Hiarcs Chess Explorer Video Quick Tour

The Hiarcs team recently posted two videos (one for Mac and another for Windows) to give a quick tour of their products. The Hiarcs Chess Explorer applications for both platforms virtually look the same and share the same functionalities.

I have a Mac and purchased the Mac version, and here's the quick tour:



Yet, I have to reiterate my feature requests I hope we get in the next version:

• Engine match and engine tournaments;


• Ability to publish PGN games to be replayable in HTML through javascript;

See also Hiarcs Chess Explorer for PC video tour.

Hiarcs Chess Explorer for Mac -- First Impressions

So I finally took the plunge and purchased my own copy of Hiarcs Chess Explorer for Mac, because no one wants to sponsor one for me.



And here are my first impressions:

• I've tried game analysis, the feature that I'm always looking forward to when trying out a chess software. It's working great, at least as far as with the UCI engines that I was able to use the software with.


• There's a limited number of UCI engines that are compatible only for Mac, especially free engines, as there are available for Windows. So far what I have are the stock Houdini 14, Stockfish 2.2.2 and Fruit (05/11/03).


• With the three UCI engines available for my Mac, I can't really test their playing strengths against each other because there's no engine match feature in the Hiarcs Chess Explorer software. (See update below).

This list will be updated for further impressions.

What about you? How do you find Hiarcs Chess Explorer, for Mac or even Windows?

UPDATE (September 16, 2012):

I have the following UCI engines (besides Hiarcs 14, which comes with the purchase) successfully running on Hiarcs Mac Chess Explorer:

• Critter 1.6a 64-bit;


• Fruit 05/11/03;


• Komodo64 3;


• Stockfish 2.3 64-bit;

If I missed a strong UCI engine that you think I should try out, please let me know in the comments below.