Chess Assistant - Serious Chess Horsepower...

Chess Assistant∞ is a tool for analyzing games (your own, or others), managing chess games and databases, playing chess on the internet, viewing electronic texts in Chess Assistant format, or playing chess against the computer

Chess Assistant is made by Convekta∞, a Russian company that produces the most innovative software for learning and studying chess.

CHESS ASSISTANT 9 is the most comprehensive software available for today’s chess player. It combines an extremely fast database system with industry leading analysis capabilities. Play against the computer and on the Internet (both Chess Assistant Club and ICC) is also supported, as are electronic and conventional publishing of games.

Key Features

• Built-in top playing programs: Shredder 9.11, Ruffian, Delfi, Crafty
• Fast and easy game storage and organization tools
• Fast database operations, instantaneous position searches in reference database
• A reference database of over 3,000,000 games (by April 1, 2006) with opening evaluations, and direct tree
• Superior Game Service 2006-2008: Automatic download of approx. 2.500-3.000 games weekly for free
• Powerful duplicate game removal
• Chess Opening Encyclopedia 2006
• ECO-like opening reference of master evaluations and variations
• Internet Chess Assistant Club support. An advanced chess server that supports anything from bullet and blitz to correspondence play
• Graphical interface to the Internet Chess Club (ICC), which supports variations, engine analysis, and online annotation
• Automatic game analysis with eight different analysis modes
• Automatically plays out critical positions in engine vs. engine mode
• Background analysis of games and positions concurrent with other functions
• Infinite multi-engine analysis modes with include/exclude move(s) function
• Play against the computer, or organize computer vs. computer matches, output full tournament tables in a variety of formats
• Native tablebase support for the endgame, including 6 piece endings
• Construction of electronic texts with classifiers
• Three different training modes – solitaire, flashcard, and test
• Output to PGN, EPD, Chess Assistant, DHTML, HTML, paper formats
• Import PGN, EPD, Chessbase (CBF and CBH) and Chess Assistant for DOS formats
• Save databases in CA (native) format, PGN or EPD
• Databases can be opened and saved in ZIP format in order to save space and conveniently send and receive databases by email
• Windows interface with customizable colors, fonts and keyboard shortcuts, clipboard
• Scripting support

Opening Studies

• Chess Opening Encyclopedia 2006 included with rich theoretical material on all the openings
• Over 8.000 annotations from GM Kalinin as well as 500.000 key opening positions expert evaluations
• Opening Tables are a revolutionary way of creating, maintaining and studying your opening repertoire. Base your studies on the Opening Encyclopedia, customise it with your own moves and evaluations, enhance your favorite variations or create your own private opening repertoire! Working on your opening repertoire finally becomes the creative and enjoyable task it should be!
• The new Opening Test Mode allows you to test your knowledge and skills in openings. The program will give you a detailed report on the level of your skills for an opening variation, point out the inaccuracies and give detailed recommendations on how you can improve your skills.

Game Analysis

• Automatic opening annotation: Search for novelty, add expert annotations from the Opening Encyclopedia, CAP evaluations, insert reference games etc.
• Infinite analysis.
  • Include/exclude selected moves from analysis.
  • Multivariation and adjourned multivariation mode.
  • Analyse simultaneously with one or several different chess engines.
  • Check moves in game or annotations.
  • Search for additional moves.
  • Analyse position from either side or both sides at the same time.
  • One- or two-panel display of analysis.

• Search for blunders
• Multi-pass analysis with flexible options to fine-tune each step of the search. You can even choose different engines for each step.
• Mark selected positions for automatic analysis
• Extremely powerful Background Analysis. This is the most powerful position analysis tool in the extensive Chess Assistant arsenal.
  • All the engine calculations go on "behind the scenes", and so the user can go on using other functions of CA, while the engine calculations take place.
  • The user can concentrate on completing game analysis without having his or her thought process interrupted
  • Background analysis provides a convenient way to correct faulty human analysis, without becoming overly reliant on the computer for help
  • Background analysis can be minimaxed. The result is higher quality analysis, especially for complex games.
  • Distribute the background analysis automatically to several networked computers, or split the task between two or more processors on the same computer.
• Tablebase analysis of endgames with 3-6 pieces

Search Functions

• Search by position, header, maneuvers, material, comments, etc.
• Novelty search and CAP minimax
• Advanced search allows specification of material equations for 12 regions
• The amazing Chess Query Language (CQL) takes searching to a new level
• Use Composite search to organize your CQL queries into a hierachical structure, give them descriptive names, and set up a diagram of a typical position.
• Search through multiple databases
• Searches can be saved

Chess Tree Features

• Industry leading chess tree for opening analysis with instantaneous movement through the tree, indication of transpositions
• Fast, compact construction of chess trees
• Master, computer, and statistical analysis shown for positions in the tree
• User annotations and engine analysis can be stored in the tree
• Automatic game annotation with the tree

Playing Features

• Wide selection of time controls, easy setting of playing parameters
• Handicap engine included (Dragon)
• DGT board supported, voice annunciation
• Powerful opening book editor

Engine Support

• Shredder 9.11 – Native support
• UCI, UCI2, WinBoard and MCS support, giving an unparalleled choice of chess engines for analysis and play
• Support for Rybka, currently the strongest chess engine
• Support for Hiarcs 10 UCI
• Winboard support – Ruffian and Crafty are included, built-in support for over 50 others, available via free download
• Hundreds of chess engines to choose from, including specialized mate solvers. Most of them are available via free download
• Pro Deo (and Rebel 12) support
• Hiarcs DOS, Rebel DOS – supported through EPD analysis
• Automatic test set processing with comprehensive reporting features
• Other engines supported as well

And much, much more....

Chess Assistant was one of the first chess databases, and the first with a chess tree. Developed with the input of Russian chess masters, and used worldwide, it is the culmination of many man-years of software engineering.


Also don't forget to visit the WikkaWiki website∞!

Useful pages: FormattingRules, WikkaDocumentation, OrphanedPages, WantedPages, TextSearch.