This program is a sequel to Chess Tactics for Beginners and is designed for players rated between 1600-2200. It is a Windows based tactics testing and training program whose topics include: mating combinations, pinning combinations, decoys, blockade, etc. The program includes more than 1,170 tactical problems, arranged in 19 sections, according to increasing difficulty.
Each section contains exercises for Practice and Test. After you have solved a problem, you are given a rating based on the difficulty of the problem, the time taken, and any errors that you made. Your rating is then adjusted up or down after each exercise. The positions are from practical games, endgame studies, as well as training examples. Plus there are files with studies from composers such as Troitsky, Riabinin, Grigoriev and others.
To solve the exercises you usually get 3-6 minutes and for the tough ones you get 12 minutes. You just have to find the most important moves and if you propose a wrong move, the program helps you with various visual hints, such as arrows showing key lines of attack, and eventually shows the piece which is to move. It also comes bundled with the chess engine Crafty to analyze or play out positions with.
3 stars
These programs focus on teaching the typical methods of playing each opening. The Sicilian has more than 680 informant-style annotated games from grandmaster practice and more than 50 quizzes for solving.
Furthermore it provides an opening encyclopedia, consisting of 79 deeply annotated game fragments, and a game database of 50,000 games with 10,000 more games to be available for download at its website.
The French is equivalent, although it has slightly fewer (550) annotated examples. Both CDs also contain instructional articles that cover the main ideas of the opening. Plus all of the material was checked for accuracy with Shredder 7.04. This is a fine method of learning these openings and there is one on the King's Indian available as well.
3 stars
(all the reviews are written by Mark Donlan)