New Chess Course software by ChessOk

[Albert Silver]

I just had the pleasure of seeing the new Peshka interface by ChessOk (makers of Chess Assistant and Aquarium), for chess course material, and have to say I was extremely impressed. I'm a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due, and here they truly broke the old mold.

Over the years, I have acquired instructive programs from a number of firms, and each has their qualities. For example, the multimedia commented games of Korchnoi by ChessBase is easily the best such collection I have ever seen. On the other hand, what has always made ChessOk's programs on tactics so exceptional, such as CT-Art, is the way it is built. It is much more than a large collection of exercises. It is designed to allow one to work in a very methodical manner, choosing one theme or all, increasing the difficulty, and graphing one's results to help spot weaknesses. Added to that is a neat system of 5x5, in which if one messes up an exercise once, arrow hints appear on the board, and a second time, a smaller version of the exercise appears to help show the theme. All this to improve pattern recognition.

The only problem, is that until very recently, the interface used had not changed in 10 years. A long time. It is true the interface did what it needed, and well, but it still looked dated. They recently released a new interface called Peshka, which is a very neat concept. First of all, it really looks nice, with quality icons and colors throughout, and it retains all the functionality of the older design. Part of what changed is a modular system. You download the basic interface for free, and then install the various modules from a list. You can try free ones or demos, or install purchased ones. All the modules use the same interface, so instead of installing 3 individual programs if you install CT-Art, Chess Strategy, and Theory and Practice of Endgames, you just switch modules within the interface.

I recommend checking it out.