ChessBase´26 – Tips for beginners, part 17: Choosing your board design

by Stefan Liebig
5/31/2026 – After all the analysis tips from the past few weeks, this time it’s simply about aesthetics! But that’s not unimportant — after all, you spend a lot of time with ChessBase´26, so the look should be appealing and match your personal taste. Discover how to customize “your board” exactly the way you like it.
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
FRITZ is more than just a chess engine – it’s a training revolution! Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.

Most parts of this tutorial are, of course, about tips and tricks for your analysis. However, it’s often underestimated how important it is to set up your screen in a way that feels comfortable to you.

In this part of the tutorial, we’ll show you how a few simple clicks can make your daily training sessions more comfortable.

Simply click on the main menu item "Board" in a board window to open the options for customising the board design.

A brief digression:

There are a few points that are not directly related to the design, but are useful to explain briefly in this context:

  • With "Flip Board", you can switch the view so that the white or black pieces are at the bottom or top.
  • With "Board Sounds" (see next screenshot), you can turn the movement sounds of the pieces on and off.

The Coordinates option is more about appearance. If you tick the box (see next screenshot), the coordinates will be displayed at the bottom and left of the board.

However, this tutorial focuses on the next areas of the menu. First, let's take a look at the "2D Board" area: If you click on the down arrows there, the options will open:

Once again, it's time to experiment. In the following screenshot, we have made selections in the "Square" menu item as well as in the "Pieces" and "Table" options. The layout changes as follows:

As everywhere else, the same applies here: it's all a matter of taste and personal preference!

In the next example, we have done the same for the "3D Board" area – with the options "3D Board" and "Raytraced Board":

For users who prefer a 3D view, additional graphic effects are available via "ray tracing".

Pro tips:

In part 4 of this tutorial, we already discussed the "Options" menu (shortcut CTRL+ALT+o). Here you will also find a menu item called "Board Design":

In addition to the options shown above, you can also select a few other settings here. The proportions and dimensions of the board and pieces are particularly important additions.

The menu items "Rating" and "Replay arrows under board", which are not directly related to the design topic, allow you to activate or deactivate these two options. In addition, you can use "Blind All", "Blind White" and "Blind Black" to activate blind mode and, depending on your selection, hide all pieces, only the white pieces or only the black pieces.

Now we hope you enjoy analysing your positions on your customised board design.

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ChessBase has developed over decades to become what it is now in its 2026 version. The program has countless options, which we will present here in small portions – so you can design your interface for pleasant daily use and keep learning about new options and how to use them to get the most out of ChessBase´26 and save time.

We hope that this tip will help you to have more fun and be more successful when using ChessBase´26. You can find more tips and hints on our support pages and FAQ pages.

All parts of the series and more links:

In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
The London System is one of the most popular openings at every level of chess but not all Londons are the same. In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
Free sample video: Introduction
Free sample video: 5...cxd4 6.exd4 Qb6 sidelines

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Topics: ChessBase´26, Tutorial
Stefan Liebig, born in 1974, is a journalist and co-owner of a marketing agency. He now lives in Barterode near Göttingen. At the age of five, strange pieces on his neighbour’s shelf aroused his curiosity. Since then, the game of chess has cast a spell over him. Flying high in the NRW youth league with his home club SV Bad Laasphe and several appearances in the second division team of Tempo Göttingen were highlights for the former youth South Westphalia champion.
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See also

ChessBase´26 – Tips for Beginners, Part 15: Setting up and analysing positions

5/17/2026 – You want to analyse a position without having to enter all the moves first? No problem: with ChessBase´26, the position is quickly displayed on the board and you can analyse it with or without an engine, or import other game positions using FEN code. Learn how to use the “Position Setup” menu to start immediately at the point that interests you, and find out what FEN is all about...
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 4

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ChessBase´26 – Beginner's Tips, Part 12: Arrows and marks

4/26/2026 – Have you admired how beautifully the authors colour fields and insert arrows in the ChessBase videos? Would you like to be able to do the same? In this tutorial series, we show you how you can improve your own analyses in ChessBase´26 with clear graphical elements.
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 3

Video

60m The Two Knights

This entry into the 60 minutes series concentrates on the Modern variation of the Italian game where White opens the centre early : 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 e5!. This line can be reached by various move orders, most frequently from the Scotch 3 d4 exd4 4 Bc4. It's a sharp variation and Grandmasters such as Evgeny Sveshnikov have used it frequently,with very good results. It's a perfect line for club players to adopt which is relatively easy to learn and which contains many traps. All the main responses are covered here, including 5...d5, 5...Ng4 and 5...Ne4 and the conclusion is that is is difficult for Black to equalize in a straightforward way. Problems are being posed, which over the board might prove tough to solve.