|  | From: Ubisoft
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $7.62
as of 11/24/2009 17:59 CST details
You Save: $12.37 (62%)
New (17) Used (14) from $5.44
Seller: GoGamer
Rating:  151 reviews
Sales Rank: 2380
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows XP
Genre: Board Games
ESRB: Everyone
Media: CD-ROM
Edition: Standard
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 98
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.3 x 1.5
MPN: 68194
ISBN: 0439799694
UPC: 008888681946
EAN: 9780439799690
ASIN: B00023XXMM
Release Date: August 10, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: PC IMPORT CD-ROM
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 21-25 of 151
 Great Tool For Aspiring Chess Greats September 5, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Chessmaster, in my opinion, is one of the tools needed to become a great chess player. I prefer this game because it has great lessons by an International Master. So it can be used by kids and adults alike. It also has a Fun Mode where you can learn the VERY basics without any pain.
One of the greater things about this is that it has so many opponents that it will always give you a challenge. Be warned that some of the opponents do not play in proportion to their rating. In Play/Training mode it readies you to face people to up your rating in Play/Rating mode. In this mode it's do or die. Basically if you win your rating goes up and if you lose it goes down. This game can help any type of player in some way. You will see your playing get better and better each time you play
Great tool to learn chess. August 9, 2007
Brandon J. Murray
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Chessmaster is a very useful tool if you are thinking of learning chess. The academy section makes learning chess fun and easy. It teaches you the basic movements and then it builds up and teaches you about pawn structure and strategy. Very useful exercises that will make you think, instead of making mechanical movements. My complaints are that I wish there were more endgame exercises. Also, it teaches one how to mate with rook and queen, but neglects to teach how to mate with two bishops and bishop and knight. It is difficult to mate with bishop and knight and it would have been a BIG plus if they had a section about that. Overall though this is a very good buy. You will learn a lot and it is not that expensive.
Good for playing, not so good for serious training May 26, 2007
M. Hamed (Baltimore, MD United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
It all depends on your level of playing and your seriousness about chess. For a beginner the many features it has are great to make you like the game. Training modes, Graphics, Tutor, Chess Academy, Different players of different strengths.
If you are more serious about chess however, Chess master alone may not be the solution, I would get Fritz as well. Not because of playing strength because I'm sure Chess Master is still a very strong chess engine, but Fritz seems to have features more geared toward Analysis and Training as well as the fact that its engine is definitely stronger.
The nice features about the product are:
1- Visually appealing
2- Training materials for beginners and various nice training options
3- Large database of games with position search (however the Internet makes this really not needed) and they are not annotated.
4- Chess puzzles
But what I personally like most are:
5- So many players of so many different levels and strengths specified by their ELO rating which Chess Master claims it is close to real and they got it from playing real human opponents.
6- You can hold tournaments between you and other computer players at your level
7- You level evolves as you play more and your accurate ranking is computed after 20 games.
8- The Price!!
Now what I don't like most about the program is:
1- Had to put the CD to play, until I learned about the patch that you can get from ubisoft or [...] Great annoyance has been solved and downloading the patch is nothing it's less than 4MB.
but the most personally annoying is:
2- Players at a low level do non-human like stupid blunders. You are in the middle of a strong game with threats here and there and then your opponent makes the most stupid (and disappointing) move that makes you win the easy way. I don't know if this happens per level or it's just the personality you play cuz that didn't happen with everyone. On the other hand Fritz has the "friend" mode which it claims it just plays weak moves not straight blunders.
3- The analysis feature is lacking. Fritz has more powerful analysis with variations and possibility to try different lines and play your own line in the middle of a position.
I have both products, Chess Master for playing, and Fritz for Analysis.
If you are a beginner or intermediate or even a strong player who wants to play from time to time then this is a good software. If you are serious about chess and care about game analysis and a strong engine to continue from certain positions, etc, then couple that with Fritz or get Fritz and play online. You will miss however all the bells and whistles and visually appealing features of Chess Master. Under $20, I would give it a try.
 CHESS MASTER May 13, 2007
J. Rosario
4 out of 11 found this review helpful
I WAS NOT ABLE TO USE IT WITH MY COMPUTER BECAUSE IT REQUIRES TOO MUCH MEMORY USE. YOU HAVE TO INSTALL 3 OR 4 C/D'S INTO YOUR COMPUTER. I HAVE A 2 G/B COMPUTER THAT I JUST GOT AND MORE THAN HALF OF MY MEMORY WAS USED BECAUSE OF THIS GAME. IT GAVE ME WARNING ABOUT THE MEMORY SO I UNINSTALLED. I AM GOING TO HAVE TO BUY EXTERNAL MEMORY FOR THIS ONE.
 Don't believe the ratings April 11, 2007
D. Diederichs (Waite Park, MN USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Chessmaster is one of those pieces of software that you probably are familiar with, it's been around for quite awhile, the engine is rated high enough to beat 99.9% of all users but you can pick from opponents that are closer to your own rating.
While I like Chessmaster I don't use it to play against, I use Chessmaster for the lessons by Larry Christiansen and Josh Waitzkin, both are accomplished players (Larry is a GM and Josh an IM) in the Chess world and you can pick up some pointers by watching their lessons, also included are chess puzzles by GM John Nunn, an endgame quiz by GM Larry Evans and Bruce Pandolfini filling in other areas.
For those wanting to practice their Openings, that's included although the program just touches on them.
There is a feature that allows you to play online chess against other Chessmaster users but when I tried there was only a handfull of players online, your much better off going with the Fritz software or sign up with ICC or FICS if your looking for online play.
It does have a significant database of chess games, there again your alot better off buying Chessbase as it contains just as many games and offers just a ton of additional features that are out of the scope of Chessmaster.
I highly recommend Chessmaster 10th Edition for those rated under 1700 as the lessons are worth the price for what you will get out of it.
Showing reviews 21-25 of 151
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