Chess Openings Wizard Express

     This program is the successor to the original Bookup and it  is supposed to help you learn opening theory as well as build your own opening repertoire.   You can also analyze games with its engine. E-books about specific openings, defenses, middlegames, endgames and tactics complied by Grandmasters are also available.
     Basically Chess Openings Wizard is a positional database. This is different from a game database in that it stores each position and finds transpositions and this is what makes it good for keeping track of opening theory.
     You can:

* Sample opening e-books

* You can search all your PGN games simultaneously.

* Positional trees show evaluations of all your games

* You can also compare your internet games to all your theory

* Create and export clear .bmp diagrams of any position

     If you play Internet games, with Chess Openings Wizard you can save your game to your game database and then import the game into your repertoire and it will show you where the new move was played. There is also a professional version Program. You can try it for free from Bookup.
     The free version includes (for the first 30 days) some of the features of the registered Express version. That said, programs like Shredder, Fritz and Aquarium have similar features so basically, all this program does is to help you organize and analyze your opening preparation.



Personally, I think Chess Assistant is the better buy and version 14 is now out. You can compare features of both CA versions HERE.



If you are an average player and looking for FREE then ChessBase Light can still be found for free download. This old (2009) program can be useful but it is limited to 8,000 games per database. Within the 8,000 games barrier there is no limit to save, copy, convert, annotate, print, search, analyze, merge and classify games. Available at Chess Kit.