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Based on the demo version...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 16
Date: July 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The 10th edition of the Chessmaster series looks to be the best yet. Sporting an entirely new (and much easier to use) interface, it should be easier than ever to get a game going against any computer or human opponent. The new edition will also be including a completely redesigned online module, which is supposedly more stable than the one that shipped with CM9000. If the online support is as good as Ubi Soft claims it will be, the CM community should develop into an excellent place to play chess games.

In addition to the usual Chessmaster offerings, the new edition will be featuring a new "Chess Academy" where Josh Waitzkin will review various chess concepts, while Larry Christiansen will review attacking concepts. The newer 3-D chess sets look many, many times more realistic than the old 9000 counterparts. And finally, of course, the King Engine (the brains behind CM) have been updated and improved as well.

Overall, this looks to be an excellent addition to the Chessmaster series and I am looking forward to it.

Can anyone tell me how much overlap there is with 9000?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 17
Date: July 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Would there be any features that would make 9000 worthwhile to buy now in terms of tutoring, historical games or anything else that won't be in the 10th edition? Or should I just wait?

Thanks

A review based on the Demo (and Full version)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 29
Date: August 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought CM9000 a year ago, and just recently downloaded the demo version of Chessmaster 10th Edition (CMX). The interface is much cleaner. Josh Waitzkin is actually talking to you in the tutorial. I've heard that online play is supposed to be improved, but I haven't tried it yet. I figure if I can't beat the computer when it is playing at a weaker 1200-1400, why should I go online and humiliate myself with some one who is just as strong?

I gave CM9000 away after a few months because on my XP Home laptop, the weaker players (<1000) were still bashing me around like I was playing against the Chessmaster [in tournament mode]. I know I'm a patzer, but I can also recognize when I'm losing badly. In training mode on CMX, I was able to beat the highest rated player they made available who wasn't the Chessmaster himself (Mona ~800). This indicated to me that they've fixed whatever problem they had in CM9000 with weaker play [DR: this might not be true - I haven't tried ranked play on CMX... yet].

But - that's not what really impressed me about CMX. Afterwards, it gave an analysis of my game - comparing both how well I moved (and the computer opponent) compared with what the Chessmaster would have moved. It also showed me how many moves in which I would have had Checkmate if I would have just gone in for the kill, but I didn't see it and went on pushing pawns, etc (the reason why I'm not playing real tournament chess yet).

Having CMX analyze my game in detail even further revealed many of my tactical faults. Afterwards, it recommended I play against one of the computer players that comes with CMX. Unfortunately, it stuck me back with Mona since she was the strongest player who wasn't the chessmaster in this Demo version I tried.

I've tried Fritz 8, Chessmaster 9000, and Kasparov Chessmate. Kasparov has been my faithful standby when I've needed a weaker opponent (and I'm still trying to get through the Bronze tournament - I told you I am a patzer). Fritz clobbers me even when he is put into "slobbering fool mode". Fritz is great for analysis, but CMX puts into words what I did (or didn't do) and tells me if my move was a 'pretty good' or 'great' or 'poor' move, and what I could have done that would have been better.

Chessmaster 10th edition is definately on my list to buy. Although I've studied tactics off and on, and continue to play against Kasparov Chessmate on the palm, I think CMX is THE program that will definately address my beginner deficiencies and hopefully strengthen me to the point of Class D/E and beyond.

=====
Aug 23, 2004

Now I own the full version of CMX. Here's a few things I've learned in about 4-6 hours of non-online play.

I enjoy playing in 'training' mode so far. I haven't tried ranked play or tournament mode. Ctrl-H is really great in training mode ... press it once, it shows you a square on the board you should move to. Press it again - it shows you both where to move, and which piece to move. Press it a third time, and it spells it out for you in a dialogue box on your screen.

Post-game analysis is good ... but I found after my first couple games that I was getting annoyed with... "Here was a Mate-in-9" or "...Mate-in-7 that you missed". I have enough problems with Mate-in-2! How do you fix this? It is simple. Don't give chessmaster 10 seconds to analyze each move. Give it 1 or, at most, 2 seconds (this is on a Celeron 1.2 GHz with 256MB/Win XP). I don't think I had it show anything more than Mate-in-4 or 5 moves. It dramatically reduced much of the heavy (IMHO superfluous) analysis, and got at the meat of basic tactical play. It also means that most of your games will be analyzed in a few minutes instead of half an hour or longer.

One small annoyance... I notice that there are times when I'm going through the post-analysis comments that CMX is utilizing 90+% of my CPU. I think it tries to continue to calculate positions even when it is unnecessary. This might be due to the 'visual lines' window which is running in the background, even when the window is not activated.

Beware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 601 / 672
Date: August 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I would love to be able to buy this game. But the pain outweighs the benefits. First they put such powerful copy protection on this, that many or most CD-RW/DVD-RW drives will NOT work to install or play the game from.

This is because they have DISABLED them. Well, gosh, thanks a lot! My laptop ONLY COMES with a CDRW drive! PLUS, even if I could install the game, I have to have the game CD in the drive at all times. Which means it will be spinning my CD all the time, sucking down my battery in far less than an hour.

Thanks guys.

So I want to buy this so I can play it while I'm out and about, waiting for meetings or just at the park....and I can't. AND even if I COULD, the CD will have to be up and spinning?

This is unacceptable! Tell me, how many laptops come with only straight CD or JUST strait DVD drives now? I don't know of any.

I say tell them to KEEP thier stupid program. This company doesn't own every single good chess programmer in the world. There are plenty of other companies that make good products. Buy one from any of them.

If you can't play the game you purchased where and whenever you want--Then Tell Chessmaster to shove thier product. They are not serving you. So don't serve THEM.

Dont Buy CM 10th Edition .... CM9K is much better.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 47 / 59
Date: August 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Don't buy Chessmaster 10th Edition. I'm not saying this because I don't like Chessmaster, in fact
I own CM7000 and CM9000 as well as competitors like Fritz 8. I am a regular club player and I tell
all my friends to buy CM9000 because all in all I like it better than Fritz 8 (which is what most
serious chessplayers like.). The only thing I didn't like about CM9000 is that the program crashed fairly
often on my XP machine (but doesnt on my 98 machine). I was hoping that CM10K would be a more stable
version at least and have some interesting updates and features.

I pre-ordered it and received it yesterday with great anticipation and spent 3 hours with it and boy was I dissapointed. I tried
and tried but there's nothing in this version that I like. To start off with, after I logged in and chose
to play a game, the environment colors and the "skin" motif that was defaulted to was a bit annoying for me
so I naturally went to change it to something more suitable, but there were only 4 or so skins to choose
from and some wouldnt let you pick them because I hadnt won 20 or 40 games yet???? How ridiculous. Then
I settled for one and went to choose a chess set and board that I was familiar with in CM9K and liked very
much, and they didn't carry over most of the sets from the last program and stayed with too many of these
cheesy esoteric chess pieces that are goofy and hard to concentrate with because they look nothing like a
real chess set. And here too, the one that I liked the best wouldnt let me choose it because I hadnt won
enough games yet??? Stupid. Then I couldn't find any way to turn off the squares from highlighting when
you move the pieces which was annoying. And it went on and on. At the end of the night, I couldn't find
one reason to ever click the icon again. Total and absolute dissapointment.

I can't believe most of the people above liked this version. Save your money, or at a minimum buy CM9K
which I still feel is Number One, hands down.

10th Edition - the best Chessmaster ever?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: August 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I just received the CM 10th Edition and played it for about 4 hours. The new interface is great IMHO - easy to learn, easy to use and plain easy on the eyes - much, much better than the one in my old CM8000. Moreover, there are several color sets (called "skins") - my favourite is the B&W one. I guess it's hard not to find a set of your liking, as the 4 available are very different.
Enough on the interface - Chessmaster is about playing chess, isn't it? :)
There are a lot of computer opponents to choose from; I started playing against one of the weakest and was pleasantly surprised to see that, at the end of the game, Chessmaster proposed me to play an opponent more fitting to my strength. I obeyed and after a few ups and downs I found a set of opponents against whom I performed satisfactorily (not losing too much, that is :))
I liked a lot the game chart available - each of your moves gets a note and you can see exactly how the game went, where did you play well or wherenot.
About the other game modes:
Puzzles - simple but fun, even if I was bored after a while
Tournaments - if you win a tournament you gain access to a new one; seems to be the way to go after I get bored of playing standard games
Online - not many people when I logged in, only a couple guys battling it out. That's normal though, the game's out since only a couple days.
Academy - Haven't checked this carefully (it's HUGE) - just browsed the Attacking Chess section. I was intrigued to hear that GM Larry Christiansen lost against CM9000, so I watched a couple games - very interesting.

On the minus side, there are too few 2d sets, which are the only ones I use for serious games. I was really impressed by the looks of the 3D sets - the glass and metal ones are awesome. The Fairy Tale and Clash sets are fun, but mostly for kids - I can't see any serious player using them. Oh, and you MUST hear the sounds of the Rubber set. :)

Overall, this is a very solid chess program, and in my opinion the best game in the series (I don't own 9000, but it is certainly head and shoulders above CM8000)

Good Game....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: August 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I like the interface changes quite a bit. I found the old interface to be a bit clunky and there wasnt enough room for everything. I still dont like playing too much on the 3D chess sets, because I have a hard time concentrating on the game while im trying to figure out what the pieces are.

Where I thought the game was lacking was in the training department. Much of the training is just straight out of CM9K it seems. I havent looked over all of it yet of course, but from what I have seen, there is little new material.

- M. G Zierdt,
If you dont like it that much, I could use another copy for another machine, If you want to sell it, send your price to Amazon AT rickanddani DOT com, maybe you can get rid of it.

Like to play chess online? Then avoid this.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 48 / 51
Date: August 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The achilles heal of the Chessmaster series has always been it's frustrating, buggy, and overall unusable online component. 7000 and 9000 had barely-there online play that was plagued with disconnects and timeouts. As a result, they never developed much of a play community, and even if you COULD log on you rarely found anyone in the lobby to play against.

When I heard Chessmaster was getting a facelift for the 10th edition, I was hoping this issue would finally get addressed. Well, it hasn't. In fact it's gotten worse: I've had the program for a week and a half and I haven't been able to play a single game online. All my other online games, including other chess programs like Fritz, work just fine. We were told there would be a patch, and there was, but it failed to fix the problems. Now, supposedly, there will be another at some point in the future.

And to make matters worse, the thing Chessmaster always did RIGHT - create a stable and user-friendly digital atmosphere in which to play and study chess - has been bungled by the new design team. The functional 2-D sets, preferred by serious players because they're easier to analyze, have been all but eliminated in favor of flashy 3-D animated ones that look like Disney-fied versions of the old Battle Chess DOS app. The analysis and database features aren't as deep as previous versions. And the whole design is weighed down by cheap, pointless gimmicks - there's a "stereo 3D mode" and the program comes packed with a set of red/blue 3D glasses. Why does a chess program need that? It doesn't.

The program looks nice (assuming your system is near state-of-the-art; be warned that this program uses a TON of processor power) and the Josh Waitzkin tutorials - long a hight point - have been expanded. Those additions are welcome. But if Chessmaster wants to stay competitive against Fritz, which offers great, easy online play along with their terrific chess program, or even against Yahoo, which offers fairly good online chess for free - they REALLY need to get their act together. There's no excuse "for the world's most popular chess program" to have such a lousy online component.

CM 10.. a Closed defence...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: August 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The pc chess game market has never been a best seller in terms of numbers for companies. So what Ubisoft did in Chessmaster 10 was punt this one for the more lucrative(?) family market than bat to the more dedicated players out there.

Hence it leans heavily towards the "fun" side of chess, 3D glasses etc Than improving the intermediate-advanced side of its engine

The graphics therefore are great and there is a variety of options to play with, but when it comes to say any meaningful analyzing of your game. Or features that would improve a intermediate persons game play, the cupboard is pretty bare.

The opponents you play in the matches are bland though competent. And there is a good database of matches to mull through.

Online play and support, is as Ubisoft reputation in other games, a lottery. Some do fine, but a good percentage of people find nothing but frustration and little satisfaction. (I'm somewhat computer literate and I still can't get it to work )

CM 10 is therefore a fine intro to a new chess player, stylish in its appearance. But lacks the ability or foresight to develop the mentorship beyond the basics.

Great tutorials, short on other useful features

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 110 / 113
Date: August 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am curious to see what other people think about this piece of software, so please put your opinions forth!

I am a regular chess tournament player, and familiar with CM7000. Before reading my review, understand that it comes from a player who regular uses computers to analyze games for tactical errors, store/analyze games from book collections, and competes regularly in USCF tournaments at a 1600 level.

CM10th seems to have more streamlined graphics from prior versions, and a smoother overall feel. I've run into 1-2 hiccups when running CM with other programs, but it generally feels very stable.

The best part of CM 10th are the tutorials, hands down. Waitzkin's writing is perfect for both beginners and intermediate players, and the CM interface with its arrows and colored squares truly shines with him at the helm. Larry Christiansen's games are also excellent, but the great depth of his analysis is a bit harder to follow as he goes through the various lines in real time. It seems from other readers that CM9000 replicates most of these tutorials - if so, unfortunately the main reason for buying CM10th may not be sufficiently compelling. However, for those who haven't worked with these tutorials, they singlehandedly justify purchasing CM 10th - even with no other features, I could wholeheartedly recommend purchasing the software just for these lectures.

Another huge plus where CM10th excels is in the "play" department, which makes it most suitable for those who just want to play lots of games. CM's interface makes it a breeze to pick up and play rated opponents, which do get progressively more difficult as their rating climbs. I have not played enough games to truly assess the player strength relative to tournament ELO, but suffice to say that the computer still completely fails in replication of human play - CM 1500 rated opponents will hang pieces by putting them right in front of your pawn with no compensation whatsoever - not even an 800 USCF player would play such ridiculous moves! The engine will promptly rev up and play 5-7 dazzling positional moves in a row to generate a crushing attack while down an entire piece (verified by Fritz to be GM-strength moves!) only to repeat the hanging of pawns and pieces just when you think you should resign. Fritz's friend/sparring mode, although really dry (it's not that exciting to beat Fritz 7 in -1 pawn mode versus CM's colored personalities), plays incredibly humanistic chess in comparison.

As a serious chess player familiar with Fritz and computer analysis, I have some major concerns that inhibit me from recommending CM10th as my main tool/engine.

Big problems:

- The disc is required EVERY time you boot the game. Not even a 14-day recharge period like CM7000 - you need it each and every time. Laptop users take the biggest hit here, as the wear and tear on the drive and battery drain is pretty significant.

- The menu interface is still just ugly and really inefficient. Instead of using "normal" WinXP menus, CM goes with its custom colors/fonts/pulldown screens. Even more importantly, shrinking game status windows doesn't scale the font, so opening more than 2 game status windows gets REALLY cluttered. In contrast, Fritz's windows are super-streamlined, and you can make the font as tiny as you want - I routinely have 5 panels open in Fritz with a huge 2D board, whereas doing the same on CM is absolutely impossible. (To compensate, CM does have a Ctrl-tab to toggle hide all windows)

- No keyboard customization. This is HUGE for serious players who want full control of game analysis. The lack of arrow key navigation in game playback (you have to use control keys) is painful, and the most basic functions require multiple mouse clicks. Contrast to Fritz, where you can customize nearly every function to a key, so you can spend all your time on the chess and none of the time on the interface.

-Replaying analysis in CM10th is still as painful as it was in prior versions. While CM provides excellent auto-annotation, it's still too difficult to play back the variations (hit play, and the computer starts autoplaying the moves while you struggle to keep up...) Fritz's method of embedding variations right into the game score so you can play right through them at your own pace and then get back to the main game instantly is vastly easier. As an example, I will analyze an online game in Fritz for blunders by running analysis on it, and then all of the "recommended lines" it comes up with for my mistakes are embedded as variations in the game. I can then play through them rapidly, and see the actual engine's score evaluation to see how badly I blundered. This is all possible in CM, but is still really clunky.

-As stated in prior reviews, online play is still virtually nonexistent, although the online teaching tools are quite promising (although nobody's using them yet.)

Conclusion:

-CM is worth every penny if you haven't seen the Waitzkin tutorials yet. Reconsider if you've done them already in prior versions.

-This game will appeal to new/beginning players who don't spend much time analyzing games and like to just play lots of different personalities.

-The Fritz interface is much more streamlined and efficient in nearly all aspects of the game, making it easily the better tool for tournament players or anyone who spends significant time on analysis of games.

-The personalities still play really strange chess (what's up with the ludicrous sacrifices?!), and I seriously question their ELO calibers relative to human USCF ratings - yesterday I easily defeated 1700,1800,1900, and drew a 2000 rated CM opponent while I run into serious problems against A class players in UCSF tournaments. At least from where I'm from, I would estimate the CM ratings as inflated by at least 200 points relative to the tournament players here.

-Online play is still nonexistent.

Would love to hear from all users - I especially anticipate that some CM "experts" will have creative solutions to some of the major problems I ran into, and I'd love to see how they've solved them.

Good luck to all you budding chessmasters!
hhnngg

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