The promised Rybka 3 bugfixes are on the way!

[Christopher Conkie]

Christopher Conkie once published a list (or otherwise stated) of how many Chessbase products he had and initially I laughed at him until I checked my collection.

I felt resentment that I was purchasing this gui which hardly changed (certainly very little change in terms of its handling of engine tournaments) merely to obtain the engine which is what I wanted.

Later.

Yes, that's right. I think I showed everyone all the Fritz's I had.

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... 30&t=29910

I don't think I ever got as far as showing the ChessBase's I had.

Ted? Are you ready?

ChessBase 2



ChessBase 3



ChessBase 4



ChessBase 6 Light



ChessBase 1.1 for Windows (Really it's CB 6)



LOL



ChessBase 7



ChessBase 8



ChessBase 9



Then I gave up.



Chris

[Graham Banks]

Which tournament options are not covered by Arena or ChessGUI?

Just to answer this question for now.
ChessGUI has a team fight option which seems to be unique.
Chessbase GUIs have a knockout tournament option which also seems to be unique?

The Arena and Winboard GUIs (amongst others) are wonderful free GUIs (and I've used both). They're just not my personal preference at present.

Cheers,
Graham.

[Roger Brown]

Which tournament options are not covered by Arena or ChessGUI?

Just to answer this question for now.
ChessGUI has a team fight option which seems to be unique.
Chessbase GUIs have a knockout tournament option which also seems to be unique?

The Arena and Winboard GUIs (amongst others) are wonderful free GUIs (and I've used both). They're just not my personal preference at present.

Cheers,
Graham.

Just to be clear - this was not an attempt to convince anyone. I really do not care much what other persons do with their own resources and there is too much unhappiness created by trying to change others.

I just wanted to hear exactly what lay behind beliefs expressed on this forum about the seemingly inherent superiority of the Chessbase gui to others.

I do hope that enquiry does not have to mean that something is wrong or that there is an attempt to manipulate anyone.

So far I have not heard anything objective and that is all right too. It is your money and resources.

Use whatever makes you happy.

However if you are going to use words like better and good and professional (Graham, I did not say you did!) I think you ought to have something behind them rather than just a feeling. I do not think that my expectation is unreasonable....

I have not written much about my gui so I am not trying to convince anyone.

As for celebrating the free stuff I guess I may have mentioned that once or twice.....

Later.

[Roger Brown]

I really think it all lies with what each user likes, wants and feels comfortable with. Choice is a good thing.

I have tried Arena and found it not to my liking because I really want the GUI for analysis purposes and Arena was not comfortable to me. But it IS comfortable to others. I was NOT a big chessbase fan until I recently purchased Chessbase 2009 and have found it really easy to work with for annotation and database management.

I personally love the Shredder GUI best! But that is my opinion and only my opinion.

I have found that for my use the commercial chess products are generally better for what I want.

But I do love Open Office!!

It seems we should be happy for these choices instead of spending time trying to convince others that our choice is the best one.

Hello Tom,

Wrong tangent.

I do not care that much to convince anyone least of all persons who are already set in their ways.

I am enquiring about something.

I hope that to question why you believe what you do is allowed particularly when you surround with words like good and better and professional.

I have not even spoken about my absolutely most used, cannot be parted with chess gui yet.

So trust me, convincing is definitely not on my agenda.

And yes, I am delirious about the bewildering array of choices. The ones I am craziest about I have not even mentioned here as they are specialised pieces of software.

Later.

[Graham Banks]

Just to be clear - this was not an attempt to convince anyone. I really do not care much what other persons do with their own resources and there is too much unhappiness created by trying to change others.

I just wanted to hear exactly what lay behind beliefs expressed on this forum about the seemingly inherent superiority of the Chessbase gui to others.

I do hope that enquiry does not have to mean that something is wrong or that there is an attempt to manipulate anyone.

So far I have not heard anything objective and that is all right too. It is your money and resources.

Use whatever makes you happy.

However if you are going to use words like better and good and professional (Graham, I did not say you did!) I think you ought to have something behind them rather than just a feeling. I do not think that my expectation is unreasonable....

I have not written much about my gui so I am not trying to convince anyone.

As for celebrating the free stuff I guess I may have mentioned that once or twice.....

Later.

Hi Roger,

as I only use the different GUIs for engine v engine testing, that is the only aspect that I can comment on.
Also, my experiences and opinions will not be shared by others, and that's fine. One man's elixir is another man's poison. Each to his own.

Cheers,
Graham.

[PauloSoare]

I think you will find that free software like Arena and Winboard is much more popular with serious testers

Don't forget ChessGUI!

Sorry, but it's hard for me to believe that you think that
free guis are better than Chessbase or Aquarium. There is
a team developing Chessbase and aquarium
professionally.
I think the work done by free guis deserve my respect,
they are dedicated people who do.

Hello Paulo Soare,

I would like this discussion, which re-occurs ever so often, to be taken out of the realm of belief and put on some solid footing.

What makes a gui good or better?

What is a gui used for?

What features does Chessbase (I cannot speak to Aquarium) have that Arena or ChessGUI lack? The primary one is that proprietary Chessbase gui engines cannot be used in them but in this regards the players in that arena (pun intended) are shrinking. Those engines are now Fritz, Nimzo and the older Shredder and Hiarcs engines.

I am deliberately leaving out Winboard from this discussion even though that gui is superior to most in my opinion for reasons I am perfectly willing to go into if challenged.



Arena is sexy (yes I know this is a G rated forum but it is sexy) and very useful. ChessGUI is developed by the second by a developer who attempts to correct every bug and include any reasonable (and unreasonable ones too, I have asked!) feature.

Both correctly and natively support the Winboard and UCI protocols which means that 99% of the engines in existence can be used in them.

Oh, and Xboard natively supports Linux users, a seemingly forgotten class....



Yes, I would like to know what is behind this belief that Chessbase guis are necessarily better because they are developed by professional programmers. Amateur does not mean second rate.

H.G. Muller, Matthias Gemuh and Martin Blume (to name only three - the database side includes Pascal Georges with Scid) are really good programmers who produce a first class product and they respond to their users comments and critiques. Their guis are therefore always improving, adding more features, becoming more useful.

For instance, the next Arena will incorporate H.G.'s extension to the WB2 protocol as well as support the Gaviota TB's as Winboard currently does.

Before anyone asks, the above is a deduction based on recent posts by prominent members of the Arena team here on Talkchess....

Right now, ChessGUI supports the Gaviota TB's and the epd processing capabilities have been expanded.

Let's hear the arguments!

Later.

Hello Roger,

I mainly use Chessbase to analyze positions, running chess suites and
lately I've done a few matches between engines. To be honest, I only
know Arena and the old Chessboard, and tried to get used it, but I
thought Chessbase is much easier to use.
I think I was hasty in saying that Chessbase and Aquarium are better.
They are better for me, mainly Chessbase gui.

[PauloSoare]

Are the Rybka 3+ bugfix (bishop under promotion, hashtable bug, etc) incorporated in Rybka 4?

I'll go through these items after the release. Some are fixed, some are not.

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=16262

Robbo already fixed all the bugs and added significant strength too. And is free

Great programs, but they are under suspicion for much of the computer chess community.

It seems you don´t understand what "being under suspicion" means, Paulo. Let me help you: I´ll give you a personalised example, wich sould make thing easier for you.

"Being under suspicion" means, in your case, that you may have any personal interest to defend Rybka´s author.

You're wrong, Slobodan, I'm not suspect of defending Vas, I'm
really defending Vas. But I have no personal interest, I'm defending
because I think it is correct.

[PauloSoare]

Sorr, not Chessboard, but Winboard.

[hgm]

The magic word that makes all the difference in the world, and makes WinBoard really incomparable to things like ChessBase or even Arena, is: open source. When you need a feature, and WinBoard does not have it yet, you just add it, and the next day you have a GUI that is again perfect for what you want. You are entirely in control of things, and there is literally nothing that you cannot do.

So using WinBoard makes you feel like a God.
Using Arena makes you feel like a King.
Using ChessBase makes you feel like a customer.

Need I say more...

[Matthias Gemuh]

So using WinBoard makes you feel like a God.
Using Arena makes you feel like a King.
Using ChessBase makes you feel like a customer.

Need I say more...

Using ChessGUI makes you feel like an Adventurer.