Chess Assistant v Chessbase 9.0

Wardy · Post by **Wardy** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 9:16 pm

Evening Gents,

I was contemplating buying either Chess Assistant or Chessbase 9 to help in my studies.

Does anyone have any particular views on the strengths and weaknesses of each?

Certainly Chess Assistant has a price advantage for a start!

Any views appreciated, especially if you own both!

Cheers

Dylan Sharp · Post by **Dylan Sharp** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:17 am

The main reason you'd want to choose Chessbase over Chess Assistant is that some engines can only run on Chessbase (Fritz, Junior and Zap! for example) while all the engines that run on Chess Assistant run on Chessbase (That is, if you care about these engines, and it depends on what you'd want to do with the GUI; I don't own Chessbase 9, but I own the Chessbase 10 and Chess Assistant and both are good).

BigBen · Post by **BigBen** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 8:48 am

Hi,
I have both programs and for looks, layout and ease of use Chessbase 9 I think is far better and does everything I need, others may disagree. I am certainly not saying that chess assistant is a bad program and I think it has even more features which you may or may not use or find useful

Regards

Wardy · Post by **Wardy** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 9:37 am

Thanks for the replies guys,

I'm not too worried about being able to run .eng engines as I have several uci engines to analyse with. I'm more concerned about ease of use and the quality of the databases available I think. I don't for example find the database functions within the Fritz 10 gui to be that intuiative and it also seems to be a little buggy, all your games can disappear from view for example when performing certain operations like copying games between databases.

Dylan, what is Chessbase 10? I can't find any reference to it?

BigBen · Post by **BigBen** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:27 am

Hi,
The database functions in Fritz UCI etc are very basic, otherwise no one would buy Chessbase lol .... Unless Dylan is a beta tester for Chessbase I think it may be a typo ....

What will also be interesting is when Convekta bring out the UCI for Rybka http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... w.pl?bid=9

Have a search on ebay I got the latest CA9 Mega package which has the endgame databases, Chess databases and games service etc for £4.95+ P&P

as I was the only bidder but I never use it now

Regards
Tony

Dylan Sharp · Post by **Dylan Sharp** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 1:05 am

Oh, I thought Chessbase 9 was the GUI given with engines like Fritz 9 and Shredder 9, and Chessbase 10 would be the GUI given with Fritz 10 (So Fritz 10 = Chessbase 10), but it seems I'm wrong.

But if I'm only wrong in the name, then Chessbase 9 must be very similar to Fritz 10, and since it's an earlier version it may actually be worse.

For a database program I use Bookup (Chess Opening Wizard), you need to import the pgns into it, but after you do it, it has a different approach to databases and I think it's best (mainly in the way that it handles transpositons and the ease of adding/removing moves). There's also Scid...

BigBen · Post by **BigBen** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 4:41 pm

Hi,
The Chessbase 9 interface is very different from any of the very basic chessbase engine packages with have very basic database function.

IMO Bookup is quite a poor program in comparison

To get a feel for chessbase you could try the new chessbase light 2007 http://www.chessbase.com/download/cblight2007/index.asp ... The basic free version has limitations but it will give you some idea

Regards
Tony

Dylan Sharp · Post by **Dylan Sharp** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:46 am

Thanks for the information. I stand corrected.