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Not supported on Windows 2000 or NT

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 63 / 94
Date: November 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game crashes in various places on Windows 2000. I reported the problem to The Learning Company and received a snotty email back from them saying: "We have experienced no problems with Chessmaster 8000 on Windows 2000 or Windows NT platforms. However, Chessmaster 8000 does not officially support Windows 2000 or Windows NT" So they basically denied there was a problem and blew me off to boot! What great customer service!

Excellent chess program. Works fine on Windows 98

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 127 / 130
Date: December 02, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I am somewhat of a chess nut and I have owned the most recent version of Chessmaster since its inception. Chessmaster 8000 is an excellent chess partner/teacher for players at almost any level. It is versatile and can provide opponents that will challenge but not overwhelm players at skill levels from beginner to master. However, if you really want to test yourself, you can crank it up to its highest level and give it a go. Unless you are an international grand master, chances are that it will be a lesson in humility.

The tutorials for beginners and children are particularly good. There are a number of exercises for intermediate players, but the real value is Chessmaster's ability to analyze games and recommend moves. The opening book database is vast and the database of games of Grand Masters is very useful, especially for intermediate and advanced players who want to improve their games.

Chessmaster 8000 has several desirable improvements over 7000. This is the second release using the new interface and the initial bugs have been worked out. I have had no problems with it on Windows 98. The 3D perspective has been improved and a number of new chess sets and boards have been added. The children's area has also been improved. There is a very valuable tutorial on endgames by Josh Waitzkin for intermediate player and above. There are also far more computer opponents to play against. The best improvement is an enhancement of the chess engine that makes it even stronger. This is a difference that less than 1% of tournament players will discern, but it furter legitimizes Chessmaster in minds of serious chess players. Even with the stronger engine, Chessmaster 8000 is not the strongest chess program available, but on the highest level it will beat 99.9% of players and it cannot be matched for versatility and teaching.

If you are you are looking for a good chess partner or teacher, you can't go wrong with Chessmaster.

Great Game: However, not essential to update from CM 7000

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 38 / 39
Date: January 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I own several chess-playing software programs, including Fritz 6, HIARCS, Chessmasters 2000-8000, and they all play strong games. Chessmaster 8000 is a great buy for virtually all players, including serious tournament players (though I greatly prefer Fritz 6). However,if you already own a Chessmaster 6000 or Chessmaster 7000, do you really need the update? Chessmaster 8000 isn't dramatically different, although there are improvements in graphics, playing strength, etc. The analysis function is still less than satisfying (I prefer the more professional Fritz 6 annotations) and although the Josh Waitzkin endgame course is both valuable and entertaining, I couldn't say that it made CM8000 a must buy.

Good game but...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: January 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

While the game is good (I have had it for a few weeeks), it doesn't work too well on Windows 2000! It takes up 99% of the CPU when the game commences and crashes from time to time - most often when there are popups in the tutorials section.

Also, quite a few times when its a really close game, the game just hangs! I have had this occur atleast 4 times out of the 15 or so times that I have played.

It definitely wasn't made for the Windows NT and 2000 OS's. So if you want to run it on 2000, watch out...

Bought it for my kids; I play when they're in school!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 28
Date: January 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought the Chessmaster 8000 program when my seven year old son began beating his father after a few months of addictive play on the Lego Chess program. He took to this new program like a fish to water. All I did was install it, show him the Kid's Room Icon, and he was off, playing a range of kid opponents (names, photos, and playing style of each provided) with skills from Chimpanzee to future International Master. He has his choice of playing a rated or unrated game, so he can still practice playing strong opponents without compromising his rating and bruising his ego.

There's a large number of chess sets and boards to choose from, although the most whimsical (gnomes, dogs, etc.) are a little hard for him to distinguish during play.The tutorials in the grownup part, plus the drills that follow, have also been great fun for him.

We have not put this program to the full test, since no one in our family is an expert player (yet), but give us a year or two to work with this program, and who knows? In the meantime, I have to wait for the kids to go to school to get my turn with Chessmater 8000, and it has proved an excellent teacher and opponent for me as well.

Not bad -- but there are better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: February 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Chessmaster 8000 is the best of the (remaining) mass-market chess games. It's fun to play against the personalities (but I can beat ones up to 1850 Elo but not Max, rated at about 1550?), and has some OK tutorials. However, it has problems under Windows 2000 (mostly a crash when you make a wrong move in a tutorial quiz), has a generally clunky feel to it, and generally feels less than solid or polished. ...

I suggest thatpeople get Fritz 6 ... instead -- in the long run you'll be happier. Many (most?) serious chess players have and use Fritz, and you'll find a wealth of information related to Chessbase products on the 'net. ...

Amazing! but has flaws

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 49 / 51
Date: February 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game shortly after the christmas holidays, as, although I can't say why, I was consumed in a storm of chess obsession, and was buying chess paraphernalia left and right. Over the holidays, while in Montana, my younger brother and I played several games a day on a set we had brought, and had a great deal of fun, but we both had absolutely no idea of how to play the game beyond simply moving the pieces. Becuase of this, I decided to, once we got back home in Virginia, buy several books and a computer program to work on my skills. Let me tell you, I'm sooo glad that I bought this game.

In short, this game is outstanding. The size of the game is enourmous, packing two CD's full of constant learning and fun. The game is organized into six rooms, namely the Game Room, Tounament Room, Classroom, Kids' Room, Database, and Library. The Game Room, obviously, is where you can play unrated games agaist a whole host of personalities, ranging from simulations of such GM's as Tal, Kasparov, Anand, and Fischer, to three year olds. In other words, you're sure to find a suitable oponent, and, for 99% of the players out there, an oponent who can dispatch you with ease. In addition to a wide selection of possible oponents, the Game Room has a great deal of other attractive features, such as a Quick Hint option for your next move, and, my personal favorite, the option to have the game analyze all of your and your opponent's moves, offering suggestions and highlighting mistakes(after you've finished the match, of course). This feature can have a decidedly sobering effect, of course. For example, shortly after discovering the feature, I had one of my games analyzed for me, smugly thinking I had soundly beaten my opponent, only to be informed that I had missed 16 mating oportunities!

Another area of the game that I frequent is the Classroom, where a whole range of interesting and informative tutorials can be accessed, starting with basic stuff, such as how to move the pieces, to advanced end game courses by Josh Waitzkin, the protagonist of the movie Searching For Bobby Fischer. Josh's courses are absolutely great, as you can actually hear him speak his lessons. The only downside, I suppose, to his courses is that he goes very rapidly, and you need more chess ability than I currently possess to really get the most out of them. Unfortunately, the other courses are spoken by someone with an incredibly irritating voice, so I normally just turn off the sound when he's talking. In fact, its almost painful to listen to him at times, when he says stuff like: "If you got that one right, give yourself a cookie. Oh, and, give me one to." Yes, its really that bad.

The Library, like all of the areas of the game, continues the trend and has a ton of great stuff. For example, there is a section containing illustrative games dating back to the late 1700's, of such players as Morphy, Kasparov (including his Deep Blue matches) and many others, all with commentary and annotation. In addition to to classic game section, you can look at Chessmaster's opening book references, or make your own opening book, which, needless to say, is an invaluable tool.

The Tournament Room is where you can play in tournaments with other personalites, or even create a tournament with only the best of the GM's and watch how they play each other. Actually, I got some interesting opening ideas from watching a Kasparov-Karpov simulation match, so making tournaments like the above can actually be quite helpful. Also, the tournament room is where you can play rated games, to get a feel for what your actual chess rating is.

The Kid's Room is basically a mini game within the game, and provides kids with a condensed version of bits of all of Chessmaster's other rooms. For example, you can play kid specific opponents, ranging from very bad to a young Josh Waitzkin, rated at 2100. My little sisters, 6 and 9, both enjoy this part of the game a lot, and the 6 year old was overjoyed when she crushed Stanly the Chimpanzee, rated at 1, who makes completely random moves. Also, the kid's room has a great deal of chess sets designed for kids, like a set where the men are all little gnomes.

The next room, the Database, contains a collection of some 500,000 games played throughout history. Unfortunatly, I don't have much to say about this area of the game, as I haven't used it very much, but its basically what you would think it would be. You can search for specific games, specific opening lines, etc.

After such a glowing review, you may be wondering why I bothered to say that the game has some flaws in the title of my review. Well, it certainly has its fair share. As nearly every other reviewer has written, the game, for some idiotic reason, doesn't seem to work very well with Windows 2000. Most of the problems seem to arise in the classroom sections of the game, especially when audio is involved. Its become a painfully common occurence for a little error window to pop up, saying that something or other's size is too small, whatever that means. Regardless, the sound gets cut off, and every once in a while, the whole game crashes. Also, as others have said, the game takes up all of your computer's available resources while running. For example, while writing this review I had the game on, minimized obviously. The game's seemingly unquenchable thirst for memory caused the appearance of my typing on the screen to be delayed, so that what my fingers were doing didn't show up on the screen until after I had finished typing. Although not that bad, it is somewhat annoying. Also, as at least one other reviewer stated, the game lacks polish. For instance, the classroom tutorials a chock full of minor errors, such question numbers that don't match the page number of the tutorial. For example, on one tutorial, the page number was something like 17, but the question number on the page said 27. Minor things like that plague the game, things that should have been caught before putting the game on the market.

Despite all of this mind-boggling flaws, the game is still amazingly fun. Chess on its own exerts a peculiarly addictive force on all those who come in contact, and this game, in my mind, multiplies that force several times. With this game, you can participate in a lively, challenging game whenever you want, day or night. You don't have to bore yourself because your opponent doesn't feel like playing. Its always there. Consequently, I've played an enourmous amount of chess during the past two weeks, and I've profited from it immensely. When I first bought the game, I played a player named Jonesie, rated at 900 or so, and I was utterly annihilated. Now, only two weeks later, Jonesie is a breeze, and I rarely loose to players rated at 1450 and above. If your a beginning player who would like to become a serios competitor, this game is ideal. Look at my results. In two weeks I jumped 500 rating points. I can't wait to see how I'm doing two more weeks from now! In conclusion, buy this game if chess means anything to you at all. Although I've never played any other computer chess games before, I can't imagine them topping this one. Thank you Chessmaster.

Not bad.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: March 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Too much graphics slows up the system. I have 256RAM and 600 Pentium 3 processor, yet the CM8000 still runs a bit slow and takes up too many resources. Some of the graphics are also a bit buggy in the system (some of the boards that you can choose).

The chess engine is pretty strong and at its highest level will beat the crap out of just about anybody. One thing I don't like, is that the players that you can choose from are unevenly ranked. For examply, I have little trouble beating some of the personalities that are rated around 2100, yet I am losing to others which are rated considerably lower (1600 Elo). So, don't know, they should've worked more on that.

Overall, the program isn't bad, though. You might want to consider Fritz or some of the other programs out there on the market. They usually don't emphasize graphics as much, yet they play very strong as well.

Worth it

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: March 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

It plays well and has many choices. My favorite part is the Kids Room. It is fun and has many different levels to choose from. I reccomend you get this game now!!!

Unfortunately Horribly Buggy on Win2k Pro

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 22 / 23
Date: May 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

After getting trounced in chess games at ... I decided to buy this latest version of the Chessmaster series in order to actually begin learning the game of chess.

People seeing the VERY low rating I am giving this program should understand that the program is packed with goodness. In fact, it IS a 5 star program. A grand master goes over games of note, explaining all the moves he could have made, followed by the move he actually played. This I found facinating. You can play any of a large number of computer players, (all levels) and even customize the difficulty. The tutorials on the movement of the pieces are great for beginners.

Where Chessmaster 8000 suffers is that it is incredibly buggy. I've had this program for a day and it has crashed more than a dozen times!!!

I sincerely hope a patch that addresses this terrible problem is released soon. It clearly devalues the obviously great effort that was put into the product's creation.

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