and it does tree views of databases fine. So you could do one file/variation, stick them into a database and do it that way. Maybe there's a tidier way to do it somewhere.

I just hold my opening ideas in 'loose' PGN files/my games in their own database and a batch of TWICS in another.

Thanks, I shall have a go.

Roger de Coverly wrote:Having played David Gostelow recently, I have to confess he was one of my easier opponents to prepare for. A scan of his games recorded that he always played the London system either with 1. d4 and 2. Bf4 or with 2. Nf3 and 3. Bf4

Even I know the Dave system hasn't changed in a couple of decades.

Carl Hibbard wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:Having played David Gostelow recently, I have to confess he was one of my easier opponents to prepare for. A scan of his games recorded that he always played the London system either with 1. d4 and 2. Bf4 or with 2. Nf3 and 3. Bf4

Even I know the Dave system hasn't changed in a couple of decades.

I quite like the look of 2.Bf4 and going for the good Stonewall set up in some lines, but all strong London players seem to start with 2.Nf3 and usually go c4 rather than c3 if it's a 150 plus, I usually put my draw hat on around this time

if your OS is Linux, then scid works, but bot CB.

Database program: Scid vs PC does a lot of what chessbase does but it isn't quite as user friendly. Albeit it's extremely good for a free program. You don't get the Chessbase Let's check functionality which I find useful which includes the ability to get your entire game analysed via distributed computing in about 3 minutes to reasonably high depths. I don't think you need the mega chessbase package however. I would get the absolute minimum package on offer. I bought an old big database off ebay and then just used TWIC games to bring it up to date. But not sure you even need to do that. Chessbase comes with an online database which you can use to look up games / statistics.

Chess playing program: I find Arena (http://www.playwitharena.com) to be better than Fritz. I have an older version of fritz (to which one can add the latest free UCI compatible engines). But when I got my latest PC I didn't even bother to install it as I found Arena to be better (including for creating engine vs engine tournaments to generate small databases of high quality games in off beat openings which I then incorporate into my main database in chessbase).

Engines: If your reason for buying fritz was to get an analysis engine I wouldn't bother. There are loads of very strong free ones out there now. Stockfish, critter, Equinox etc all of which can be downloaded and imported into scidvspc / chessbase / fritz / arena etc.

Roger de Coverly wrote: Personally I prefer it when people have the courtesy to play 2. Bf4, since they are usually declaring their intent to play a London whilst if 2. Nf3, they might be intending 3. c4 or 3. Nc3 after 2. .. e6 or 2. ..g6

I've never thought the purpose of playing chess was to help your opponent know what you're going to play next due to courtesy. Maybe I'm just discourteous however!

Chessbase has just gone up in my estimation. I did an opening search last night and it listed "Strong grandmasters who used this line..." and then "Other notable players", who were Mark E Taimanov, Vlastimil Jansa, Kevin J Thurlow, Ulf Andersson, Oleg Romanishin...