Chess Programs

Chess 7

Price: 19.99$ to buy, trial also.

Operating Systems: Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows 98

Publisher: Style-7

If you ever wanted an authentic chess experience that gives lots of choices. Well this program offers all the tools for you to achieve that. Skin creator, lets you modify every area of the interface to create something unique. The gameplay options are the usual, player vs player, computer vs player. But you may also have a partner who helps you out in matches. The program may also read out the coordinates for each move.

Not much in the gameplay option section but offers lots of unique things for the creative chess player.

J2Chess

Price: Free

Operating Systems: Every Windows except Vista and 7.

Publisher: J2Chess

A chess program written in Java, includes a huge book of openings which contains around 15,000 different games. You can play the games in three different fast paced modes.  Casual which is like classical, Blitz Chess which is real fast paced chess and the special Blitz Fischer. The cool thing about this is, it’s a web application but you can upload pgn files from your computer. So this could be called a PGN browser.

Name: Chess Opening Trainer

Price: Free to try, 39.95$ to buy

Operating Systems: Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98

Publisher: Chess Technologies

This program will enhance your opening chess repertoire. It will give a list of exercise and the ones that you have trouble are the ones that you will have to exercise the most. You train vs the computer and it forces you to do the opening you choose. You may also load old games or some grandmaster’s matches. If you have a site and like to help people with putting your matches up. This might be perfect for you because you can add notations to each moves and then save the game . Let someone open it on a program that lets you play recorded chess matches and bam. But even with everything it does good , I believe the price tag is to much.

Product Name: Cheesy Chess

Price: Free to try , buy now for 4.95$

Operating system: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98

Developer: Mousebed

A little different from my other articles this one is a chess program for kids. Don’t think it’s a chess engine for tournaments or anything. Even a very bad player won’t improve from this. This is strictly for kids. If you have kids you should really consider this. It will teach them how the board is used, how each piece moves, how to do simple checks. They have  two pieces on the board and they have to get the cheese. The pieces they have change so they will learn every piece’s moving pattern. It has neat songs and cartoony art style to keep the kids interested.

Title : Chess Magician 3.0

Operating system: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98

Developer : Huntersoft

Date added: March 20, 2002

Chess Magician is the kind of program you would install on your laptop and play when you would be on a plane.

This program is pure amusement, but with benefits. You get to challenge this Gigantic Computer, who is thought to be unbeatable ( we’ll see)..There is also a helpful character, The al magician..

He can help you through out the game if your having difficulties. At the early stages you might find this feature a waste but I suggest that later it might be more handy.

As you go from level 1 till level 9 the game becomes harder. From my experience, the first 3 levels are simple for a good chess player and a beginner will probably need help from the magician feature.

From there and on is where the game takes a huge leap in difficulty..Even the experience players will be boggled a few times.. But due to some repetitive patterns by the ai it can become predictable.

That is the only con I have with this.. It can be found at CNET.com for a free version. Not the best product for an expert player but for a beginner , he will only get better..And oh ya the graphics nothing to be ashamed of , far from the worst but not the best either.. Board is pretty simple and neat also.