Cheap Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition

Customer Ratings:

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.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

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.

Best Deals for Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition

Let me clarify: all of the Chessmaster products are well worth their price tags. This is largely because all of the Chessmaster products are nearly identical. The reason I would suggest that newcomers to the series purchase Chessmaster 9000 instead is that the changes made to the product in the recent versions have been aesthetic improvements at the cost of functionality and accessibility. Accordingly, this will be more of a comparison than a review.

But first. Why do I recommend the Chessmaster series?

The AI is strong enough, scalable enough, and variable enough to provide a reasonable challenge to any player. The databases of openings and annotated games are exhaustive, and the database of games without annotations is so large as to be absurd. The "Beginning" level tutorials from the "Chessmaster Series" academy are fantastic. They cover the rules as well as the basics of tactics and strategies. The organization is superb, and tests follow every lesson. The remaining tutorials are not as well organized. But even so, the product contains more knowledge than you'll ever be able to acquire.

(And I do mean "a reasonable challenge to ANY player," by the way. An older version of the Chessmaster engine defeated Grandmaster Larry Christiansen in a four game series. To point out that the engine is inferior to other engines is absurd. There isn't a consumer in the world who will find the AI insufficient.)

So why would I recommend "Chessmaster 9000" instead? You can make your own decision, really. Let me compare the products.

Pros of Chessmaster 11, as compared to Chessmaster 9000:

-Aesthetically pleasing. This is the biggest improvement. Great intro video, cool wallpapers assigned to each chess set, shiny GUI, generally pleasant to look at. Some animated chess sets, mostly from Chessmaster 10.

-New tutorials from Josh. These felt superfluous to me, but worth noting nonetheless.

-New tutorials from Larry Christiansen, added in version 10. Kind of cool, because he details his match against Chessmaster, but rather disorganized, and I doubt most customers will feel any need to peruse them.

Cons, versus 9000:

-Loss of accessibility. Whereas Chessmaster 9000 loads almost instantly, version 11 takes awhile, and plays an intro video every time. (You can modify the .ini file to disable the video, though). Then, the main menu screen does an animation before the icons pop up. Also, for some reason, you can't use the "set up position" option from within a practice game; you have to go back to the main menu first, unlike in 9000. Also, you have to go back to the main menu if you want to go to a different section of the program, whereas Chessmaster 9000 had an unobtrusive link bar along the side.

-The navigation icons don't have any words on them. When you mouse-over them and wait for second, an explanation pops up. You get the hang of the most important ones fairly quickly, but it would be a lot easier to just have them labeled.

-Loss of aesthetic customization. You can't mix and match chess sets/boards. A very minor issue.

-You have to "unlock" boards by winning games (or modifying the .ini file). Kind of silly.

Again, I think Chessmaster 11 is a solid product. I own it and, when just playing a game against the computer, prefer it because it looks so much cooler. My father, on the other hand, finds it confusing, and sticks with 9000.

On a parting note, I love using Chessmaster in conjunction with Chess books, instead of using a board. The algebraic notation window ensures you got the moves right.

Honest reviews on Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition

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.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition

A lot of people criticize Chessmaster for what it isn't. It isn't the strongest chess engine. Correct. That honor currently belongs to Rybka. It's database functions aren't industrial strength. Correct again. ChessBase and Chess Assistant beat it easily in this category. Chessmaster, however claims to have a very strong engine (absolutely true), perhaps the most convenient and capable way out there of playing against the engine at less than full strength (rated personalities), and excellent instructional material. It delivers on all of these and more at a very reasonable price.

Also, some say that there isn't much change from upgrade to upgrade. I don't have version 10, but I had used 9000 for quite awhile. It didn't work well on a newer computer, so I purchased the Grandmaster edition. Not only have I had no problems with the program, but I was also pleasantly surprised by the (IMHO) much cleaner interface and excellent chess sets. From 9000, at least, I found it a real step up.

I have the big database programs, and they are great for what they are. But for what Chessmaster is (at a fraction of the cost) it's pretty hard to beat.