Author: Christopher R. Dorr
Date: 07:33:36 05/08/01
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I owne CA 6 and CB 7 (And have used CB8), and have come to use CA almost exclusively. I have found CA to be superior to CB in a number of areas. CB still does have some advantages tho. It's 'opening report' feature is extraordinarily useful. It is truly remarkable to be able to have virtually *all* information about any given position. CA has a similar feature, but it is much less refined. The advantages that compelled me to use CA are 1. The ICC interface. It is surprisingly useful to be able to watch GM games online, and see move trees, transposiitons, result statistics, and computer evaluations immeditately. 2. The playing engine interface. You'd be surprised by how often you end up deciding you'd like to try out some idea when you are looking at a given position or game in the database. CA makes it very easy to do so. just clikc one button, and you can choose whhic engine to play the position out against. 3. The ease of adding Winboard engines. If you are training, it isn't good to go up against a 2600 GM all the time. Unless you are a strong master, you will not win from a relatively equal position, regardless of the value of your ideas. I have added (with basically 3 or 4 clicks) a number of Winboard engines (faile, etc) that are significantly weaker than Tiger or Crafty which are included. When learning an opening or working on an ending, I have foiund it useful to start with a weaker program and work my way up. 4. Chess Tiger and Tiger Gambit are included with CA. Arguably the strongest programs available. 5. The transposition tree is lightning fast. using the 1,500,000 game database that comes with CA, I *never* have to wait for the tree to catch up with me. Searches are fast and intuitive. 6. Search capabilities are excellent in both, but I have never found a search that I wanted to do that CA could not do. And quickly. I wanted to search for a type of ending where I had 2 connected passers and a rook against a B and 3 pawns. I founf several games after setting up the search filter very easily and quickly. There are many otehr reasons that they are both excellent programs. Bob Pawlak has done his usual excellent and thorough job reviewing both. In my opinion, CA is a better value for the money, but I don't think you can go wrong either way. Chris On May 07, 2001 at 16:49:51, Matthew Barnett wrote: >I'm thinking about buying one of the above mentioned chess utilities. I have >the latest versions of Junior, Fritz and Hiarcs. Does the Chess Assistant >interface work with these? Is there a regular Chess Assistant magazine similar >to the ChessBase product? Are ChessBase products and files compatible with >Chess Assistant and vice versa? > >Does anyone have any forthright views about either (both pros and cons)? > >Many thanks in anticipation, > >Matthew
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