Another CB9 Gotcha
OK, so I liked the Opening Report. Turns out that this is just about the only feature of working with an opening that I like in CB9. For example, when building a repertoire database, CB9 decides where the appropriate place in the tree is to add a particular game. This is a decided headache (I’m going to stop just short of calling it a bug; it’s a deficiency, undoubtedly, but “bug” tends to mean something inadvertant, and I suspect CB9 intends to impose its will on me like this) that I had run into in previous editions. Also there is little to no transposition dection available. You never know how many times in your analysis the same position has arisen.
So the Opening Report gets high high marks, but is it by itself worth the price of admission? So far, given unlimited resources, I’d generate Opening Reports from CB, then turn to CA to build my repertoire database, move it into Bookup for training purposes, and then either back to CB for repertoire scans on future game collections obtained, or leave it in Bookup for the same purpose.
I’m currently fiddling with all three because I’m looking for some power tools. For opening study, CB’s Opening Report clearly tops the field: there’s nothing like it in either of the other two, and it seems to be extremely useful and informative. However CB’s pokiness, and it’s reluctance to accept guidance from the operator about where games belong in the tree, and its near-complete ignorance on the subject of transpositions are damaging. Both CA and Bookup catch transpositions immediately, CA is much faster at finding games and much more obedient about putting them where they belong when you’re building your personal game tree. Bookup is tops at drilling you on the opening, and both CB and Bookup are good at showing you what’s new and relevant in a recently acquired game collection.
What this means is that CA and Bookup combined take first place in all of these categories except for the opening report, and even though you’re buying two products, they will cost less than CB9 with MegaBase2005. Whether that’s the best solution for yourself is up to you.
(Note: I’ve been a CA user for years now, and have just been looking in on the development of CB over the years, trying to figure out what it does better; part of that is curiosity — I keep wondering why it’s so popular — and part of it is because I need to stay somewhat familiar with it because friends use it and I get called on to help them; I need to know a way to do something, not necessarily the best or fastest way. So I admit there may be tips and tricks I’m unfamiliar with that address the problems I’ve seen. In my defense, I can say there’s nothing I’ve been able to locate so far in any of the help screens or documentation that helps. You should take this into account when deciding how useful my information is to you.)
March 4th, 2006 at 2:21 am
Have you reviewed Chess Position Trainer. I own Fritz 6, CB 8, and I am thinking of upgrading to Fritz 9, CB 9 - is it worth it? I also have a copy (I purchased) of Chess Position Trainer. Looks like it does similar things to Bookup.
March 4th, 2006 at 2:29 am
http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com
March 4th, 2006 at 10:23 am
I looked over CPT. I’ll be examining it closer when I get time, but so far I don’t see what it does that Bookup doesn’t, so it’s probably not for me, as I already own Bookup. I’m expecting to have some extra time during summer and fall (among other things I’ll be updating this website with some more of the historical notes that I have piled around my office) so I’ll keep it in mind and revisit it then.
I never owned CB8, so I couldn’t tell you what the differences are between them from my own experience. I own CB9 because of my connection with another website, when I was spending my own money for a product for my own use I went with CA, rather than CB. My reasoning was mainly price. I’m continuing to post my experiences of using the two because I hope they will be useful to others facing a similar choice.
As far as I can tell from the sketchy “new features” list CB provides, the only reasons for upgrading would be some improvements in the openings research areas and the media system, a requirement for working with some of their newer CD’s. If you’re not using CB for heavy openings research or the media system, I don’t see anything much there worth the upgrade price.