TWO reviews! One is a book and the other is a free Chess GUI

Hello all!

The semester is slowly approaching so my weekly G/65 will again be weekly.  (although there is my OTB tourney NEXT weekend!)

So today I present two reviews.  I am going to present some reviews of books that I KNOW have actually helped me along the way.  Of course Your Mileage May Vary.  In a recent post I lamented the fact that the chess publishing world doesn't always know how to publish a text book or even when they should make a book a text move.  Not every book needs to be a text book but more of the chess tomes out there would better serve the readers if they were set up to be text books!

The Book Review

The Art of the Checkmate by Georges Renaud and Viktor Kahn

Overview 

• Most of you are aware of this book.  It is a course in checkmating!  Simple as that.  The authors show the basic patterns using games and game fragments.  (usually very entertaining games!)  After each chapter is a section of problems where one can test themselves on the very patterns they have been reading about!  (TEXTBOOK!)  

Pros:

• Great examples of the mating patterns within the chosen games.  Good annotations.
• The test puzzles are all great and not necessarily easy.
• An easy book to read AND to get involved with.
• If a person actually spends some time with the test puzzles after reading through the examples he or she should have a fairly clear understanding and usable knowledge of the basic mating patterns in chess.

Cons:

• The only one I can think of is that is in descriptive notation which has never bothered me at all. 

  
The Verdict:

• A great book that it is probably on of the 4 or 5 most important books I have read and WORKED through in my brief Chessic career. 

The GUI Review

The Tarrasch GUI-a Free and wonderful piece of software

Overview:

• This software is SIMPLY wonderful.  I have been a big fan of the Shredder Classic GUI since I started pursuing Chess.  The Tarrasch GUI has not replaced the Shredder GUI YET, but it is so easy to use that I am going to be keeping an eye on it!  And it is free.  You can play games against the computer, analyze, annotate with PROSE and variations.  (annotating is SUPER easy in the Tarrasch GUI...I mean SUPER easy!  I am not often a fan of bells and whistles which is why I like the Shredder Classic GUI.  And it is why I am quickly growing fond of the Tarrasch GUI.  I like to be able to get to work and play quickly!

Pros:

• FREE!
• Reads and saves PGNS with ease and actually is user friendly.
• Playing a game with time handicaps is really easy to do.
• As stated above, annotating is SUPER easy.
• Any pgn can be your opening book so it is really easy to check out your repertoire.  (no need for Chessbase repertoire editors here)
• Pasting FENs in etc. etc. also seems easy.  

Cons:

• I have as yet not found out how to change the UCI parameters in the engine in use.  (this might be on me)
• The color scheme does not seem customizable but that does bother me AT ALL.  I do know that this is important to some people so I listed it.
• Does not seem capable of searching databases for position, material etc. etc.  But that doesn't seem to be it's intent. 

The Verdict:

• This is without a doubt the best FREE GUI I have seen that allows one to quickly get to work playing a game against a computer opponent, annotating one's own games or others, and/or analyzing with an engine.  It truly is simple, straightforward and excellent.  Between this and Scid vs. PC (also free) the big boys are going to have a  tough time when asking for my money.  I am already done with Chessbase forever!

Have a great weekend!