Jonathan Tait wrote on 02/23/21 at 08:57:03:


No, I don't want that either! Please can you tell me where the setting is that you're referring to? I can't find it. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Managed to find it now. Just in case anyone else is struggling, right-click on the engine window and the 'display win probability' option appears in the contextual menu.

Just updated to the new version of CB15 — and they've changed the analysis engine format. It's now giving assessments in multiple percentages instead of decimals.
I DO NOT WANT THIS

Edit: Ah, they had "display win probability" turned on by default. Turned it off again

I would also add that Aquarium/ chess assistant has IDEA analysis which is better than ChessBase in my opinion. It is buggy but there are some features CB does not have.

No program does everything that another does. Even when they both do the same thing they don't do it equally well. And nowadays chess database programs have so many features no chessplayer can use them all.

So if moving from ChessBase to another program, the first big question must be, which ChessBase features do you, personally, actually use? Only then can you know if another program would be a good replacement. (Although serendipity happens. This replacement program might have a feature ChessBase lacks, which you didn't even realize you wanted.)

Since SCID vs PC is free I think you should evaluate that one yourself. I use SCID, I haven't looked at SCID vs PC but it seems similar.

As to Chess Assistant, ChessOK is a Russian company. There is a whole other universe of chess in the Russian language. It's possible for a company to thrive in that arena and for Western chessplayers to never hear of it. So I wouldn't worry about ChessOK just yet, although nothing lasts forever and this is true of ChessBase as well.

Many moons ago I started with Chess Assistant for DOS, and through all the versions have always preferred CA to ChessBase. Chess Assistant can open ChessBase's proprietary .cbh format (read-only), so that's a big help. For me the biggest advantage is the Chess Assistant tree. I use a tree all the time and the ChessBase tree simply cannot compare. I would rank the trees Chess Assistant clear 1st, SCID and HIARCS Chess Explorer neck-and-neck 2nd and 3rd, ChessBase distant 4th, more like an also-ran. One thing that drives me crazy about Chess Assistant is, ever since Windows Vista I cannot see the +- "winning for white" ($18) symbol. Convekta (in those days) told me they couldn't fix it and I should run it under Wine, which I did, but nowadays Wine does the same thing. I have a different workaround for myself but couldn't recommend it to others. I am using an old version of Chess Assistant (I have CA17 but prefer and use CA10), maybe the latest version has fixed this issue. One would hope so. It's something to do with the fonts, maybe it works if you have a Russian version of Windows? They must have different system fonts installed anyway.

Yes, I am still using opening master (blue package) and downloading via dropbox. I pay nothing to dropbox, and my understanding is that it's om's dropbox, not mine, that's being used.

On the whole I like om, but his claim that his data contains no duplicates is quite mistaken, if not outright bogus.

Tullius wrote on 02/18/12 at 15:54:30:

An interesting article, maybe someone should write an article comparing those two products and SCID from the point of view of a professional chess player/writer.

Markovich wrote on 02/18/12 at 13:26:43:

Really, just a ChessBase invention? As you say it is sufficiently important that someone should control it properly.