ChessBase Light: Ad--Toward, Addition To, At, Near. You Must. You Simply Must (Part I)

If you are an aspiring, serious chess player, and not using ChessBase, then you are missing out. Big time.

You can do no better than to dive headfirst into getting familiar with ChessBase by downloading ChessBase Light 2009. It is free and it is very, very good.  It is NOT dated.  Lets be clear--this is not a limited time offer, a thirty day trial, or a deeply disabled version of chessBase. In actual fact, IT IS CHESSBASE. Trust me on this. I know exactly. I have had multiple students download, explore, and use this. It is fantastic, works very, very well, and is actually pretty easy.  It was integral to our work.

Here is the link, to Download ChessBase Light 2009.  Like a very special fishing hole, known to few if any but to you or a few locals in the know, as handed down over time, you would be very, very hard pressed to find this link without either great tenacity and resourcefulness in trying to find it, or knowing where and how.

Lets be clear.  ChessBase has an easily found toggle for downloads--downloading various versions of chessBase and other programs, for a fee, or patches or service packs for earlier versions.  But the link is not shown at the list of available downloads.  But IF you scroll down a short ways on the slider bar, you will find it, sure enough--the selection for downloading chessBase Light.

Double-click image to enlarge

They don't just make it hard to find, but to my eyes, darn right hidden.  I expect the day to come that this will be removed, but their clear expectation is that if you use this, you will buy it.  Fair enough.

What the difference between chessBase proper, and the light version, it must be natural to ask?  Well, as far as features goes, not a lot.  Then how can it be free?  One thing--they make it so that you cannot create files in chessBase, cannot modify them.  There are a few little tricks around this, but this is very far from our purpose.  If you like it, then buy it.  This will get you started.

Try being in Medieval Europe without Latin in the world of learning.  Try not knowing French in sixteenth century Europe.  Try living in South America without Portugise.  Try doing business far and wide in 2012 without English.  Same here.  ChessBase is the lingua franca of chess as it is.  Forget ChessDB, WinBoard, or SCID.  Crap.  Anyone, and I do mean anyone who says it serves their purposes is either stupid or cheap, or stupid AND cheap.

Well, this is the beginning of a lot more to say.  I am at step one in this sharing.  All I want to do is help.  It is time.  I have thought about this for years.  YEARS.

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PS, I finished Part II of my Four-Hundred Points in Four-Thousand days series, but Google ate the revisions.  That was about ten days ago, as I got to problem1,039 at CT-Art 3.0.  But now I am set to finish the whole darn thing, so will rework the part I lost, not massive, but an emotional investment.  Most of it was already written.  I will publish in a few days, so stay posted!  Tonight, I am at problem 1,174, out of the entire 1,209 so waiting won't help.  I started Part III, and there will be a Part IV.  Lots to say in parts two and three, not biographically, but more of the whats and wherefores.

That's one thing.  Secondly, the next part on this ChessBase Light post (Part II), will take you past why you need it and what it means, as I intend here, to discuss what you do with it, and how  This part is the real important part.  Stay posted.
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