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MasterChess is constantly under development to stay current with new engines, best practices, new versions of Windows and Macintosh, and the ideas from players who use it every day.
That said, it is risky to make the bug list available to the public. The vast majority of software publishers keep their bug list private so as not to discourage new purchases who might assume that the software has too many problems because everything known about the program is in this list.
I publish our bug list because:
I personally appreciate it when a software maker tells me about any known problems for programs that I want to purchase.
I think chess players are smart enough to realize that all sophisticated software has bugs, and that listing them publicly is my way of making sure you know it’s being worked on.
Thanks.
Mike Leahy, The Database Man!
- When you purchase MasterChess, your permanent product key will be emailed immediately.
- You can install your product key on up to three of your computers. (Please don’t share your key.)
- The registration system does not require a connection to the internet.
- You can log in and get the latest download links and your product keys any time.
There are currently no free trial versions of MasterChess.
There is no charge for upgrades for your first year.
| MasterChess 9000 Program | Latest Build | Released |
| Windows | Build 18 beta | May 8, 2025 |
| Macintosh | Build 19 beta | May 9, 2025 |
Changes in build 18, 19
Player name searches now work for games added/exported to a PGN file with an existing index.
Games beyond 2GB in a PGN file can now be searched.
Clicking in the blank space below a list of suggested players names no longer results in an error.
Changes in build 14, 15
Fixes issues with certain PGN files and the way PGN files are updated. (Range check errors)
Changes in build 13
Build 13 shows the month and day of games and sorts for month/day.
Supports updating (replacing) an existing game, even in the files with 2 million games.
Supports exporting a game to any existing PGN file. It will automatically update a PGN file’s index if there is one
Changes in build 12
Build 12 aims to fix issues with notarization on older Macs.
Changes in builds 10 and 11
Finds lowercase .pgn files in web links on the Macintosh
Added “Copy Diagram Graphic to Clipboard” to the File menu.
Fixes AV error when using the suggested players names while typing in White and Black player names.
Fixes word wrap of longer ECO opening descriptions.
Added a menu item to the Commands menu to stop a game (resign).
Fixed issue with longer move order searches such as
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 a6 8.Qd2 b5
The Search for Games window has a new help button that links to online help.
The databases added back in ECO codes.
The indexing speed of PGN increased from 6,000 lines per second to 10,000 lines per second.
The correct candidate move is highlighted when taking back a move or pressing the “Back to last branch” button.
Changes in build 9
The Game Files window has a new button that will add all PGN files in a folder at the same time.
The Database menu has a new option to copy a link to a PGN file (from a web page) and add the games. This also works with .zip files containing PGN databases such as The Week In Chess.
Bugs
| Description | Resolution | Spotter | OS | Impact | Projection |
| Tab order is not correct in export a game dialog. | build 5 | chuckbo | Win/Mac | high | fixed |
| ECO codes went missing. Downloading the master games restores the ECO codes. | build 7,8 | high | fixed | ||
| The app now properly loads the starting position when loading a new game after setting up a non-standard position. | fixed | ||||
| Tab order fixed in the welcome window. | fixed |
Suggestions
| Description | Sponsor | Importance | Projection |
| Once I get a list of games I would like to click on an alphabet to go quickly to all players names that start with a certain letter. | Siredecoucy | Low | |
| Some sort of autofill menu when you type in a player’s name for a search. | Siredecoucy, chuckbo | high | Done in build 7 |
| The ability to search by pawn structures. I use that a lot on Hiarcs. I have most of the Informants and I have found that searching by Pawn structure to find games is very useful in coming up with a plan for openings that don’t normally show up at top level. | Siredecoucy | low | |
| An option in the Add File screen to select a directory of PGN files and for MC then to use all of them. | chuckbo | high | build 9 |
| An option that saves the graphic of the diagram to the clipboard instead of downloading it as a file | chuckbo | build 10 | |
| Be able to add our own color schemes | chuckbo | ||
| Use a Chess Openings Wizard ebook to compare the viewed game to the opening. | cfossa | ||
| Use a Chess Openings Wizard ebook as the opening book when playing Stockfish. | cfossa | ||
| Allow game deletion from a PGN file. | cfossa | ||
| Show text of all game moves to allow clicking on a move to go directly to that position. | cfossa | ||
| Have the engine analyze a game (or multiple games) and save the annotation either replacing the current game or appending a new one to the file. Even better if the game notation uses color to quickly id blunders or mistakes in the game notation. | cfossa | ||
| Add games to the PGN file and have them appear in the games list w/o having to manually re-index the file. | cfossa | ||
| Copy games and paste them to a new database / PGN file. | cfossa | ||
| Annotate the game and replace it in the PGN file (vs. appending a new copy of the game to the file). | cfossa | ||
| Edit the game header information, preferably w/o loading the game. | cfossa | ||
| Open a PGN file and list the games, scroll or page up/down through the list. Perhaps hover the mouse over a game in the list to see the final position (MC 9000 requires a blank search to list all the games in a PGN file) | cfossa |
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