Chess King with Houdini 2 is a new and versatile tool for chess players. It is described as “an ideal introduction for the beginner, a challenging opponent for the practiced amateur, and an invaluable coach for the aspiring master.” Based on my impressions after playing with the program for a few days, this is a fairly good summary of what Chess King has to offer.Chess King emphasizes simplicity of use and the needs of new and improving players. However, it is more than just a traditional training program, as the inclusion of an extremely strong chess engine and a huge professional database may indicate. It also addresses the requirements of the tournament player who needs to prepare for his opponents, work on his openings, analyze his games, etc.Chess King is the brainchild of Miami-based Diego Garces. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, I’m sure you have heard of his wife, GM and former World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk. Both of them are tireless promoters of chess.What’s Included? Houdini 2 must be mentioned first. Houdini is currently the highest rated chess engine, so it’s an excellent choice for analysis. On the other hand, it may not be much fun to play against such a formidable opponent on equal terms. That’s why the new Houdini 2 added a feature that allows it to play at reduced strength, depending on the settings chosen in Chess King. The version that comes with Chess King is strong enough for most players, but if you need an even stronger chess engine, you can upgrade to Chess King with Houdini 2 Pro. The main difference between the standard version and the professional version is that the latter comes with support for up to thirty-two cores, while the former is a single core version.GigaKing Database and Corr 2011 contain over five million chess games. These databases contain games from the sixteenth century up to November of this year. GigaKing contains almost all available master games, as well as games from many lesser tournaments, junior events, etc. Corr 2011 is a database of correspondence games. The number and quality of the games contained in these databases is on par with those found in the most expensive database packages.Full opening tree. This is a statistics database of positions in the GigaKing database. It shows you how often a move has been played and the success rate of each move. The opening tree is a useful guide when learning the openings and reviewing your games or a game from the database.Chess puzzles. Chess King includes more than 1,500 puzzles, from extremely easy to grandmaster level (twenty-five categories).Over one hundred opening positions. You start from very easy starting positions with a large material advantage and by winning enough games you move up to the next level. The catch is that Houdini will be playing against you at full strength! That’s quite a different experience from playing against a chess engine at reduced strength.Photos of more than 1,600 chess players. The photos are displayed when you view games played by these players. You can add new photos by clicking the player’s image (or the image placeholder if an image is missing).