This post, about how helpful it is to study chess with computer programs, is about thirty years late. Yet, since I am blogging twenty years after it was popular, I will embrace the anachronism and share the hapiness that Lichess and Chess King bring me. Lichess is the free chess app and server, a competitor to chess.com. Chess King is a chess e-book reader and tactical trainer.
Chess King is a wonderful little tool. One can buy some tactical courses with hundreds of playable tactical puzzles. As you solve puzzles, it creates a rating. The rating is ridiculously positive, so much that it should be ignored. It is amusing to see how it claims you have a 2000 rating because of your success solving puzzles for 1200 rated players.
I am reading an endgame book on Chess King, where I read the text and the interactive chessboard moves the pieces for me. Then I set up the positions in Lichess to play against its chess engine. This set up has been helpful. The interactive book allows me to see the variations quickly without having to set the board back to the main line. I can go back and forth as I read the commentary.
Lichess is helpful for drilling the concepts. Before using Lichess, I would try to work through endgame courses by playing both sides myself. The problem is that the same ignorant person was playing both sides. I set stockfish, the chess engine, to the highest level, and then I work through the endgame lessons. I do this again and again until I feel that I have mastered the concept.
In a sea of software that becomes sloppier and sloppier with every day, Chess King and Lichess are helpful apps that make studying chess easier. Lets focus on the positive and be greatful for these amazing tools.