Product Description

Josh Waitzkin, International Master and eight-time National Chess Champion, coaches players to grasp the basic fundamentals of chess and to master the game through exciting courses and tutorials taken directly from his groundbreaking book, The Art of Learning. Players can then practice their newly learned skills in single-player mode or challenge their friends to a fun-spirited competition in multiplayer mode via LAN or Internet. ESRB Rated E for Everyone

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #859 in Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Model: 68366
• Released on: 2007-10-30
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platform: Windows
• Dimensions: .40 pounds

Features

• Extensive course on the basics of chess taught by International Chess Master Josh Waitzkin
• Tutorials from Josh Waitzkin's groundbreaking book The Art of Learning
• Attacking Chess course commentary by Grandmaster Larry Christiansen
• 900 of chess's most important games presented and analyzed; single or multiplayer gameplay
• 600,000+ game database; coverage of all classic and modern opening variations

Customer Reviews

Overly Critical Reviews
At the time I am typing this there are two other poor reviews. This is nothing unusual for this product. People are regularly pointing out how it doesn't compare to professional grade products from Chessbase (like Fritz). Unfortunately for the multitudes of amateur chess players that are looking to improve, those reviews don't help you make an informed decision.

I coach a scholastic chess team, and the Chessmaster line is extremely good and highly recommended to any beginner to intermediate chess player, particularly parents of aspiring chess children. The tutorials are among the best you are going to find anywhere for learning the basics of the game. There are actual lessons, and lots of sample chess positions (puzzles) to hone your skills, as well as new content included in each new iteration (and yes, it does re-bundle the material from the previous versions).

Even if this product could not play chess at all, the lessons and tutorials are easily worth twice what this package costs. If you already have Chessmaster X then you have to decide for yourself the marginal value of the new content. I have gone through the first few new Waitzkin lessons, and they are well done and entertaining. The new chess sets modeled after House of Staunton are pretty good. The Parthenon set I have in real life is not captured in complete detail, but it is still pretty well done. Chessmaster's 3D engine is, hands down, the most functional of any chess product on the market by anyone.

This package runs well under Vista. There is already a patch out for it, so you will probably want to download and install that before you really play it much.

Chessmaster consistently gets low marks from hardened chess players because it lacks the high end analysis tools of the Chessbase products and has pretty pathetic online play. I don't find either of those to be an issue since most people don't need or want those analysis tools (the Chessbase ones have a pretty high learning curve) and if you want to play online, seriously anyway, there are Internet sites dedicated to that purpose that will always be better (like Internet Chess Club, or Playchess.com).

So, if you are interested in improving your chess skills this is a package that you cannot go wrong purchasing. If you are a chess professional with a desire to deeply evaluate scores of variations within a game to search for subtle nuances, then you already know this product isn't the right one for you and you don't need to write reviews that try to scare novices away from a product that is truly a great match for them.

Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition
After reviewing items for a few years on Amazon.com I've come to the conclusion that a helpful review should not simply express whether the reviewer likes or dislikes a product. The problem with Amazon.com reviews is that the vast majority are written by people who have decided that a product is the best thing in the world or by other people who think it's the worst. This results in tons of reviews with ratings at each extreme of the range, all of which are completely useless to the potential buyer because they don't aspire to any level of impartiality or critical thought. So, since I usually search for 3-star reviews in order to get an impartial assessment, I concluded that the only way to give a truly serious and helpful review was to give the product an overall score of three stars and try to fit my review to that rating.

In general, although there's not a great deal new in Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition there are some reasons to get this one rather than sticking with Chessmaster 10. For example, I actually find it a little better in terms of the screen layout than Chessmaster 10 and it has other advantages that are not revolutionary but which make the playing and learning experience quite a bit easier and more comfortable. The older version's interface was a bit clunky, probably due to the franchise having recently been taken over by a different company (Ubisoft), and I often found that the analysis windows would get in the way of the action on the board. I agree with some other reviewers that the latest Chessmaster is not a huge leap from the previous version, but having said that, its competitor (Fritz 11) is guilty of the same crime.

Some reviewers point to bugs in the game, but I haven't seen a single problem. The game plays perfectly on my PC with Windows XP. Perhaps the reason is that I bought the game after the patch became available and it was automatically downloaded before I started to play.

Getting down to specifics, the Chessmaster program is divided into three main areas: 'Learn', 'Play' and 'Fun'.

The 'Learn' section is almost exactly the same as I remember it was in Chessmaster 10. It might have a few more minor features but essentially it's the same, but then again it does what it does well so, as the saying goes, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

The 'Play' section is where I notice the most difference: even though the differences between this and the previous Chessmaster version are very subtle, what has been done results in an improved interface that makes gameplay much better. Chessmaster 10's interface used to be a little frustrating but this one is just fine and it lets me concentrate on the chess rather than on minor annoyances with the software. Having said that, one thing I really miss that is pretty much standard with other programs these days is dialog windows that retain the size and position you give them from one session to the next. Chessmaster has never had this and it's a real annoyance to have to reposition and resize every window and dialog box every single time I log into the game. It's ridiculous that this wasn't implemented five versions ago. This really bothers me - when will they get this right - Chessmaster 30 perhaps?

The 'Fun' section is basically a section for kids or people who are absolute beginners at chess. It teaches the very basics of the game and it has a kid-oriented board (with a Rayman Raving Rabbids' theme) that is designed for younger kids between maybe 4 and 6 who are new to the game. I don't remember if this section was a feature of Chessmaster 10 because my kid was not old enough to play and it wasn't something I, with a few years of chess experience, would have bothered with. Now she's going to pre-school and she's very interested in learning the game that she sees her mother and father playing in the evenings. We've found it very difficult to teach her the proper moves for the pieces and until we got Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition we were on the point of leaving it for another year until she could more easily understand the concepts. However, after seeing the Raving Rabbids set she totally wants to play and thanks to the computer she's actually forced to move pieces in the right way. She's also learning the concepts of threats and protecting pieces very quickly, so the results are amazing - in just a few days she's advanced from knowing virtually nothing about the game to the point where she's on the verge of being able to play the lowest level computer opponent unaided. The only problem with the 'Fun' section's board is that it only features one chess set - the Raving Rabbids set - and when using this set it's really hard to see any difference between the pieces: this leads to the player making very stupid blunders because it's so easy to be attacked by a knight that looks like a pawn. I guess after a while you might get used to the look of the pieces, but I would have liked to see a few different optional sets.

In terms of AI the major difference between the AI in Chessmaster and that of Fritz is in the way the AI is modelled. Fritz has a single opponent that adjusts its play level to the player's strengths (which I feel might make Fritz a little easier in terms of its learning curve) but Chessmaster features a set number of opponents, each one with a defined 'personality'. This makes them seem more 'human' but it can be frustrating because I often find that some opponents seem to play above their stated rating while some others play below their rating. This can lead to the player getting stuck below an AI opponent who seems unbeatable, which can end up in the player feeling that he can never get ahead and losing interest in the game. It can also result in the player seeking out higher-rated but lower-skilled opponents, which can lead to a player getting a higher rating than is realistic. I think this is potentially a recipe for disappointment when the player decides to play a live opponent, but on the other hand, playing real people is a lot different from playing a computer and no one should rely overmuch on a rating derived only from playing AI opponents, so maybe that criticism is a little harsh. I do wish, though, that Chessmaster had some sort of adaptive AI system like that of Fritz - as an option - so that players could choose which method they would prefer to use.

As for the chess engine itself, clearly Chessmaster is not as strong as Fritz, but the beginner to average player really won't notice the difference, and Chessmaster is so much more user-friendly than Fritz, with a nicer layout, more intuitive controls and it's tuned to meet the needs of the beginner in a way that (in my opinion) Fritz just isn't.

One thing that I do find lacking is more chess sets. I'd like to see a few more pre-Staunton sets and I find it incredible that there's only one chess set for young kids to learn the game. Surely Chessmaster could add some themed sets, some kid-friendly sets and some of the older European pre-Staunton, Middle-Eastern and Indian chess sets to the game - some of the older ones are incredibly beautiful and would work well in a computer chess program: many of the older sets were unweighted and somewhat top-heavy, so they were unsuited to live play, which is how the Staunton sets came into fashion due to their wide bases which could contain weights for added stability, but I feel that Staunton sets are a little less artistic because of this necessity of design.

In summary I find that Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition is worth the cost because an intuitive interface is essential to me. Others who don't consider the interface to be all that important may want to stick with Chessmaster 10. The chess engine is not as advanced as that of Fritz, but that's not necessarily a bad thing considering that Chessmaster is not really aimed at the advanced player. Chessmaster could do with a bit more flexibility in terms of AI opponents and I'd like to see a few more chess sets added - Staunton sets all look the same to me. But where I really find Chessmaster to excel is in the 'Fun' section of the game - for any parent who is hoping to teach a young child the basics of the game, the game disc is worth its weight in gold for this section alone.

For the beginner to the amateur player I'd say that this is the chess program to get. Intermediate and more advanced players might find that Fritz 11 is better-suited to them.

STILL THE BEST AMATEUR CHESS-SIM OUT THERE
Sure there are much more powerful chess-analysis software available (ChessBase's DEEP FRITZ VIII comes to mind), yet they are either much more expensive or sport features only professionals (or at least truly advanced players) would know how to use.

Not to be outdone at the gate, CHESSMASTER-GM EDITION features an exceptionally good teaching tool as well a human-simulation engine which is adaptable to various personalities. For any amateur-to-middle range chess-player, this is the most recommended series.

True, compared to CM-10, this edition is not that different - with the exception of some visuals and animated board options. I could not see a reason to upgrade if one already owns CM-10.

My advice: wait for after-Christmas sales - you will be able to pick this up for a song.