Chess Hero

A free chess training program
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How does it work?

  1. You supply a set of PGN files
  2. The program picks random positions from the PGN files and challenges you to guess the best move computed by a chess engine
  3. On every attempt you are given a penalty (the difference in score between your move and the engine best)

The program can be configured to work with multiple chess engines, and supports both the XBoard and UCI engine protocols.

 

Chess Hero main window

Click to enlarge

 

Above is a picture of the program main window. At the bottom right you can see my three attempts at the best move:

  • My first move was Qe7, resulting in a penalty of 0.64 pawns. Qe7 was also the move played in the game, but it was not good enough to advance to the next problem. You can configure the program to accept moves below an arbitrary penalty threshold (by default it is set to 0.25 pawns).
  • Next I played Qxd5, but that was another 0.97 penalty.
  • At last, I got it right with the surprising Bf5.

You can greatly customize the program by simply feeding it different kinds of PGN files, such as:

  • Master games that match the openings you play
  • Your own games
  • Tactical positions from well-known collections
  • Games of your chess hero

 

Download

Chess Hero is Freeware. You can download it from here:

Chess Hero 2.0.1 for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 (5.1 MB)

The program requires Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Runtime. If you don't have it already installed on your computer, you can get it here:

Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)

 

History

  • Version 2.0.1 (Sep 13, 2009 - evening)
    • fixed a bug that caused the program to start multiple instances of the engine when minimizing/restoring the main window.

  • Version 2.0 (Sep 13, 2009)
    • rewritten from scratch in C++ and Qt
    • better-looking graphics
    • animated pieces movement
    • resizable board
    • new game window to display picked PGN. Useful with annotated tactical positions
    • new Play button to play a few moves against the engine
    • copy and save variations in PGN format for later review
    • penalties are now stored per-profile
    • switched to TogaII as the default chess engine

    Note to previous users: Chess Hero 1.x settings will NOT be imported by the new version, so you'll have to reconfigure the program. The old settings are stored in

    %APPDATA%\ChessHero

    while the new settings will be stored in

    %APPDATA%\Innokuo\ChessHero
  • Version 1.1 (May 29, 2009)
    • included Glaurung as the default chess engine.
    • new "Reset Penalties" command
    • side-to-move can now be a player name
    • support for non-ascii file paths
    • minor graphic tweaks

  • Version 1.0 (Jan 18, 2009)
    • First public version