Compare Prices on Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition
Platform: WINDOWS XP/VISTA Publisher: FOCUS MULTIMEDIA Packaging: DVD STYLE BOX Rating: EVERYONE The world’s best program for beginners and advanced players. Learn from famous Champion Josh Waitzkin subject of the movie searching for Bobby FischerEnroll in The Art of LearningJosh s very own chess tutorial offering novice and advanced players the secrets to success on and off the board. Special New FeatureTen beautiful luxury chess sets from custom chess set designers House of Staunton. MultiplayerChallenge players over internet or LAN connection. Play rated and unrated games as well as simultaneous exhibitions join or create tournaments and ladders watch other matches and set up or take chess lessons. Chess TeachingExtensive course on the basics of chess taught by International Chess Master Josh Waitzkin. Plus attacking chess commentary by Grandmaster Larry Christiansen. System Requirements PC Operating System: Windows XP / VistaPC CPU Type and Speed: Pentium III 1.0 GHz or equivalentHard Drive Space (MB): 1GBMemory: 512MB (1GB on Windows Vista)Graphics: NVidia GeForce FX5200 or higher / ATI Radeon 9500 or higherAudio: Any sound cardMultiplayer: YesInternet: Required for online play
- Amazon Sales Rank: #882 in Video Games
- Brand: UBI Soft
- Model: 68366
- Released on: 2007-10-30
- ESRB Rating: Everyone
- Platform: Windows
- Dimensions: .45 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
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.
I love it.
I’m a 57 year old who learned the rules of chess as a child, but who never played a serious game of chess until a few months ago. I own Fritz 10 software as well as Chessmaster for the Nintendo DS Lite, and I own a few Fritz Trainer DVDs.
I love the Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition for the PC (which is the only version of Chessmaster for the PC I have ever owned and used, so I cannot compare it to previous versions). I had no problem at all installing it on my Sony Vaio laptop (model VGN-395E in case anyone wants to look up the specs here on Amazon or elsewhere on the web), and I have had no problem playing it without the DVD in the player once it was fully installed.
Chessmaster for the DS Lite does not compare to Chessmaster XI (Grandmaster Edition) for the PC, but it’s good enough for a portable chess playing program. (I also have Chessmaster for Game Boy Color, which is okay but is really too small for my aging eyes.) Compared to Fritz, Chessmaster XI is slow, i.e., opponents take much longer to make moves, but I find this to be both a plus and a minus such that they balance each other out. With Fritz I feel rushed by the fact that the opponent plays so fast, and although I sometimes feel impatient waiting for Chessmaster AI opponents to move (though I’ve not encountered any waiting I’d characterize as extremely long), I appreciate that I don’t feel rushed and have more time to think about my forthcoming moves.
I prefer the graphics of Chessmaster to the graphics of Fritz; graphically, and overall, I find Chessmaster far more user-friendly.
The lessons and tutorials by Josh Waitzkin and Larry Christiansen are quite good for someone at my level (which according to Chessmaster is around 1000, though I’m inclined to mistrust Elo ratings that have not been established via over-the-board games with human opponents), and I agree with those reviewers, such as D. Lester, who say that Chessmaster’s lessons and tutorials alone are worth the price (or twice the price) of the software. (I just ordered 2 Fritz Trainer DVDs – Attacking Chess Volumes 1 & 2 by Jacob Aagaard – which combined cost pennies under $40 and have a little over 6 hours of instruction, and that is a low price for Fritz Trainer DVDs, most of which retail for around $30 each.)
Chessmaster is obviously not right for all chess players, but it is just right for me given where I’m at with chess at the moment, and I doubt I’ll outgrow it anytime soon, if ever.
I think reviewer D. Lester says it well when at the end of his (I’m guessing that D. Lester is a he, my apologies if I guessed wrong) review he writes: “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 I thank those reviewers, such as Lester and Prometheus, whose thoughtful reviews of this product helped me decide to buy it (despite some discouraging reviews). I am very glad I did.
Update 2/20/10: This edition of Chessmaster works perfectly for me on a desktop running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
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.
aminogenesis tripeptinon
