12/11/2015 – "You can buy the fanciest GUI," writes John Hartmann, "and you can collect all of the strongest engines around, but if you’re working with poor quality data, your research will suffer for it." He takes a look at the chess databases that are available for ambitious players and takes a special look at the Big and Mega Databases from ChessBase, each currently with 6.46 million games.

6/9/2015 – Currently there are two programs vying for the title of strongest chess engine in the world, and both have seen new releases in recent months. Komodo and Stockfish currently top all computer lists, in that order. But they have different personalities, as John Hartmann shows in his engine review. "Shows" includes both engines simultaneously analyzing in an interesting realtime video.

11/24/2014 – "If you are an ambitious chess player, no matter your age or rating, you should be using ChessBase," says John Hartmann, award-winning chess book reviewer, teacher, organizer and tournament director. He takes a critical look at the latest ChessBase 13, released this week, describing all the new features he encountered, with screen shots and explanations..