Overview
It was with great anticipation that I installed the latest version of Chess Assistant on my computer. During the development of this program, I was in contact with Convekta personnel, and they hinted that this upgrade was going to be significant. Well, after many delays, the program was finally released around the beginning of February. The question is now whether it lives up to it's advance billing.
Well, I won't make you read the entire review - the answer is most assuredly yes.
With this latest version, Chess Assistant is taking the path that some other chess software houses are already travelling (i.e. Chess Academy) in that they are including features that enable the user to both play and analyze games with the same user interface. So now when you buy Chess Assistant, you get a playing program in addition to a database program.
In addition to the new playing capability, there are other significant enhancements as well. These improvements fall into several key areas: usability, tree functions, a new very strong internal analysis engine (Chess Tiger), better chess engine compatibility, additional and improved analysis functions, and a new electronic opening encyclopedia.
Prospective purchasers should note that this review is based on Service Release 1 (SR-1), and there are some new features not included in the February version.
The New Analysis Engines
While earlier versions of Chess Assistant could use a number of external analysis engines, the program was somewhat limited as far as internal engines were concerned. While many people found crafty to be adequate for their needs, many others wanted something stronger, or with a different playing style. Convekta's choice was to use the Chess Tiger engine in this latest version. My personal opinion is that this was an excellent selection. Chess Tiger is exceptionally strong, and has a pleasing playing style. Furthermore, you can also easily adjust the playing style of Crafty and Chess Tiger. You can read an interview with the author of Chess Tiger here.
While both Chess-Tiger and Crafty are supplied with Chess Assistant, you can also use other Winboard and MCS compatible engines too. I tried the Shredder 3 MCS engine, and it worked perfectly (all 32-bit MCS engines including Shredder, Nimzo, Wchess and Zarkov are compatible, Genius 6 is not). The MCS compatibility also extends to the engine personality dialog supported by these engines, which is a bit more than I expected.
Winboard compatibility is also very good, Convekta tested many different engines to ensure this. Just about every engine that I tried worked, including slightly lesser known ones like faile and cilian (hey I gotta win a few games sometimes!). No configuration files need to be written, and installation of winboard engines is very easy.
The only thing missing from Chess-Tiger is tablebase support, but this feature can be found in crafty. There has always been some debate over how much tablebases increase engine strength, and it tends to be function of the engine. Tiger was at the top of the SSDF list for a while, so it is an extremely strong engine even without this feature.
Between the internal and external analysis functions, just about every chess engine can be used in some fashion. The only major exceptions are Chessbase and Chessmaster engines. But this is not unexpected; Chessbase is a major competitor, and the Chessmaster engine is not compatible with any database (although technically speaking, Tascbase uses the same engine). For a list of compatible engines, please go to the Convekta website.
The New Engine Analysis Functions
In Chess Assistant, an internal engine can both be used for real-time analysis (i.e. you watch engine calculations as you step through a game), and for off-line analysis. This latter type of analysis is performed on positions that you mark in advance. This is quite a powerful way to implement the analysis function, since the user has the latitude to decide how the analysis is to be conducted, and which moves the engine is to analyze in advance (you can tell the engine to analyze all the moves too).
Multiple engines can be run at once for game and position analysis, and this is useful for comparing the "opinions" of various engines on the same position. You can even have batch analysis running in the background while you analyze another game in the foreground. Clearly, this is a very helpful feature. Normally, all this CPU intensive processing would slow the interface of the program down, but Chess Assistant also gives you the ability to modify the priority of the engines in relationship to the interface, so that multitasking is smoother
The blunder check function has also been improved. This function is now similar to that found in other programs like Fritz. In the Chess Assistant implementation, the user can supply a variety of parameters to control how the check is done. Essentially, the blunder check is done in up to three passes. The first pass does a blunder search at a low ply depth. Think of it as a "quick look" at the game. The second pass goes back, and uses a deeper ply depth to check the results of positions flagged on the first pass. The third pass is time limited, and allows an internal engine to provide some deep analysis of the position. The end result is that this allows the program to more easily spot sacrifices, and not flag them as blunders. This implementation is extremely flexible in that the user can control the depth of the first and second pass, and the amount of time spent to calculate the best continuation.
There is also a correspondence analysis function that allows the program to deeply study individual positions (only in Chess Assistant, it is called "interactive analysis". Chess Assistant's implementation of this function allows the user to set the search depth to which any one position is to be studied, along with a maximum number of moves which you want the engine to play out. Let's say you set the search depth at 5 ply, and the number of moves to play at 6. Chess Assistant would first play out the six best moves, looking to a fixed depth of 5 ply on each move. Then, after the engine plays the 6th move, it "backtracks" over the previous moves, looking for improvements. It can do this because it has armed it self with the search data from what is now "the future". Also, during the analysis, you can change the search depth if you wish. An "infinite" mode increases search depth automatically as the program thinks for longer periods of time. All in all, this is a very clever approach. Seasoned computer chess pros have noticed how an engine can get trapped into an unfavorable line due to a missed sacrifice, for instance. With this approach, CA can see these sacrifices, because it recycles the hash table data in it's search when it backtracks.
You don't really need to understand the above discussion, just that the whole process works. Most people will probably just leave the default settings, and let it crank away on a position. Doing this will provide you with all the strongest continuations from any given position.
The New Playing Program Interface
You can now play games against any internal engine that is compatible with Chess Assistant. The interface does not have a lot of bells and whistles, but there is everything that most people need. You can pick whatever time controls you desire, and modify things like hash table settings and the permanent brain feature. There is also an optional audible bell that sounds when the program makes it's move, so it is easy to use Chess Assistant in conjunction with an external board.
Supported time controls include time per game, time per move, tournament, fixed depth, and infinite. There is also a separate mate search level, but you need to supply the number of moves to mate. As was mentioned in the discussion of the different engines, you can modify personality parameters for Tiger, Crafty, and the MCS engines.
In addition to playing games against the computer, you can also organize engine vs. engine matches. This feature is simple and very easy to use. If you so desire, after the tournament, Chess Assistant can create a tournament table for you to view the results. In any case, all games are saved for later review.
The board display is nice and clear, and the clocks are big enough to see. Incidentally, I would recommend a high resolution display of at least 1024x768, so that you can see all the information that the program is capable of presenting. An even higher resolution might even be better.
You can also create your own opening book for use by the playing programs, and the automated tree building facilities can be used for this purpose. Although there is currently not much documentation on this function, and I had some trouble figuring it out.
The bottom line on the playing program interface is that it is easy to use. It does lack features like ELO handicapping, voice annunciation of moves, and three-dimensional sets. But otherwise, the interface is solid, and it certainly is more than adequate. Most of the techniques for handicapping play that I outline in my book are supported by this interface. One very nice feature is that a database is created automatically for all the games you play against the computer. Your games are then saved there for later analysis.
Tree improvements
Chess Assistant has always been a pioneer in the use of the Chess Tree concept, of which many chess players are familiar. This most recent version takes the use of the chess tree concept to another level. What follows now is a brief discussion of some of the improvements made to the tree. The discussion that follows may be somewhat technical for some people (sorry).
- Chess tree statistics are now always available in a window beneath the game score. This means that examining the statistics for opening moves in the current game no longer requires the separate steps of dragging/dropping notation and opening separate tree windows. This feature is a time saver over the previous implementation, and it makes the use of the tree easier than on any other program I have seen.
- Chess trees are now fully configurable. This means that you can attach different statistics from different trees, and select among them from a drop-down list box. This is mostly a power-user feature, but the option is available if you need it.
- The integration of CAP data has been improved, In fact there are a bunch of documented and undocumented features for including CAP data in the tree. In fact, any computer evaluations can be imported into the tree in EPD format. Furthermore, CAP data no longer includes just opening evaluations; all the win/loss/draw evaluations from 5 (and some 6) piece tablebases are there as well. As if this was not enough, all the CAP evaluations appears in a bar graph showing the evaluation of every move in the current game for which there is CAP data. Clicking on the graph takes you to the appropriate move in the game.
- There are now additional trees that you can use. For instance, the indexer tree is no longer "hidden," you can use it to watch how the ECO classification of a game changes with each move (where applicable).
- Building a direct tree no longer requires a separate program, the functionality has been incorporated into CA 5.However, there is still an external build tree utility. This external utility now has some power-user functions for creating chess engine books, and for working with EPD files. Currently, this tool is largely undocumented, but I have it from an authoritative search that there is some explanatory material on the way.
- There are no longer any problems with invoking a chess engine to evaluate moves in the tree.
- You can now analyze EPD files from external sources with any internal and most external chess engines.
- A "show best lines" function has been added to the tree as well. This function (which is not enabled by default) does real-time minimaxing of the chess tree in the background. Thus it shows you the most likely continuations and how well they score. You don't even need to step through the tree to see this information.
- The user book remains from the previous release. It is easy to add and modify variations and notes to the tree.
It is somewhat difficult for me to provide a very simple explanation of all the new tree functions. If you didn't totally understand the above list, realize that some of the above improvements allow you to have 1) IM/GM evaluations, 2) CAP (computer) evaluations, 3) Database statistics, 4) Engine calculations, and 5) your own evaluations and annotations; all available concurrently for any position that you are analyzing. Furthermore, you can also see the most likely continuations and how well they score without manually searching through the tree. When I say that this is an incredible analysis aid, I am not exaggerating.
So the bottom line is that there are many new tree features. Usability and power has been improved, and there is more capability than most people will ever use…
Database Improvements
As readers of my previous Chess Assistant reviews know, CA has always had more than a basic set of database functions. You can pretty much search for any header information you desire (things like players, result, place names, game length, opening, etc). Additionally, you can also search by position (even through game variations), and material. There is an advanced search that allows you to specify material equations for regions of the board (sounds strange, but it's particularly handy for endgame study). You can also combine any of the above searches if you so desire. So there wasn't much room for improvement in this department, and indeed, little has changed.
However, there have been improvements made in other areas. For instance, there is now a larger game collection included with CA called HUGEBASE. This collection includes over 1.16 million games. Many players also now have their ELO rating in the database (this was not the case in previous versions of CA).
There is now a separate "database of master evaluations". This database is like an online ECO. It contains evaluations made by a staff of GMs and IMs working for Chess Assistant. In previous versions of CA, this information was encoded in the Chess Tree. This feature still remains, but now you can also view the ECO information as separate game scores, just as in a "real"(paper) opening book.
Thus you can go to a position in one of your games, and search for the same position within the "database of master evaluations". You can then bring up a window showing existing theory on your position. Furthermore, you can see transpositions from other opening systems as well, because they are shown in the game body as underlined variations. If you click on one of these underlined variations, the game score changes to display the theory from that particular variation. There is also a game list hot-linked to theory positions that have an evaluation. This list is constantly updated as you scroll through theory, and it shows you any available games in HUGEBASE that contain that position! This might sound a bit confusing, but it must be seem to be believed. It saves the user a lot of time when studying theory, because all pertinent games from HUGEBASE are automatically presented to the user.
There is a new evaluation window that displays the CAP evaluation of the current game. So you see a little bar graph of how computers have evaluated the game at various phases. One thing that I was shocked to see is that the CAP data now includes endgame positions! This means that you can see whether the game is theoretically lost/won/drawn in the endgame at a glance. This does not require any special engines or tablebases. Now, if you want to see how a particular endgame win/loss/draw is accomplished, you will need to get a hold of the necessary tablebase files, and set crafty up to use them. One easy way to do this is to get a copy of the Chessbase Endgame Turbo CDs, and build your own, or copy them into a directory on your hard drive. You will then need to make a crafty.rc file that turns on tablebase probes when crafty starts up.
There is now a very interesting expandable tree-like view of a player's repertoire, which can be constructed. All variations are color coded so that you can spot strengths/weaknesses in your opponent's repertoire. Double clicking on particular move sequences brings up the corresponding games in the database. This feature will clearly be of most interest to the professional. Overall, the tree is very easy to use (if you know how to use windows explorer, you can use this new tree view).
Compatibility with other playing and database programs has also been improved. In addition to the various EPD import/export features that I mentioned previously, you can also cut and paste EPD/FEN/PGN to and from the windows clipboard. This makes exchanging data with others over the internet extremely easy. It also makes observation of games on ICC easier.
Chess Assistant can now also read .CBH (new chessbase) format files quite well. This includes the ability to read all graphical annotations (colored arrows, squares) along with the usual informant annotations. I did notice one problem when attempting to read games that were marked as deleted in the database. But I consider this to be a minor problem, since the cbh translation functions work fine on normal games.
Those that use CA to work with large game collections should know that library functions have been improved, and speed has increased for most/all of them. Personally, I do not have much need for these functions. But those that are constantly trying to keep up with theory, and are constantly adding games to their database from different sources will appreciate these functions.
Other Improvements
The look-and-feel of the program has also been improved. For instance, you can select just about any color you want for board squares (version 4 had a limited palette to chose from). You can also select a wood or marble texture to be applied to the border of the board, and it's squares. Both are attractive, but I thought there could be a bit more contrast between the marble background and the board labels.
The engine display is different from previous versions. Gone is the spreadsheet-like display. In it's place is a simple multi-line display with an adjustable font size. The user can also paste engine analysis to the windows clipboard if he/she so desires.
The font size has been increased in the comment window, (they were a bit small on high resolution displays). This was a welcome change for me, since my vision is not that great.
While you can print ECO tables, they are a bit crowded with the default font size. It might be nice to be able to configure the print settings for the tables separate from the normal display
There is a new internet update function that automatically checks the Chess Assistant web site for updates of the program and HUGEBASE. When new files are found, you are asked whether you want to download them to your computer or not.
You can now print games in HTML format. It works, it's easy to use, and there is a lot of control regarding font sizes, types, etc. There are separate controls for notation style in HTML (for instance, you can use English pieces instead of figurines), this is helpful if the people reading the page don't have the Chess Assistant font on their computer. Webmasters should also note that style sheets are used for font definitions. Diagrams are printed as small black and white GIF files, which are hyper-linked into the html for the game body. The size for a decent looking diagram is about 6-7 KB. This scheme is not quite as efficient as other programs that use a separate GIF file for each piece and square if you have a game which has a lot of diagrams. Incidentally, for those people using this feature, I would recommend bumping up the diagram font size to 16 or so.
For those of you that like to print out study positions from your games, CA now prints the side to move adjacent to every diagram (on paper printouts).
What's the Rub?
So I've been waxing on enthusiastically about all these new features. What is the downside?
Well, there were a few bugs in the program, but nearly all the ones I have found have been fairly minor. I have sent descriptions of these to Convekta, and they have been fixed in the first service release. I think the biggest difficulty that some people will experience is that the program is getting increasingly complex. Some features do not have a lot of documentation and the help file really needs to be updated (there are still many references to CA 4 in it, and plenty of blank areas). Now, to Convekta's credit, they have improved the paper manual that comes with the program greatly. It has been reworked, and many explanations have been clarified.
Should you buy it?
Well, I cannot answer this question for you, I can only give you the data to make your own decision :-)
But, if you are serious about game analysis, Chess Assistant 5 includes so many advanced features and functions that you will simply be amazed at what it can do. I don't make this assertion lightly - I think your jaw will drop when you see it. People that read this page regularly will know that I am not given to hyperbole. Really, this program is amazing.
Postscript
Sometimes you need to step back and take a look at the big picture. In thinking about this review, I started to tally up all the new features, and I was understandably enthusiastic. However, I was also impressed from a technological standpoint. I mean, not only do you get some killer analysis features in this program, but they all work very quickly (in real-time as far as most tree functions are concerned), and they multitask very well. Furthermore, all this stuff (the CA install program, 1.1+ million game database, CAP data, engine book, direct tree, electronic ECO, etc) fits on one CD! I even tested this program on a computer that did not have the minimum recommended configuration (I used a PII-300), and I still felt it was fast. Enough said….
Copy Protection
The program must be installed from the CDROM, after that no refueling is necessary.
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