MasterChess 98

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Master Chess 98

Reviewed in 1998

I regularly get e-mail from people complaining that chess software is too complex, and difficult to use. The people at BOOKUP software have attempted to address this issue with their first integrated database and playing program called MasterChess 98. The features of this program include: a 1.1 million game database, a playing program featuring the Zarkov 4.2 engine and a chess tree based on 20,000 high level games. The program has a BOOKUP look and feel, because these two programs share some common software components.

I would recommend MC98 primarily for those that want an exceedingly easy-to-use program with basic functionality, or to those that want a quick and easy interface into a large games database (possibly to flesh out an existing collection). I would not recommend this program to people looking for a full featured program along the lines of Chess Assistant, Tascbase or Chessbase.

Strengths

1. This is a very simple, easy to use program.
2. A chess tree is included. This tree provides one bit of information that other trees do not present, except indirectly, which is the most recent date that a particular opening move was played.
3. Searches are very easy and straightforward.
4. Searches on 1.1 million games are quite fast. A search for all of Anand's games took 2 seconds on a P150. A list of transpositional paths are shown for opening moves entered with the chess tree.
5. The program is very stable.
6. The Zarkov playing program is provided. You can set time controls, but no engine parameters. You can select from various opening books, although no explanation is provided as to what each book represents.
7. You can set separate times in the Zarkov engine for both white and black, which amounts to handicapping.
8. The program can process EPD files using Zarkov.
9. The database contains a huge number of games (1.1 million) so the probability of finding the game you are seeking is relatively high.
10. Last name spellings appear to be fairly consistent throughout the database. There are some differences and omissions in first name spellings, but this does not affect search results (which are done on last names).
11. There are computer games included in the database, and they are denoted as such. This may be of some historical interest to computer chess junkies.

Weaknesses

1. You cannot add moves/games to the tree. All statistics of the tree are fixed.
2. You cannot comment moves.
3. There is no support for variations in the game score.
4. You can't add to the database, and you can only open the MC98 database with the program. It should be noted here that the MC98 format is quite similar to PGN, and you could probably do some sort of conversion if you had to.
5. I needed to resize the board window every time the program was opened.
6. You cannot edit the Zarkov opening books.
7. You can't search on arbitrary position or material, piece maneuvers, or number of moves. If you use the opening transposition feature, you can perform what amounts to a positional search for games in the opening phase, but not beyond that (although the times when you would want to do this are limited).
8. You cannot take the moves from the current game, and use them in a game search, unless you re-enter them using the tree.

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