Scid chess

Forums Chess Books & Equipment I have Arena but I find it is a little hard to use. Are there any other more user-friendly GUIs out there?ThanksLiverpool_925 you might wish to try chessbase? yeah I would say chessbase is the best if you have the money. Fritz 11 is one of the best & most intuitive you can find. Cheap too, now :) SCID vs PC (a fork of SCID). Fritz 12 gui by chessbase is the best one there is right now A really nice one is Chess Partner from Lokasoft but it's not free. You can analyze, plug in your favorite UCI or Winboard engines, pit engine against engine, play on ICC and more. I don't think it's "better" than Arena (which I love) but I personally find it easier to use. My chess software needs are relatively modest. YMMVAs of this date it's about 31 American dollars for the download. For $53.41 you can buy Rebel 12, the last commercial version of Rebel, and get Chess Partner as part of the package. I recommend this version of Rebel as it comes with special features tailored to the Chess Partner interface. could alternately buy Chess Tiger 2007 for the same price and get Chess Partner that way. CT is no longer one of the top programs, it's SSDF ELO being a puny 2774! Just some extra options to consider. FWIW Looking at this again, it depends on what you want from your GUI.If you're heavy into chess databases then the best free alternative is probably SCID itself.If you want some ability to scour databases and do a lot of game and position analysis with engines, then SCID-vs-PC is a bit friendlier and easier to configure; the drawback being that it doesn't do everything that SCID does.If you want to run engine vs engine tournaments, Arena is the way to go, although Scid-vs-PC will also do this to a lesser degree.If you want a GUI to actually play games against, with variable opponent strength and similar bells and whistles, then I can't speak from much experience, although Shredder isn't

Updated: Oct 29, 2016, 8:03 PM | 14 I'm a big fan of SCID (Shane's Chess Information Database). It's a great, free, open source program that has all the features one could ask for in a chess program. I use it to manage and analyze my games and to prepare openings.I often recommend SCID to students and friends as a pocketbook friendly alternative to chessbase products. However, one downside is that the user interface is not the easiest for a first time user. To that end, I have created a set of three tutorials to show how to do some of the most basic and useful functions in SCID.This tutorial set certainly isn't for everyone, but I felt it would be a helpful reference for my students. It covers the most basic functions that I suggest my students use. If you are interested in SCID, perhaps it will be useful to you as well In future, I will try to create some tutorials showing how to use some of the more advanced functions. There is also plenty of SCID support available elsewhere including chess.com; check out I am actually using SCID vs. PC, but say SCID for the sake of simplicity. It is very similar to mainline SCID (the tutorial set works for both) and has been receiving the more consistent and active development.Part 1: Creating a Database and Adding Your GamesPart 2: Plugging in Databases and Engines Part 3: Annotating Your Game and Viewing the Score Graph I'm the Head of Community for Chess.com. I earned the National Master title in 2012, and in 2014, I returned to my home state of South Carolina to start Strategery: Chess and Games. In late 2015, I began working for Chess.com and haven't looked back since.You can find my personal content on Twitch , Twitter , and YouTube where I further indulge my love of chess.

Scid vs PC is probably my favorite interface. I now find myself using that one for all of my GUI needs.It's a fork of Scid. The Scid program itself is no longer being maintained, and hasn't been for quite awhile. You can read a little bit about Scid's history here: on Miscellaneous and then scroll down.)The latest version of Scid vs PC, version 4.8, was just released last week, which introduces a bunch of new features.Last night I had a question or two for the author, and he responded right away. We've corresponded in the past, too. This of course is one of the advantages of using freeware and shareware... the actual author is often very accessible. (Try finding the author of a commercial GUI, let alone talking to him.)With Scid vs PC you can use your own bitmaps for the piece squares, the program supports both UCI and xboard engines, you can choose between different chess piece fonts, board sizes and board colors, you can have engine vs engine tournaments from any start position, you can have different engines all analyzing the same position, you can connect and play on FICS, the Free Internet Chess Server, you can use an engine to analyze and annotate your games, it's database capabilities can handle LARGE files, (loaded a database with 8 million games in it the other day, with no problems. Note that I did have to first convert it with a little utility that comes with the program, to transfer my pgn files to a binary format for the program.) you can paste in FEN positions that you find online... etc., etc., etc. Anyway, the list goes on and on and on and on... I'm STILL learning about MANY of the features. I can't say enough good things about it.

Forums Chess Books & Equipment Hello,Was interested in getting Chessbase basic program to get access to extensive database.Unfortunately, it does not run on Mac unless install windows, which I don't want to.I did use chessgames (premium version), but I don't know if it has the most extensive database (additionally, you cannot save your own variations).Any good alternative? Hiarcs, maybe? Or is chessgames.com the only decent and less costly alternative? Have a good day HiI use SCID for Mac.wenn du mehr Infos benötigst, kannst du mir eine Nachricht schicken. ChessElk wrote: HiI use SCID for Mac.wenn du mehr Infos benötigst, kannst du mir eine Nachricht schicken.Danke!Habe am Ende mir doch einfach eine Hiarcs Abo gekauft... War ein bisschen impulsive.Ist SCID for mac um sonst? Ja. Ich nutze es seit einigen Jahren. Wie gesagt, wir können uns auch gerne über Nachrichten austauschen. @Tadam-FreeKnight: Hiarcs würde mich auch interessieren. Welche Hiarcs-Version hast du gekauft? Ich habe kein Abo gefunden, nur Kaufversionen. Ich bin zwar mit Scid zufrieden (läuft auch auf meinem Linux-System) aber Weihnachten steht ja vor der Tür. the database on chess.com is better than it gets credit for, depending what you are trying to search. are you sure it isn't there? ChessElk wrote: @Tadam-FreeKnight: Hiarcs würde mich auch interessieren. Welche Hiarcs-Version hast du gekauft? Ich habe kein Abo gefunden, nur Kaufversionen. Ich bin zwar mit Scid zufrieden (läuft auch auf meinem Linux-System) aber Weihnachten steht ja vor der Tür.Ist ok. Bin bisschen enttäuscht, dass die Database nicht großer ist. Oder vielleicht muss ich was anderes einstellen... Das Interface und Training menus sind recht gut. Ich kann es ja leider nicht vergleichen mit Scid. JubilationTCornpone wrote: the database on chess.com is better than it gets credit for, depending what you are trying to search. are you sure it isn't there?I wanted something to easily access and save my own repertoires according to theory and eventually play specific positions. I rushed a bit my purchase here with Hiarcs, it feels they do not have that extensive of a database as i'd hope with chessbase. The interface and training menus are decent though I

SchemingMind games in the database contaning also other games).Recommended toolsWhile PGN files may be open in almost any chess related program, it is usually recommended to use some chess database. Such applications not only let you replay the game, but also support building game databases (where you can gather games from different sources, search them according to different criteria, etc), annotating and analysing the games, referencing opening books - and more. Most popular applications of this kind:ChessBase (most popular, also among professional players, but expensive, have also truncated down version called ChessBase Light)ChessAssistant (main competitor of ChessBase, cheaper and faster, but a bit less polished)SCID (freely available and fairly sophisticated application, worth trying)Jose (another freely available application, a bit unstable but the only one which handles Chess960 perfectly).If you do not have any of those applications, you can also use almost anything chess-related to replay and/or analyse the game, be it playing program (like Fritz or Shredder), or online chess site client (for example BabasChess or Dasher).Finally, you can try an online PGN viewer.

Bad. I think I still get more mileage out of WinBoard than any other GUI. Scid vs PC is now a close second, with Fritz 12 / Chessbase 11 being distant third. Now and then I also use the Shredder GUI. I have but rarely use Tarrasch, Kvetka, BabasChess, ChessPad 2, ChessX, Chess King, and Arena. One of the nice aspects of Arena is that you can turn off almost all of the display, until you have nothing left besides the toolbar and the board! Just start right-clicking on things and you'll eventually get rid of the extras. :) Arena is the best! it takes time getting used to though. But it's well worth it. And now with free Houdini, I don't see why would anyone spend so much money to buy fritz.With Arena +Houdini you're all set !!cheers! Slight digression: Are there any GUIs out there that offer interesting graphical presentations of analyses and opening trees, different from the 'standard' found in e.g. Fritz or Aquarium? Chesspad 2 is free and good, but I'd spring for an older version of Fritz if you're not really hurting for $ (or Euros, Dinars, Zlotys, Pounds, etc). A cheap older version of Chessmaster would probably work too, although it's tough to say for sure since I don't know what your idea of a swell GUI is.Read reviews both good and bad before buying any version of Fritz, ChessBase sells Fritz and Fritz Chess, FC is a cheaper knockoff of the real McCoy. And checking with members here first before buying is a good idea too.BTW I own Fritz 12 and am pleased with the GUI and pretty much everything else about it. you can get chessbase light for free. go to chessbase.com and 'downloads' and it'll be under there. it's really nice. fritz-like. Gizehks-Practitioner wrote:It's already very hard to find out how you are able to play with Black instead of White.It's often surprisingly difficult to get a chess program to let you play black. Solving that problem was one of my motivations behind writing my Tarrasch Chess GUI (www.triplehappy.com) actually. In