Chess Tactics Art 3.0
by Convekta
(Click here)
Software Summary
Manufacturer: ConvektaBrand: ChessCentral
Format: CD-ROM
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows XP
Product features:
- Material chosen for a wide variety of player strengths
- No less than 1,217 main examples with over 1,000 supplementary ones classified according 3 criteria
- Several languages supported: English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish
- Learn tactics in chess!
Software Reviews of Chess Tactics Art 3.0
Customer Review: not up to my expectations
Summary: 3 Stars
In this review, I consider 3 points
1) organization and difficulty of the material
2) interface
3) software vs book (M. Block "The art of combination in chess")
1) The soft is marketed to players with elo up to 2300. At the same time, the material is classified according to tactical and geometric motives. This has both pros and cons, and IMHO suits better to beginners and lower itermediates rather than to more advanced intermediates and experts. A book cannot be organized both ways; a software certainly makes it possible, but no such feature (e.g. @show a random position with a difficulty between 50 to 120) exists in CT-ART.
The difficulty varies dramatically througout the course. Comparing with well known Konotop series of tests in chess tactics, difficulty level of 10 should belong to "test for beginners" (ca 800-1200 elo), while problems with difficulty above 110 would probably be found in "tests for candidate masters" (2000 FIDE Elo and above). In Konotop books, problems are not classified by tactical of geometric motives, however.
2) interface: fair to poor. First of all, if you have windows Vista you need to know a thing or two about the interactions of this soft with your OS. Convecta recommends turning the UCA off, which is plain ridiculous, because ct-art also works fine (if it ever works fine) when you install it in a separate folder outside your "program files" folder. Secondly, I never succeeded in making the pieces move faster and the intervals shorter (the pieces move extremely slow. If the problem is easy I nearly fall asleep). Theoretically you can control the speed and the interval, but in practice the soft doesnt respond: thisngs move the same slow way whatever speed you set. If you make a mistake, the program displays a refutation if it typed in. Otherwise, it shows a "prompt" using ridiculous blinking markers. I had to quit the excersize and restart it each time I made a mistake. You CAN turn them off though, this option does work.
3) soft vs book: the advantages of being a program are not really utilized as I mentioned. There are some "bells and whistles (test mode, elo calculation (btw the numbers you will get are certainly too high) etc) but they are of no real use. I would say, IF YOU ARE ABOVE 1700, GET THE PAPER VERSION OF BLOCH'S BOOK RATHER THAN THE SOFTWARE. You will work MUCH faster through the easier sections, thus saving a few hours of your precious time.
Hope this hepls.
AV
Description of Chess Tactics Art 3.0
The program is the 3rd revised and expanded edition of the ever popular Chess Tactics Art by the Russian GM of Correspondence chess, Maxim Blokh. The focus of the examples' difficulty is on amateurs but even masters will find themselves challenged by the hardest ones. No additional software required.Hobbies Software
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