Which Chess Software or Softwares do you use?

Hi,

I am a Club A player and am considering purchasing chess softwares. So I would like to know what you use to get an idea of my own. As an FYI, my favorite chess site is www.chess.com and I am also considering to buy yearly premium membership here for the excellent videos.

1. I want to save the games that I play in tournaments and be able to share in my chess blog http://chess4you.blogspot.com/ (and optionally in facebook)

2. I want to list a particular players' games played within a time period. For example, all the games that Anand played during 2005 to 2010.

3. I want to setup a position and ask the software to show me the best moves in that position.

4. I want to play with the chess software by adjusting it's strength between 1800 to 2200.

5. I want to get access to those games from my Kindle Fire or iPad.

6. Optionally, I want some chess tactics puzzle to solve.

So far what I see a combintion of Chessbase 11 and Fritz or Shredder might work. While that will be a bit expensive, I am ready to go for it unless there is a better or cheaper way. Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

Go for it dude...  Totally go for it.

Shredder classic must be easy to use if a Gen Xer brought up with ET and The neverending Story can use it to do most of points 1-6.

Please give me 2 hamburgers for 1 dollar tomorrow LOL.

How about Scid vs. PC ?

I'm new to it. But I'm quite sure it can do all the things you want, except point 4.

Did I mention that it's absolutely free?

You should try it. Why buy commercial software if you will use a few functions of it? 

I used to use Fritz but its database system is awful. Unless you know the shortcut key F12 in Fritz you are stuck. Shredder's database system is a lot easier to use. Shredder doesn't come with Fritz's game compendium. But I don't find that to be an issue: you can get game pgn lists off the net anyway. For instance yesterday I downloaded a world champ 1880-1985 pgn game file from this site.

We have to agree to disagree on that one. I have spent sometimes 20 minutes completely lost in Fritz 8's databse system knowing that a database is there taht I want to see, while not being able to find it. Maybe it's my age. I didn't grow up with computers. Maybe a 12 year old digital native would have no such problems.

U should definitely get mega database! There is lots of annotated games to study from and u will also get updates every month. 

I have literally used just about everything out there. I would suggest first downloading some decent free chess programs.

SCIDvsPC or SCIDvsMac  ( Free, ton of features, better than SCID, personally I just don't like the user interface)

Current version of ChessX is at www.box.com/chessx (the main site is two years out of date but the source keeps improving and I build from the latest source). ChessX is in my opinion the best looking chess database program out there. I am one of the developers but that is because I love the program and it is open source.

The stockfish engine from http://stockfishchess.org/download/ You can install the engine into any program you choose to use. It is very strong, has a good understanding of closed positions and its free. 

download some free data: http://www.chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info

especially look at pgn annotated games: http://www.endgame.nl/downloads.html

Now after getting used to the free programs if you still want to spend money look at either Chessbase, Fritz13 and/or HIARCS Chess Explorer

I own just about everything as far as chess software but I find mostly that I use:

50% - HIARCS Chess Explorer ( very similar to chessX, but lot's more features, of course you pay for it)

30% - ChessX  ( Not a lot of features yet but extremely nice to use and beautiful to look at and its free, and open source, if you need a feature it doesn't have you can add it )

10% - Chessbase : ( All the features in the world, some one can't do without but just too darn buggy, I have a love/hate relationship with chessbase. I love what it can do and it is nice looking, why can't they fix the bugs) 

5% - Deep Fritz 13  ( Note you buy chess playing programs not for the engine but for the features) 

5% Others (Too many to name here)

Here is a screenshot of ChessX

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87309493@N05/8003848415/sizes/h/in/photostream/

I use the Penguin, and the Arena

For tactics, I would reccoment Total Chess Training by Convekta Softworks.

I use (or have used) a rather weird selection of Chess software:

Sega Chess on the Sega Master System

Microsoft Chess (not to be confused with Chess Titans) for Windows 3.1

I have also used Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition, though not enough to know that much about it. Though I think it may have a large database of games.

And of course Chess Titans

Both Sega Chess and Micorosft Chess have 3 and 4 on your list, though I don't know the actual elo ratings (Sega Chess has difficulty settings from "Beginner" to "Grand chess master", in addition to things like "Adaptive" and "Problem solving mode"). You can also save games, however they use obsolete notation.  You can also watch the computer play itself on both of them. You might be able to get Sega Chess on a Master System emulator; I don't know as I don't use emulators (I have and use the actual cartridge). However, I'm not sure if it's legal or not. Also, I don't think Microsoft Chess will work on 64-bit Operating Systems.

As for tactics, there are loads of tactics puzzles on chess.com's Tactics Trainer. If you upgrade to Platinum membership you get unlimited access.

There is a really great new program called Perfect Chess Trainer. I use it on my Android tablet, but it's also available on Windows and Linux. This has rapidly become my favorite chess program by far.

It supports playing solitaire ("guess the move") chess,  learning openings, memorizing master games, and training tactics, and I haven't even explored all the functionality yet.

Thank you very much for all yoru responses. I started using SCID in my Mac and occassionally using Stockfish in iPad. For database, I am relying on chessgames.com for now. But mostly trying to use best of my premium membership of chess.com resources.

thanks pfren. so i must upgrade my os version.

thanks but too difficult for me.

Maybe you have an answer on my question i have posted earlier:

'Who know how to export scid games in one single html file for use with a website. I use 4.2.2 and when exporting it makes a file for every single game.'

So when exporting 1000 games i get 1000 files. I only want 1 file.

I like Lucas Chess, it has some very nnice features.