Saturday, February 2, 2019

Up and Running

     Now that my laptop has been pretty much restored to pre-crash status I hope to resume normal activities. The game viewer is still something of a disappointment though. Apparently the nice one from Chessbase requires a membership, but I am not interested. 
     None of the other game viewers I have discovered will import notes so the only workaround seems to be pointing out game highlights in the body of the post. The best available viewer I have found is the one on ChessVideosTV. They offer thousands of free chess videos to help improve your game. The range of videos include lessons from top players to those focused on improving your chess tactics. Be sure to pay them a visit.
     Fritz 12 is up and running and the only problem is that on startup it tells me the program may not be an original and and it then checks the DVD, apparently looking for an activation code. I have one, but it informs me it's been used. At least the program works. 
     Aquarium 2014 works fine, but compared to Fritz it seems a bit klutzy. I also have Chess Assistant on the old hard drive and I think I could probably get it up and running, too, but decided against it. Back in 2016 I purchased Chess Assistant, but never liked it. It crashed occasionally and some users were complaining that it is a bit buggy especially running under Windows 10 and a patch was issued. 
     It is possible to publish a playable game using Aquarium.  However, squares with pieces on them are white and, furthermore, the game takes about 90 pages in a word processor which is far, far too many.  It's just not practical!  Also, there are no replay arrows.
     Here's a short sample offhand game in the new game viewer. In the Trompowsky Attack white intends to exchange his B for the N on f6 inflicting black with doubled Ps, but they are not a serious weakness for black. 
3...g5?! - This is a poor choice that gives white the upper hand. Better was 3...c5.
5...h5 - Necessary because white was threatening Qh5+ 
7.Bxe4?? - With this move white trapped his own B. Correct was 7.f3.


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