New Chess Program?

Hi, Im looking to buy a chess engine and it be my first one....but dont know what to get. My average rating is at a constant of around 1400-1500 but I want to continue improving. ChessBase, GrandMaster XI, which is best or most practical for analysis and improvement of my middlegame.

Any info/sites would be appreciated!

Lucas

ChessMaster => The chess equivalent of a point-and-shoot camera. Lots of fun + thrills for newbies. Tons of bells and whistles.  Great if you are a kid! Easily outgrown once you realize you want more "control" over the way you analyze/look at games.

Fritz => The equivalent of a DSLR camera.  You're actually beginning to give a damn about the game and less about the cheap thrills of a glitzy software application. Can be a very serious tool for analyzing games. Even better when used in tandem with a chess database application (see below)

ChessBase => Not a chess engine but a chess database program. You can plug engines into it but given where you are at, this is a very expensive toy to buy right now. The world's finest very likely use this. For serious chess players only!

SCID => An open-source / free "tries to be" clone of chessbase.   Very useful for building up a game database. Can plug engines into it for analysis work. Easily googled.

Houdini => Quite possibly the strongest free engine available at this time.   Plugs into SCID (See above) effortlessly.  Easily googled.

x2 on shivsky's post.  chessmaster is really good.

Thanks guys I will look into Fritz and SCID/Houdini too.

I really like Chessmaster XI.  It's $20 direct from Ubisoft's site, but it's a pretty big download, nearly 4GB.

I want it mainly for a database of my own chess games plus masters and the like to look at and analyse, I just want to spend time studying games instead of looking at my chess board and moving the pieces back and forth all the time, so a computer program that allows me to do detailed analysing would work wonders. Does ChessMaster XI allow you to analyse and use/work with a chess database?

It's "database" capability (besides loading up PGNs and a compact set of historic games ) is non-existent.   Using CM for database work is like using a hammer to tighten a screw. ( of course you can use the sharp edge ... but do you really have to suffer this way? :) )

SCID will be  far from glamorous to use (some might say downright clunky) but it's 100x useful in terms of database maintenance/mgmt capabilities.

So SCID combined with Houdini would be my best option, is that a fair statement?

Yes, until you've used it enough to consider buying other software (Fritz, Chessbase etc.)