Stefan Renzewitz, the creator of the free Chess Position Trainer needs your help.
Stefan has produced one of the best chess opening trainers in the market (don't get me started on transpositions in Chessbase *grin*).
He has a technical preview of the upcoming software Chess Position Trainer v4 (Technical Preview) available and would like help in finding potential bugs.
A word on Chess Position Trainer - it's an absolute gem of a software that is very effective in building up and learning your opening repertoire quickly.
If you've never heard of Chess Position Trainer before, I strongly urge you to give it a try. It makes opening repertoire preparation very much easier. Chess Position Trainer can also be used to for endgames and tactics training.
Don't just take my word for it, you can reviews of the current versions here:
http://www.chessville.com/misc/ChessPositionTrainer32.htm
http://roman-chess.blogspot.com/2009/08/chess-position-trainer-test-your.html
http://keystor.blogspot.com/2007/03/few-mini-reviews.html
As a chess patzer myself, there's not much point in shelling out lots of moolah for Chessbase or Chess Assistant if all I want is for opening training.
Chess Position Trainer Information:
Website: www.chesspositiontrainer.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chess-Position-Trainer/111176928709
The documentation and software is available for download at their website. If you need to get your feet wet, there are free tutorials
on how to use it as well as to apply it to things like tactical training:
http://www.ndchessnut.com/cn_pages/Classroom/PDF/CPT_Lesson1.pdf
http://www.ndchessnut.com/cn_pages/Classroom/PDF/CPT_Tactics.pdf
The technical preview v4 can be obtained from the link below:
CPT Technical Preview v4.0
PS: I don't make any money out of this - just hate to see a good software not getting the publicity it deserves.
I was always reticent to spend the money for chessbase (especially since I had a few buggy run ins with their playing programs).
ReplyDeleteHowever I just purchases chessbase 9 premium light and the Big Database 2010 and I am pretty amazed at what it can do.
I haven't tried Chess Position Trainer.
The chessbase big database also has a section of endgames, which are super for training!! Really super.
How does CPT work for endgames?
Hello Tommyg,
ReplyDeleteI myself do have Chessbase Light. It's very good but the lack of documentation for this product is really frustrating.
If you intend to use Chessbase, temposchlucker on his blog has done a magnificent job of getting the best bang out of your buck for Chessbase (and Chessbase Light) of how to create your own opening repertoire. Look up his posts on creating an opening repertoire. I have his comments saved on my local drive.
One of the main problems I have with Chessbase is its inability to handle transpositions (annoying to say the least) and the maddening way to construct your opening repertoire from working from the most common variations to the least.
CPT unfortunately is not as advanced as Chessbase in terms of endgames in that you don't have the ability to highlight squares and arrows.
However, what it does, it does really well and that is its training module.
One good technique I found is that to grab the annotations from Chesscafe's Endgame Column by Karsten Muller and then setup the position then copy the annotations over. Now work through them. Voila. You know have a quick and easy way to access and train yourself for that endgame.
CPT allows you to create sub-repertoires within repertoires - this feature I found to be invaluable and one which Chessbase falters badly.
CPT works on the flash card concept and emphasises on repetition, repetition, repetition by getting you to play the moves and recording your score.
If you have problems with learning repertoires etc. I still advocate CPT over Chessbase even though I have both software.
cheers
I will try it out on sunday or monday. Dont have time right now. Am relaxing to be well rested for my busy (chess) weekend.
ReplyDeleteMaybe its a good tool/program to study my new repertoire with?