Introduction

Chess Academy 99 is the latest incarnation of Intelinvest's tutorial and database program (now Chess Academy 2000 is available and has been tested by Robert Pawlak. See Chess Academy 2000 Review here - Editorial commentary). 

To make this review a little more coherent, I have divided it into two sections. The first of these deals with the tutorial portion of the program, while the second deals with the database functions. Readers of this review should note that a number of searches can be performed on the tutorial modules, so there are some database features that are available when you are working with the tutorials.

I reviewed the complete Chess Academy 99 system, containing all the tutorial modules (23 of them). Various configurations of the program are available, the principal difference among them being the number and types of tutorial modules that are included. Prospective purchasers of this software should check the Chess Academy Website to determine the combination of modules that best suits their needs.

I believe I can sum up both reviews by saying that the tutorial functions are the best feature of this program. There is truly an incredible amount of instructional material included in them. I found the database portion of the software to be well designed, and relatively easy to work with. Most searches can be accomplished very quickly. The only significant omission I found was the lack of an internal chess analysis engine (although a form of external analysis is supported).

Chess Academy 99 was exceedingly stable, and I think that there has been a significant amount of time poured into testing. Indeed, the pre-release version that I reviewed was more stable than many final releases I have seen. All in all, I think it is a very good value for the money.

 

Tutorial

There are a lot of test positions included in the tutorials:

1,200 Middle game test positions on the following topics: Exchange Sacrifice, Isolated Pawn, Hanging Pawns, Compensation for the Queen, The Bishop Pair, Rook vs Minor Pieces. There is a significant amount of text and variations accompanying most of the examples.

3,475 Middle game combinations, which are a superset of the informant combinations book. Variations and main lines are included.

10,000+ Endgame studies. Variations and main lines are included.

10,000+ Annotated endings, organized by material. Variations and main lines are included.

In these modules, the user is presented with a position or game fragment. He or she then has to select the proper move when prompted by the program. Alternate plausible lines of play are also presented in some examples. When these variations are presented, the user has the option of using another board to go over them.

This board is then dismissed when the user is ready to go on to the next example. Hints are available also, and can be in the form of the piece to move, and/or square to move to. Bonus points are awarded for quick solutions, and you have a fixed amount of user-definable time to complete the exercises. Finally, there is also an extra "scratch board" that you can use for testing your own variations.

 

Tutorial Strengths

Exercises are timed, with bonus points awarded for quick answers. There is nothing like the ticking of a clock to accelerate your thought processes.

All timing parameters are settable for the tutorials (move speed, amount of time spent paused for reader to review annotations, time allowed for user to solve exercise)

A nice analysis board pops-up when needed. There are really two types, one can be used for your own variations, while the other can be used for variations presented in the exercise.

A number of the modules contain a significant amount of text explanation.

Support for many different languages, including: English, German, Russian, French, Italian, and Spanish.

The program is user-extendable – you can add your own exercises.

This is one of the few tutorial programs that allows you to print examples. This is very nice if you want to review something later, and you do not have your PC. Additionally, diagrams are embedded in the tutorial examples. The only caveat is that the diagrams do not indicate the side to move.

 

Tutorial Weaknesses

There are no internal chess engines supported for analysis purposes. However, there is support for external engines via EPD export. That means you can export a position you are having trouble with, see where you went wrong, then go back to the Chess Academy.

Detailed statistics are not kept, so you can’t see which exercises you've already done. I have been told that there are some features to be added in this respect, and that it is a priority for their development team. Some of these features may be present in the final release, so you may want to contact Intellinvest if you have questions.

I would have liked to see an indication of the side to move that is a little larger and/or easier to see.

Multiple users are not supported. By this I mean that results are not tracked for multiple users.

 

Database

From a feature standpoint, the database portion of Chess Academy compares favorably with offerings from other manufacturers. However, it does lack an internal analysis engine. Otherwise, all the basic features, plus a few extras are included.

For instance, you can do searches on position, material, piece maneuvers, header (things like name, tournament, date, opening), etc. There is a delete duplicates feature in the database, and there are a number of tools available for copying games between databases, although there is no drag and drop support for copying games or variations. There is support also for variations and multimedia commentary within game scores.

Routine header searches are very fast – this means if you are studying a game you found in a book, you will quickly be able to locate it. A very fast indexing system, similar to that used in Chess Assistant, is used to speed up certain kids of searches, and increase the probability that you will find what you are looking for.

The program also includes a chess tree that provides all the basic information you need, along with a 1.57 million game database.

The strong suit of the database program is probably its user interface. The search dialog box (which you see a lot of in any database program) is very well designed, and the look and feel of the interface can be tailored to suit almost anyone. I was able to figure out many of the features without consulting the online help, so I would say that this is one of the easier programs to use. Also, the speed of the program is pretty good, and it appears to be very solidly coded (I had no crashes).

 

Database Strengths

A very nice system for searching by opening name – you can input an English name for the variation you want, and the program automatically selects the proper ECO codes for you. You can also input the ECO codes directly if you want.

Databases are indexed to speed up certain kinds of searches. The other competing databases do this to a certain extent, but both Chess Assistant and Chess Academy have the fastest implementations. Because of this indexing, header searches are fast. However, it should be noted that positional searches in Chess Academy are quite a bit slower by comparison.

A full set of button bars for the most-used functions. They can be enabled or disabled at will.

The program is very fast in almost all operations (with only one exception, see below)

A chess tree function is included for studying openings.

There is a doubles deletion function for finding duplicate games

There are library management facilities for managing alternate spellings of player name, tournaments, etc. This is an important tool for managing large databases.

A 1.57 Million game database is included

Import of CBF, PGN and Chess Academy 3 format are all supported.

If you like 3-D boards, this is the first database program I have reviewed to support this feature. You cannot control placement or lighting, but the boards are fairly attractive.

Multiple 2-D and 3-D boards are included (3 different 2-D and 18 different 3-D), with customizable board sizes and colors.

There are a number of pre-defined database ‘keys’ provided with the program. These keys define a number of typical themes (in plain english), so that you can access information with that particular positional feature very easily. For example, there are preexisting themes for isolated pawns, and the bishop sacrifice on h7.

There are a couple of very nice training functions included in the program. The first is called ‘restore move’, when this feature is activated, the next game move is hidden from you, so that you can try to guess it yourself. This mode is very useful for both studying games, and practicing openings. The other function is called ‘restore position’, which is unique among all the database programs. In this mode, the current board position is cleared, and you then have to restore it. Various timing and hint options are available – the mode is primarily meant to help the user play blindfold chess, and to improve visualization skills.

True-type fonts are included for chess diagrams and notation, although there is no RTF or MS-Word export. Printed output is very nice, and print options are easy to understand.

Multimedia is supported, you can add both video and audio comments to games. Note that you need to create these files with external programs.

You can combine different types of searches (like header+material for instance). This is sometimes nice to do, for instance you may want to check Rubinstein’s technique in R+P endgames. Note: previously this was reported as a missing feature, but it is present.

 

Database Weaknesses

There are no internal chess engines supported for analysis purposes. There is support for external engines via EPD export, but the analysis can not then be easily re-imported into the current game.

You cannot search through multiple databases at once. This is counterbalanced somewhat by the fact that there are 1.6 million games in the database, so you should not have to do a multiple database search too often.

No drag-and-drop of analysis is supported.

No drag-and-drop copying of games is supported. There is a clipboard however, so you can do cut and paste type operations on your data.

I found a number of duplicate games in the database, after a casual search.

It could be easier to access the middlegame keys, right now, you have to remember a number – it would be best if you could refer to them via a text name. However, the endgame keys are very easy to access, since a self-explanatory list is provided.

You cannot add game fragments or positions to the database. You can add them to the tutorials though.

There is not any way to reorder variations once they are in the game.

 

Copy Protection:

Unlimited installs of the 1.57 million game database. Certain tutorial modules and the main program have a limit of 20 installations with master floppy.

© 1999, Robert Pawlak

Editorial comment: great thanks to Mr. Robert Pawlak for this review of the program. This review has been prepared on the free basis of cooperation.