Chessmaster 10th Edition reviews

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Anonymous

Ubi disappoints again.

(Review From Amazon)

General Comments:
1. The Chessmaster 10th Edition chess engine is fairly decent, but there is at least one serious problem-- Chessmaster sometimes cheats on time. When playing against a clock, the program should always move within the allowed time. (In a real chess match, failure to move within the allowed time forfeits the game).

2. It is surprising that Ubi has never implemented an integrated help system. The PDF help file is not a substitute for an integrated help system with a table of contents and searchable index.

3. The drill part of the program is not well-designed:

- It should be possible to get a hint or advice.

- It should be possible to take back a bad move. The purpose of drills is learning, so why not allow the user to take back a bad move?

- In the "advanced-level" king-and-queen-against-king-and-knight drill, the program sometimes pointlessly throws away the knight. This should not happen even in an intermediate-level drill.

4. I am rather disappointed with the endgame tutorials. The most important endgame is king and pawn against a bare king, and this endgame is poorly treated. The king-and-pawn-versus-king endgames break down into four cases which should be clearly explained and addressed separately:

(a) impossible to win unless opponent makes a mistake

(b) winable via direct race of the pawn to promotion

(c) winable by the "method of opposition"

(d) winable by "shielding off" the opponent's king, as in endgame #51 in Pandolfini's book "Endgame Course". The king-and-pawn-versus-king endgame drill in Chessmaster 10th Edition recognizes only case (c). There may not be much benefit to treating case (a), but cases (b) and (d) are important and should be included.

5. I bought Chessmaster 10th Edition in part because of the claim that graphics were improved from the previous version. But, the graphics are if anything inferior to the previous version.

6. The "quick hint" feature highlights the square to which the program advises that one move, but often two or more pieces could move so as to end on the highlighted square, in which case the hint is ambiguous.

[...]

In short, I'm very disappointed.

Anonymous

Stick with Chessmaster 9000

(Review From Amazon)

General Comments:
I upgraded from Chessmaster 9000 to Chessmaster 10 expecting better graphic and tutorials, although they tried unfortunately neither is realized.

The 3D Graphics in Chessmaster 10 are fuzzy and not even close to the sharpness of Chessmaster 9000. It is very annoying to look at the 3D set on a PC with a good graphics card and see red outlines and fuzzy graphics. This alone is enough of a reason to buy the less expensive and very functional Chessmaster 9000. The graphics upgrade was definitely a failure.

The new tutorials are wordy and possibly interesting to people who want to hear Josh Waitzkin of "Looking for Bobby Fisher" fame babble on about how great he is. I prefer the Chessmaster 9000 version.

I haven't tried it but the word seems to be that most folks can't get Online Play to work in Chessmaster 10.

The Chessmaster Series is an excellent tool for most of us, players rated under 2200, and highly recommended. But I'd recommend Chessmaster 9000 or 7000. These versions work just fine with the patches and are less expensive.

Anonymous

Worthless Crap

(Review From Amazon)

General Comments:
Bought this Chess game 3 disc set. Installs just fine, but will not play. Most useless 3 disc Chess set ever. McReady had a better chess game in " The Thing". It's not my XP computer, It's this peice of crap chess game that won't work.

Anonymous

I Don't Know

(Review From Amazon)

General Comments:
I order Chessmaster 10th Edition but I never revieved it so it can't write a review about it. You will have to tell me about Chessmaster 10th Edittion.