King Master III Chess

by Excalibur

Product Features

• Estimated rating of 1750
• Magnetic chess pieces
• Game-saving memory
• Storage compartment for your pieces
• 72 levels of chess, and 16 levels of checkers

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9 x 15 x 2.2 inches ; 2.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0042VIHMQ
• Item model number: XC5547BK
• Our recommended age: 8 years and up
• Manufacturer recommended age: 8 - 12 years
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,346 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Electronic Chess and Checkers.

Product Description

Double your fun with two games in one. Now you can enjoy an exciting game of chess or checkers in one electronic game. With an even larger interactive LCD display, over 72 levels of chess and 16 levels of checkers, King Arthur is challenging and entertaining for players of all strengths or you can match your skills against the game's computer chip. Excalibur's exclusive, five-step teaching mode helps anyone improve his or her game. Includes LCD window, piece-storage compartment, and magnetic sensory board.

Features:

• Estimated rating: 1750
• Magnetic chess pieces
• Save game in memory
• Piece-storage compartment

Requires 4 "AA" alkaline batteries (not included).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for learning and training, August 7, 2008

By 

MWin (Sweden, Stockholm) - See all my reviews

= Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

I bought the tabletop checkers and chess computer King Master III. In my judgement it plays chess at about 1500 Elo, but its checkers program is stronger. It's good training for the average checkers club player, I believe. In checkers, it makes only one theoretical move towards the centre, then it starts to think. One can always take back that move and make another, if one wants greater variety. One must allow it 15 seconds or more, I think. Strategically (in checkers) it has the usual tendency to conquer space on the flanks instead of the centre, so one can often get a positional advantage. But, of course, that doesn't mean that the game is won. But it tries to develop the single corner piece, which is good.

The checker pieces are quite easy to move by pressing them gently against the board. It functions finely. Also the chess pieces are attractive. The board only gives the moves in chess coordinates (there are no lights indicating the positions). When playing chess as black, one must turn the board. This places the move display upside-down, but it is readable anyway. One cannot play games with time control. Its knowledge of chess theory is scarce but big enough to create variety (Ruy Lopez, French, Russian defence, etc.). It doesn't know English opening or the Closed Sicilian, but plays well enough, except in certain open variants. In chess, it's too weak for the average club player. However, these tabletops are excellent for playing blindfold chess and blindfold checkers. One can play without pieces by just pressing the squares. As one can verify position, it's ideal for blindfold play. Then it becomes useful also to strong players. As the unit is cheap I think it's worth its price.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Checkers was the selling point for me., February 26, 2010

By 

Snuffy X (Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

= Durability:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Forget about the chess for a minute, this is the almost the only set that lets you play checkers against a computer with real pieces, so you can study what you're doing. Overall it's 10" by 12" could be rested on your lap but meant for a tabletop. 8" by 8" playing area, meaning 1" squares, 5/8" diameter magnetic checkers that are just right for the board but big enough to handle easily. Of course you get magnetic plastic chess pieces.
In addition to playing full games against the machine, you can set up any chess or checkers position, and play out the situation againt the computer. It's really good way to go over practice examples or chess puzzles from books. Of course checkers is so dead there are no instruction books anymore, but you can find some public domain works online that you can print out, search for "Checkers Made Easy" by Arthur Reisman, also try [...]
The chess program obviously isn't grand master level, but it plays fair and makes logical moves. Fine for a beginner up to intermediate, I guess. Another review on Amazon gives a rating number. It also has a fun and instructive "Training Mode" for chess where you play against the computer with just your kings and your pawns, to learn how to handle pawns with no distractions, then just kings, pawns and bishops, then kings, pawns and rooks, etc. Lets a student see the moves of each piece very clearly.
(Another review mentioned TROUBLE CASTLING, the trick might be that you have to MOVE THE KING FIRST, so the computer knows what you are doing. If you move the rook first, the computer thinks you only wanted to move the rook, end of turn.)
But, CHECKERS is the reason to have this, the checkers program plays well enough to have some fun and really learn how to play, not just push around the pieces like I did as a kid. Checkers is deep, it's not as complicated as chess, but that doesn't make it exactly easy. I can see some patterns in the way the checkers program works, so it ain't a master level program either, but it plays well enough to kick your butt if you don't know what you're doing. Out of the 7 possible opening moves for black, it always responds to 11-15 with 24-19, which means you gotta jump, then you get jumped, each side loses and piece, and then the computer starts really playing. To each of the other 6 openings, it always replies with 22-18, every time, no matter what level. But, you can get around this if you are really into checkers, by programming the starting position at two or 3 moves into the game, to study other opening situations, or just to get a better game started.

The good points are:
1. Let's you set up any game in progress or example postion, for you to play against the computer, or you can have the computer choose the moves for each side by prssing the "hint" button each time it's your turn, to "solve" a problem.
2. Special training setups for chess that teach how to handle each piece.
3. It plays CHECKERS, man, that's fun.

Other nice things, it lets you take back a move, it lets you play either black or white against the computer or have the computer play itself, it stores the current positions in memory when you turn it off. You can retrive that info from the memory in case the pieces have been disturbed. Mine still works after 3 years (a lot of time on a shelf, then sometimes used for a few weeks) Low drain on batteries.

Room for Improvement:
1. The checkers are black and red, red and white would be easier to see on the black squares. They won't change that, so I painted my black checkers white.
2. The squares are marked for chess co-ordinates (a1 through h8) but not with checker numbering, which is 1 through 32 on the black squares only. They ain't gonna change that either, so I wrote those numbers in on the squares with a fine tip silver paint marker.
3. On my unit the foam pad on the inside of the battery compartment cover did not press the 3 AAs in tightly enough, resulting in intermittent loss of when the batteries wiggled around. I fixed that by cutting a folded piece of paper towel to lay on top of the batteries and take up the slack, press the batteries into the holder a wee bit tighter.

I like this it's a lot of fun, an advanced chess player might want a more advanced program to play against, but but for anyone else you get a decent game of chess, PLUS the checkers. I got mine at one of the large chain toy stores, these things are all over, as Excalibur and also under "Einstein" and other brand names, maybe a different box, different brand name sticker on the unit, if it says checkers and chess and it's under [...], identical unit. I think mine was about [...] at toys are us, I'm sure it wasn't over [...].

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Husband loved it!!, March 3, 2010

By 

Paulette C. Wood (Tampa, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This was a father's day present for my husband. At first he said it was not suited for him. He thought it was for kids. But once he started moving up in levels he can't put it down. He uses it almost everyday and he is very pleased with it. It works fine but he would have loved if it was not battery operated. Even though the batteries last a long time he would have preferred a power cord. Other than that he loves this product especially the compartment to hold the chess pieces.