Catalan/Bogo-Indian CD ROM, GM Genna Sosonko Editor-in-
Chief, NIC 1997, CD ROM, $58.00

Five or six years ago, the first compact disks that contained chess
databases began to appear. One of the first was the Informant disk
of collected games that had been published in the well known
Yugoslav series. That had the incredible price of $950. As with
most products, as the technology became better, competitors
entered the marketplace and the prices began to drop.

Game collections with over one million games are now available
from several manufacturers. It was inevitable that the advantages
of the CD would be put to use in the study and presentation of
openings. At the forefront of this technology is "New In Chess"
based in Alkmaar, The Netherlands. Their most recent entry is a
CD ROM featuring the Catalan and Bogo-Indian.

We reviewed this disk using a 6x CD-ROM drive, part of a 133mz
PC in a Windows95 environment with 64 meg of RAM. The
program loaded smoothly, taking us to the introductory screen. At
this screen, several choices were offered. The Introduction
provided background material concerning the founding and
development of "New In Chess". Clicking on the button marked
"Catalan" did not take us into the program itself, but did give a
nice historical diversion about the opening and the underlying
strategic themes.

The essence of the program is contained in the section called "Key
Viewer". Click on it and you see the following screen:  It all looks
a bit intimidating, but help is available at all steps along the way.
So, for example, when clicking on "Help" after going to the "Key
Viewer" the following text comes up...

Key Viewer: The Key Viewer shows the selected opening position
on the board. 
Select a Key: With the cursor keys (arrow keys) or with the mouse
(always the left button) you can navigate through the Key
structure. Behind each Key position the number of Sub-keys is
indicated. 
To the Sub-keys: Sub-keys can be reached in three ways: by
pressing <Enter>, by double-clicking on the Key line with the
mouse, or by clicking on the <Key> button. The Sub-key may
itself be subdivided in several Sub-keys. These can be activated in
the same way. The games are attached to the lowest Sub-key
levels. The screen now shows the heading 'games' and the number
of games attached to this key. 
To the games: Use the cursor keys or the mouse to go to the
relevant Sub-key, which shows the number of attached games at
the end of the line. By pressing <Enter> or double-clicking the
particulars of the games will be displayed. With the mouse or the
cursor keys you can select a game. The button <Key> now reads
<Game>. After clicking on this button or pressing <Enter>, you
can replay this game. All games following the loaded game are
automatically selected as well. All available features when
replaying a game can be found under PLAY GAME. 
Whenever a Key or Sub-key is activated, the chess board will show
the Key position. 
"Yearbooks" - Gives a listing of the Database Surveys published in
the New in Chess Yearbooks. 
"Authors" - Gives a listing of the authors with a selection of their
best games. 
"Info" - Gives information about the author. 
"Main Key" - Takes you back to the main Key. 
"Key" - The <Key> button takes you into the currently highlighted
Key. 
"Game" - When a game has been selected, this button changes
from KEY into GAME. By clicking on the <Game> button the
games can be replayed. 
"Help" - This activates the Help file, which shows you the
program's possibilities on-screen.
"Exit" - Takes you back to the main CD-ROM screen. If the text on
these buttons is grey, there is no information available. If it is
black, clicking on it will display the relevant information. If more
information on a (sub) Key is available, this is shown in the
information block. You will also see that the buttons <Info> and
<Survey> have become active, enabling you to read the text of the
survey or ask for information about the author. If there are more
Database surveys on a Key position, the Yearbook number will be
followed by arrow buttons. By clicking on these arrows particulars
about the other Database survey(s) will appear. If the game file has
been activated, the total score of the relevant file will be displayed.
.

This all sounds much more difficult than it actually is in practice.
The disk contains over 12,500 games, divided into variations that
are easy to access and play through. Somewhat less than ten
percent of the games are fully annotated. In addition, there is a
complete reference to the trademark of the NIC Yearbooks - the
surveys. Finally, if you are running Rebel 7/8, Mchess Pro 4/5,
Fritz 4/5 or Kallisto II, you can activate it to analyze a particular
position.

The content is certainly very good. The program comes up a bit
short on technical design, however. The program is set up in a
"deep" (as opposed to a "flat") format. This means that information
is accessed by going to a menu, making a selection, going to the
next menu (or the data itself), etc. The problem is that there is no
way to "jump" back to the first menu or any other menu with
selections other than exiting each screen that had previously been
accessed. This is fairly annoying. And, it is compounded by the
fact that there is no way to minimize the program. This means that
if another program needs to be opened or accessed, and you are
using the NIC disk, you cannot simply minimize, access, execute
and return to it (i.e., classic Windows multi-tasking). You must
completely exit the program and then reopen it when you wish to
return. Welcome back to the world of DOS!?

There will also be some resistance to the price. At $58.00, it is not
cheap. It can be argued that CD prices are usually in the $15-45
range nowadays. Thousands of disks in all areas of interest (not
just chess) containing much more data can be acquired much more
cheaply. In any event, this is a very good specialized database and
program. With a bit of technical tweaking, it could be a great one.
If you take your Catalan and Bogo-Indian seriously, you will want
this latest CD from NIC. 

This and dozens of other reviews, articles, original columns
by some of the world's top chess journalists are all online
at one of the web's top chess sites, The Chess Cafe -
www.chesscafe.com