Chess Program Review Archive

STRATEGY is written by the Chess Assistant people. It contains approximately 1300 test/study positions for the user to work through. There are 11 different positional themes covered by the program. They include: Weak Squares, Weak Pawns, Open Files and Diagonals, Central Fields, Disposition of Pieces, Exchanged Pieces, Pawn Majority, Limitation of Mobility, Positional Sacrifice, Isolated Central Pawn, and Hanging Pawns. Within each theme there are short texts and illustrative examples. The balance of the material in each theme contains instructional positions and game fragments.

The program operates in one of three modes: Study (in which solutions are always visible), Practice (in which solutions are not visible until they are played by the user, or until the user fails to find the answer three times), and Test (like practice mode, except a score is assigned). In each of the modes you can export the current position, and play over it against the built-in DRAGON playing program. Additionally, each of these three modes has it's own set of positions.

I think that the chief audience for this software is the fairly serious club player that is already quite familiar with positional concepts and tactical play. My overall impression of the program is quite positive. While reviewing the program I found myself making comparisons between STRATEGY and CT-ART.

Copy Protection: Must have CD to install,. The CD is also needed at some point afterwards for refueling, I would guess at 1-2 month intervals, although I am not sure (no mention is made of this protection in the manual).

Strengths

1. The examples that are presented are generally quite good at illustrating the theme in question.
2. The user has complete control over the board, fonts, animation speed, etc.. The program is very pleasant to use in this respect.
3. Multiple languages are supported: The manual comes in German, English and Polish (!). Game annotation can be shown in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, or simply by piece symbol.
4. Results are tracked and the user can choose to do problems that he/she has seen before, or do problems that were not seen before.
5. Hints are provided so that you get a little mental nudge if you don't get a problem right the first time. The first time you miss a correct answer, a piece or square(s) is/are highlighted. The second attempt results in the piece to move flashing on the board. Of all the programs that I have I think that the method STRATEGY uses for hints is the best, and least frustrating. I will say however that I do like the way CT-ART gives you a small position that is related to the test position, but slightly different.
6. The concept is very good - the program addresses play using positional *motifs* - and it does not emphasize positions that have purely positional play over those where tactics are involved. Sorry if this sounds a little contradictory - I'll state it another way - there are many examples in STRATEGY where a positional concept is used to help you see a tactical sequence. There are other examples in which you only need to improve the position of your pieces, or restrict your opponents options.
7. I think that there has been a lot of input from chess coaches as to the positions that were selected.
8. Multiple users are supported, and the results of each user are available for review. This program is a good choice for a computer at your local club.
9. The built-in DRAGON playing engine is always available to do what-ifs (see program description above). After playing over a position, you can save the moves in a PGN file.
10. You can export any board position to an external program for analysis if you wish. The supported programs are Rebel (vers 6-8) and Hiarcs (vers 3-6) and MChess Pro. Note that Genius is not supported.
11. The program is thrifty on HD space - it only requires about 3 Megabytes.

Weaknesses

• No text for explanation of correct or incorrect answers in practice or test modes. This will not be a factor for advanced players, but for weaker ones, extra text would be helpful.
• While stability is pretty good, I had the occasional crash - although I never lost any data or results.
• You cannot have free running analysis while you are replaying a game - this would be a nice feature to have. You only have the choice of playing against the computer - you cannot move for both sides.
• Time is not used as a factor when scoring the user, however it is recorded for later review if desired.
• When playing over a position with the built-in dragon playing program, you cannot export PGN files with variations in them (only a single main line).
• I think that there should be a way to practice those exercises with which you had trouble in the past. As it stands now, you need to look at the statistics for a user, and manually select the exercises you had trouble with.

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