Chessmaster10 Academy

I'm used to using Fritz9 for analysis of games and positions because of its ease of use and strength, but I saw a post somewhere (unfortunately I don't remember where!) commenting on the helpful instruction available from the "Academy" section of Chessmaster 10 software.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems that in order for Chessmaster software to be enabled from your desktop or laptop, one of the Chessmaster CDs needs to be present in the CD drive, in order to prove ownership. This was always an annoyance, so I haven't used this software very much.

Nevertheless, I located one of the Chessmaster CDs, inserted it into the drive, opened the program on my laptop, and went right to the Academy instructional material. Indeed, it's quite good!

I watched and listened to several audiovisual presentations from Josh Waitzkin covering basic endgame principles and Larry Christensen reviewing a great Fischer-Larsen game.

It got me to thinking how often we buy great chess books or software and then fail to take full advantage of them. I don't make New Year resolutions, but it certainly makes sense that if you put out hard-earned money for instructional material, you might as well use it to its fullest!