Tools in a chess player's workshop - Windows - Part 1

In Windows, as in other systems, you can use programs for every chess enthusiast, from the beginner to the very advanced, for the correspondence chess player and the fan of competitive chess engines.

This post is dedicated to adults chess players who would like to use the most interesting, useful and proven tools - programs ( not web-based tools and servers ) for various chess activities in their chess workshop - Windows operating system.

My goal is not to discuss as many programs in as much detail as possible, but to demonstrate the key capabilities of the tools I have selected in relation to specific chess activities, e.g. training, analysis, database and engine use, etc.

This entry will be updated on a regular basis when I feel that there is software worth presenting to you dear readers.

To learn about the capabilities and practical use of the best chess software, I invite you to visit the course area at chessengeria.com.

Contents	Program​
Learn / Training / Practice	Chessmaster
Play Chess Offline	Hiarcs Chess Explorer
Play Chess Online	ICC for Windows
Chess Game Annotations / Database / Analyzes	Chess Assistant
Chess Engines	Shredder Classic

How to play chess

Fortunately for us fans of this Royal Game, you don't need to read several books to play your first chess game :-)

Learning to play chess is relatively easy and quick. Mastering the basics of the game will allow you to play one or more games, which is important in memorizing the chess rules.

It is a good idea to simply ask someone who can play to show us the basics of chess. If we don't have such an opportunity, I suggest reading just one page of Wikipedia, where the rules of chess are described in a very simple and understandable way.

And if you have Windows available, learning to play chess with Chessmaster might be an even better idea.

Learn / Training / Practice

Chessmaster (currently owned and developed by Ubisoft) is a commercial program that runs on Windows system.

Chessmaster (CM) is a program with a long and glorious tradition, which was very popular and intensively developed in the 1980s and 1990s and in the first decade of the new century. In 2002, CM sold over 5 million copies worldwide.

Just a dozen years ago, CM was paving the way for chess software development and was a competitor to the biggest brands in that area.

In the years when CM was created, the Internet was not yet around or widespread. Therefore, CM has many built-in options that allow offline learning, fun and competition.

The last version released was the 2007 ChessMaster Grandmaster Edition.

The quality of the whole CM program is very high and the chess learning and training modules deserve special attention even today - in 2022, 15 years after the last release.

Before you continue with this post, I must inform you dear reader, that at the time of writing this post (February 2022) Chessmaster cannot be purchased from its manufacturer/publisher.

CM stopped being developed by Ubisoft, which at one time was very surprising to the loyal chess community and supporters.

Until the eventual resumption of the Chessmaster cycle, to acquire this program, it is worthwhile to browse auction sites (e.g. Allegro, Amazon, Ebay, etc.) and other places where software and games are distributed.

Chessmaster in a still unpacked box fetches a high price at auctions.