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The greatest game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: September 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Chessmaster Version 10 is an awsome game. Any level of player from the beginner (me) to the advanced (my son) will enjoy it. It will challenge your brain to think and keep it young. That's good for all of us! It is fun, educational, and will delight you with the many ways it can be played. A powerhouse of a game.

Chessmaster's 10th

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: December 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Chessmaster 10th Edition is a distinct improvement over CM 9000. Let's take a look at some of the new features in CM 10th Edition:

- A completely new interface (there is more than one interface to choose from)
- A 3D board option visible with 3D glasses, which came in the box
- More computer opponents to play against
- A `simultaneous game' option where you can play against more than one computer opponent at a time
- A database of over 530,000 games (compared to the 500,000 game database in CM 9000)
- More IM Josh Waitzkin audio courses (in addition to the old courses found in CM 9000), plus a whole new audio course by GM Larry Christiansen
- Three animated boards and some other non-animated 2D and 3D boards
- Easier -to-use windows that don't clutter up the screen

Overall, this is a big improvement over CM 9000. Chessmaster 10th has taught me a lot.
Here are some features that helped me improve my chess:

- A large `opening book tree', containing many chess openings
- A `natural language advice' feature, which gives you an in-detail explanation about a recommended move in a position
- An improved `blunder alert' feature that informs you if you make a bad move
- A `Mentor Lines' feature that shows you the best moves in a position

It should also be noted that although I don't play chess over the Internet, you can with Chessmaster.

-Chess Guy

Apply the latest patch for better play

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 27
Date: December 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Go to the Ubisoft website and look for the latest ChessMaster patch.

After installing the v1.03 patch for ChessMaster 10th Edition, the game no longer requires the CD to run. It looks like the patch updates most of the game files, so the CD is no longer needed each time you play. Or maybe they loosened the CD verification requirements.

Of course, hang on to the CDs -- you might need them in the future.

After buying software, I always recommend that you look on the manufacturer's website, download and install the latest patches. In this case, the product is much easier to use after the patch.

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.

Excellent program, exceeds expectations!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 22 / 29
Date: July 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have read the negative reviews of this program here and I do not share these views. First, the program runs great on my computer and does not crash. Not even occasionally. And I only have 256 ram or whatever. The interface is excellent. The tutorials are fantastic. For a beginning player trying to move to intermediate level, I am finding this program to be great. I looked at Fritz 8, and I understand it is excellent. But for someone other than an expert, I think this program is the way to go. And I do not see the big deal about the copyright protection, I am used to keeping the disc in my drive when running complex computer games. I do not get the negativity on some of these reviews.

Also, the program is worth its purchase price based on the excellent tutorials it contains, especially those by Josh Waitzkin. I think Josh is our most interesting Chess personality to emerge since Bobby Fischer.

A first rate Chess program, highly recommended.

CMX Rocks!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 21
Date: April 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I don't know what the heck the people are babbling about using chessmaster X with emulation software... If you have that problem goto Google and type in Chessmaster X + Crack, and download the cracked game.exe copy it to cmx directory and your done. I downloaded the hacked version to test it,(had to download the crack so I could play without the CD) and let me tell you, the thing rocks- much better then CM 9000, 8000 or 7000. The rated play feature that lets you play rated personalitys and rates your play is just OUTSTANDING. The way your giving the option to let the computer go back thru the game, after about a 10-15 minute review time(unlike Fritz 8's hour or so for a game review) it'll give you answers in simple english in what both sides did wrong and what to do to correct it. Also it has the first animated chess sets I've seen since Battle Chess back in the late 80's and early 90's. Watching a rook smash the queen is always a great sight. Also It's training modes that come by default are about the best I've ever seen on a piece of chess software- Normaly you get a chess program, and it'll walk you thru if you've never seen a piece before- but lessons on the other aspects of the game up into Advanced are lacking. Not so with CMX. I was so impressed with this software, that after I downloaded a fully functional copy, I drove 80 miles to buy it, my friends still wonder why I did that- its just to good to steal and put the guy who made it out of work- tempted to buy two copies!
As for system requirments the slowest machine I've ran it on is a Athlon 1.4, 1 gig, 32mb geforce 2 MX of memory and Windows XP. Can't play with the animated sets... But the next slowest- Athlon XP 2400, 512mb and a 32mb geforce 2 MX runs it just fine. and all intel solutions I've installed it on- p4 2.6 and Celeron 2.8 256 MB integrated video run it fine too.

Great Overall Chess Program

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Simple, easy to use, variety of "human opponents" at all skill levels,budget priced for everyone. Overall a great value! Beats playing on the Internet as you can customize your chess matches.

Get ChessMaster 10th Edition

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 19
Date: September 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As a former owner of Fritz 8 I had to buy a new chess program when I lost Fritz 8 due to having to reinstal windows xp on my computer. I looked at a few games that I downloaded as demos such as Kasparov, Chessrally, Chess Commander but nothing to get excited about or better then Fritz 8. Since ChessMaster 10 was brand new I decided to buy this and I am glad I did. This game is for a young beginner all the way to someone with a master rating. I strongly recomend this for someone new to chess or that is young under 10 years old because it has a great teaching tutorial. What I like about this game is that it deals in different personalities rather then just a rating like in fritz 8. Also you can create your own personalities too. There also is a tourniment section that exist and you can create. Another section for studing opening moves and focusing on a passed game. There is a large selection of boards and the 3d is much better then the fritz 8 3d. There are also 2 boards that are fun to play where the pieces are moving in a medieval battle and a fairy tale setting, this is something I think kids would like to play chess on. The only negitive that I can see is when you are playing a longer game the computer player will really take its time in its moves. I personally play my rated games at 30 minutes with a 5 second add on to each move. In a typical game like that the computer might be making 1 move a minute until its time nears around 15 minutes then it speeds up. I myself am actually a slow player when I play on line so in a way I would say the computer plays a little like me time wise but the average player would play faster. The ratings seem about right though maybe a little exagerated. I play the same on yahoo as I do in my rated games and my rating on yahoo is around 1400 and right now my rating on chess master is around 1450. I do think a 1400 player on yahoo is probly about a 1500 on this game though. The top players which are a selection of grand masters and the top program all are around 2700 in ratings so I would say the program itself is strong enough for 99 percent of chess players. I played GM Morphy and I completely was destroyed in about 20 moves. For the price I just think that this would be a good chess game to get I just dont think anyone who gets it would be disapointed.

You must download the patches!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the better programs to improve your game. You must download the patches, because only then will it work like a charm.

Exhaustively Comprehensive!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: March 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am in awe of how much content there is to this title.
Too much to describe here. I bought it for my son back in February. We both use it every day
since and only scratched the surface. From several tutorials to ranked play to learning mode to.... Well, like I said. Too much to tell about here.
I can't say enough. Recommend without hesitation!
BTW. Some have complained (and rightly so) about having to have the CD inserted whenever you want to play.
But this is no longer the case as this problem has gone away with the latest patch.

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