Hi folks,

In chess there are two main programs availible, "Chessbase and Fritz". Chessbase
is one of the best databases, Fritz a strong Computer player. You can use both
programs to save positions, games and matches, replay, analyse and edit existing
games, sort databases by name, openings, endgames or your own developed keys and
so on. There are at least half a million games of strong players availible. One
of the greatest features is, that you can connect Chessbase and Fritz, so that
Fritz will analyse a game or a position.

If you are playing chess you can profit a lot by using this software, and your
strength will arise, if you use it effectevely. I know that many professional
chess player are working with both programs.

Of course there is a lot of other chess software, but most of them try to make
the different sizes compatible to each other.

When I first surfed through the internet and tried to check out all the existing
software related to backgammon, I was a little bit confused. There is a lot of
software to save FIBS-matches (I'm not able to work with it up to now, :-(), a
few replay programs, Jellyfish and other playing stuff, bearoff databases and,
and, and...

Matches are recorded in html, gam, mat, pos, txt, pdf... i can't list all the
different sizes.

I'm not very good in backgammon (as you can see in FIBS and Gamesgrid rating
lists, :-)), anyhow I like it more than chess. But I try to improve and absorb
everything I can reach. Moreover I like to replay and analyse matches,
particularly my own. And I enjoy replaying (annotated) matches just to relax.
But I'm not willed to buy and install thousands of different programs to get
most of the backgammon stuff.

Please, don't misunderstand me. Acknowledgement to all software deployer, praise
to all who comment and publish matches and positions, thanks to everybody who
initiate backgammon related server and homepages. I think they all do invaluable
work where I can profit from. But it seems, that they all try to leave from each
other rather than working together.

In my opinion the development of backgammon theory and practise is in a stage,
that chess reached at the beginning of this century (if it's comparable at all).
There is one big advantage: we now have hard- and software making it easier to
walk through the mystery of this fascinating game.

Coming to the end: I would like to get a pogram that involves most or maybe
more of the features mentioned above. A program with good graphics, editor,
rollout feature, possible to play against and a working database. And I would
pay a fair price for it.

Good luck in all games

amue