Chess King with Houdini 2 Pro (DVD)

I have this product for less than a year.This is a vast one with numerous possibilities.Interested persons may see the technical overview in the convecta websites.The program has all the functions incorporated like chessbase (data base)9 programs and others.I had no imagination about a program of such a vast capacity.Only problems I faced was difficulty in learning its operations critically.These are obviously not fool proof.Since I am handling such a chess data base of so huge dimension from the scratch with the help of its manual only so previous inexperience with a database system was a little frustrating.But with patience some improvement is obviotsly possible.With help of this program-managing and handling of chess games from all sources are possible.Even my games saved in the internet were attached to this program's data base (as "my internet games") for review and further analysis by Rybka or shredder,delfi etc. (Rybka 2.1, I purchased later and attached with CA 9 interface with difficulty) these are chess playing engines for playing solving and analyzing your games.The package includes a playing engine shredder 9.11 and a few others for editing your games to maximum possiblities and many more. In short, you may not exhaust its infinite capacity ( 1- 4 million or more games in its data bases to do as many things as you like with chess games),another convenient mode for playing and analyzing games or in short editing games,its search system helps to find out games played by say, Fischer and Spassky(in 1972or in 1970)these are most common features of a data management system or more commonly known as a data base.The chess opening encyclopedia 2006 mode includes rich theoretical material on all the openings,their expert evaluations to key opening positions.Test opening mode will allow to check your depth in opening knowledge and skill.At the outset I was reluctant to purchase any data base program because I thought they are difficult to manage and complicated in operations(expensive and useful for grandmasters only),however I find that it needs some time to learn a databases' detailed intricacies and many operative functions by heart. So Have patience and learn the various functions and operations to your benefit and improve and enjoy your games immensly.The cost is about $80 but the enjoyment is much more. Believe me.Best wishes.

Aside from the fact that all of the programs from Chess-King are very nicely priced and aside from the fact that on YouTube there are 25-30 tutorial videos with Steve Lopez overacting but teaching all the little nuances and aside from the fact that there are no programs in the last 20 years I haven't used/own/ etc., Chess-King Pro with Houdini2 and you can add Openings and Complete Chess Course and interactive tactical training, etc., is the most advanced tutorial program I've encountered. Yes, there are other features to Fritz 13 and Chessbase 12 and Chess Assistant and Rybka......the list is endless. They all have features and if you are a Master or GM, like I'm not, then get them all, but for simple, straight forward tutorial and interactive action with 99% of the facilities of the other programs, this is the most advanced program and system. The others, they're great but take a lot of savvy to operate and end up with results. Chess King makes it fun and easy.BTW, last night I had a question about the content and differences between the various programs the Chess Queen has developed. This morning, she wrote back an answer. Fast feedback! A responsive company. And BTW, the programs are so good, I'm sorry I said a word, should have let you figure it out for yourself and who needs the competition!

Does NOT work with Vista, despite what their website says and all the additional downloads required.Buggy. Crashes. Takes forever to boot up. Interface is unusable.I expected a much more professional program for my money.