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Software > SW-Endgame

Title: Theory and Practice of Chess Endings (Alexander Panchenko) Title: Chess Endgame Training (Alexander Alpert)   Publisher: Convekta Ltd. Published: 2002 Price: € 35 each Homepage: http://www.convekta.com System requirements: Pentium 75 Mhz, 16 MB RAM, Windows 95/98/2000/XP, 30 MB of free disk space Reviewed by: Soren Sogaard Date: 22/8 2002

Theory and Endgame Training

This review deals with two independent products from Convekta, but they are very similar in there appearance and uses the same interface. They also deals with the same aspect of chess, the endgame. The first of them is a CD where you can learn the basics of the endgame "Theory and Practice of Chess Endings", and the other "Chess Endgame Training" is a training CD including more than 2450 exercises. So if you are a student who want to learn the endgame you could start with learning the theory and after this go on testing yourself using the 2nd CD.

The two new products works like the other products I have reviewed from this publisher, and this is very positive because the software is very easy to use. As usual you can Study, Practice and Test yourself and use the statistics where you can see how you are doing. The ELO-Dynamics is still the most fun part of these statistics where you hopefully will see your ELO raise throughout the training part. It should also be mentioned that it is easy to print the diagram/variations you want and that Crafty is included in both CD's that need no further software to work. Talking about Crafty I find it is a good program, but it has its difficulties especially in endgames. So I prefer working with Fritz where the analysis is much better and I have more options at my disposal.

If there are more users that use the software both programs has multiple user profiles. This means that next time you uses the program you just have to fill in your name, and it will keep track of your previous exercises, statistics etc.

Theory and Practice of Chess Endings

This CD was made by GM Alexander Panchenko and the content of this CD is exactly the same as what you can find in the book "Endspieltheorie und Praktik" which I reviewed earlier. I wasn't quite satisfied with the proofreading of the book, but the content was very good and it also works fine here. Through 700 games/lectures Panchenko guides you through the theory of the endgame, and there is an additional training section with 300 exercises. The main readership is people who wants to learn about the endgame, and I think that people up to ELO 2000 can have a great time. Players with ELO > 2000 can also learn from this program, but I think that the other program "Chess Endgame Training" is a better choice here. Studying seriously with this program will certainly give you a raise in strength.

You can work in different ways with the program. The best way is to learn the theory about e.g. "Knight Endings" and then solving the exercises to this ending. After going through the different kind of endings you can in the end solve the 180 positions which is "...especially chosen by their instructive value". Below you can see the content of this program and a screenshot of the "course navigator".

• Theoretical discussion
• 700 games/lectures
• Training section with 300 exercises
• 180 positions to be played and trained against Crafty

Chess Endgame Training

The material for this program was written by IM ICCF Alexander Alpert which includes more than 2450(!) endgame exercises. Below you can see the interface where you chose what you want to test: I have chosen to have exercises in the Current Theme (Queen Endings), the ELO Range (difficulty of the exercises) should be between 1900 and 2750 and I want to solve 10 exercises. As you can see you can chose 

• More than 2450 endgame exercises taken from practical games and endgame studies
• Training examples
• Refutations of wrong moves and hints are shown during the exercises

I generally like the concept of these programs, but sometimes the solutions and the explanations are not quite enough to really get the point. As you can see from the example below I tried to solve a queen-ending, and the first move I found was correct. If you don't know what happens to 1.f6! gxf6 you have to start Crafty and analyse the position. Here it is a quite obvious choice so I would prefer that it was mentioned in the solution. In the position below I began to wonder what would happen to 2.fxg7+ with the idea of getting ride of the pawns and winning the endgame with K+2P against K+P. Could it be the solution? I wasn't sure that it would win, but I was curious whether the position could be a win for White.

So I started Crafty to begin my analysis, and even though Crafty is a good program it quickly turned out to have some difficulties in endgames. It should be said that I used the standard time limit of 60 moves in 5 minutes, given more time 40 moves in 25 minutes or 40/1hour Crafty also finds some of the correct moves. But after working with Crafty for some time I can definitely say that endgame is not the strong part of the program.

Let's look at my analysis with Crafty, and some additional variations from Fritz which I used to check the variations with:

Seagaard - Crafty
1.f6 Qd5+ 2.Kh4 Qd7 (DIAGRAM) 3.Qg7+ Qg7 4.fg7+ (Fritz also played 4.fxg7+, but not 5.Qxg7. Instead 5.Kh5! was preferred - Crafty also played 5.Qxg7? with 40/1 hour) 4...Kg7 5.Kg3 Kf7 (5...Kf6! is correct) 6.Kf3 Ke6 (6...Kf6! as played by Fritz is the correct move and it's going to be a draw.) 7.Kf4 Kf6 8.h4 Ke6 9.Ke4 Kf6 10.Kd5 Ke7 11.Ke5 (here Fritz resigned!) 11...Kf7 12.Kf5 Kg7 13.Ke6 h5 14.g5 Kg6 15.Kd7 Kf5 16.Ke7 Kg6 17.Kf8 and white wins.

I don't know if you need another program like Fritz to analyse with, but it sure makes things much easier (and better!). If you don't have Fritz or one of the other "top-guys" Crafty is an OK engine, but I personally miss a lot of options.

Even though I could have wished more variations at times, I find this product to be very good. I think the main readership is players with an ELO between 1600 and 2200. It can be used to study alone, but a trainer can also use the program in his teaching. Highly recommended.