Chessmaster 10th Edition

Other products by UBI Soft

Product Features

• Chess teacher, mentor, and ultimate opponent with intuitive user interface
• Chessmaster Academy teaches the basics, plus a variety of simple strategies
• Animated chess sets; whimsical 3D sets; simple and efficient learning tools
• Full-featured online chess module; comprehensive chess engine
• Intermediate and advanced player options; for ages 6 and older

Product Details

• Our recommended age: 5 - 20 years
• Manufacturer recommended age: 0 months and up
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00023XXMM
• Item Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: August 10, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (147 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,409 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

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Product Description

Edition: Standard

From the Manufacturer
More than ever, Chessmaster 10th Edition delivers on its promise to make you a better chess player. The program will improve your game regardless of your level of experience. This landmark edition provides the largest upgrade ever to the features and graphics of the franchise. Whether you are new to chess or a tournament-level player, Chessmaster 10th Edition allows you to master history's greatest game.

Features:

• The new Chessmaster Academy: At the Academy, International Master Josh Waitzkin will personally walk players through the basics of chess, plus introduce a variety of simple strategies for dominating your opponent. The Academy also features the best attacking moves as taught by noted chess champion, Larry Christiansen.
• A totally revised interface: clean, clear, and easy to navigate, this all-new interface represents the biggest upgrade to the look and feel of Chessmaster in over seven years.
• Full-featured online chess module: more than just a place to play chess live with other players, Chessmaster online allows players to establish rankings, create tournaments, utilize teaching tools, and join a thriving chess community.
• More fun for the whole family: Features such as animated chess sets, a variety of whimsical 3D sets, and simple and efficient learning tools, makes chess more fun than ever. Younger players and chess beginners will appreciate the specialized section just for them. As players improve, the game suggests an appropriate AI opponent.
• A comprehensive chess engine: wise enough to teach an absolute beginner and powerful enough to defeat a grandmaster, experience the all-new edition of the King engine--the brains behind the best-selling brand in chess.
• Intermediate and advanced player options: seasoned chess players can test their skills against ranked AI opponents, set up tournaments and simultaneous exhibitions, and survey their performances using the new statistics system.

Product Description
ChessMaster 10th Edition is designed to improve your game, regardless of your level of experience. All-new feature upgrades and updated graphics make this a must-have for those who'd like to learn or master chess.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

138 of 141 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great tutorials, short on other useful features, August 25, 2004

By	hhnngg "hhnngg" (New York) - See all my reviews

Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

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

511 of 546 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy if you have clone software installed on your pc, September 5, 2004

By	Jens Kjaer - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This game refused to start on my pc. It stated that I had a CD\DVD emulation software on my pc and it had to be removed. Ubisoft copy protection is to blame. It looks for any clone software such as CloneCD, Alcohol 120%, Daemon Tools, etc., that use CD\DVD emulation. If it finds any it will not start the program even though you have the original Ubisoft cd in the drive. What they are doing is telling you what you can and cannot have on your own computer. After I found this out, I brought my Chessmaster 10 back to Best Buy. The computer tech geek there was so upset when I explained and showed him why there was a problem that he gave me a full refund despite a store policy of no refunds on open software. He said he had some of this same clone software on his own pc. As for me, Ubisoft has lost a customer. Never again will I buy their software.

620 of 689 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beware, August 12, 2004

By	Ben T. (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews

Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

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.

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