Did you know that Chess Combinations Encyclopedia (CCE, from now on) is exactly the same problem set as Renko's Intensive Course Tactics (ICT)? I didn't, until I bought CCE and started doing the problems. Strangely familiar problems. Eventually I realized where I'd seen them before.
When I checked, sure enough -- the problems and organization are identical. CCE does split the problems into "study" and "practice" -- "study" problems are ICT positions without a training question. One minor difference: the problems are timed in ICT, not timed in CCE.
I think this is a good thing. This is a nice large set of over 4,000 intermediate tactics problems, and Convekta's interface is better for doing tactics problem sets. ICT splits the problems into 35 separate ChessBase databases; because the ChessBase interface used for doing ICT doesn't do a good job of tracking progress, it's up to you to keep track of where you were, what you were doing, and what you had already done.
By contrast, CCE uses the familiar Convekta interface, and so does a good job of tracking progress, missed problems, and statistics.
If you were thinking of using ICT, you should consider buying CCE instead. If you're already using CT-Art or Chess Tactics for Intermediate Players, the material probably covers much the same ground.
Personally, I'm trying to choose my next tactics problem set. It's a good excuse to indulge my chess software habit...but that's a post for another time.
Study:
Practice:
3 comments:
Very comprehensive review!
Thank you :)
I know you're a programmer, would it be possible to port Chess Tactics for Beginners and Intermediate Players to a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC?
Great blog, I'll be sure to keep checking it out!
http://theriseandshinegoodknight.blogspot.com/
Hi Rise and Shine,
Thanks, good to be here. We seem to be part of a new wave of Knights.
You're in luck -- as it turns out, Convekta has already ported both Chess Tactics for Beginners and Chess Tactics for Intermediate Players to the Pocket PC, along with CT-Art, and a few other programs. They don't have any plans to support the Palm, as far as I know.
CTB is known as Pocket Chess Tactics on the Pocket PC, and Chess Tactics for Intermediate Players is known as Pocket Chess Combinations.
I've used Pocket Chess Tactics and Pocket CT-Art, and I like them both. My quick take is that besides the obvious benefit (it's on a Pocket PC!) there are 2 main drawbacks as compared to the PC, and 1 benefit. The drawbacks are 1. no engine to test out solutions, and 2. alternate moves are penalized (the variation is shown in the text, e.g. "or Qd4", but you get a penalty for making the move). The benefit is that you have filtering options in practice mode, not just test mode.
Here's Convekta's Pocket PC software.
Thanks for the heads up on CCE & ICT...I had both on my wishlist. Now I can save some money by buying only CCE.
Thanks,
Ron
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