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| Chessmaster 10th Edition JC | 
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| From: Encore
Category: Video Games
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $7.71
You Save: $2.28 (23%)
New (16) from $7.71
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 1402
Format: Cd-rom
Platform: Windows Xp
ESRB: Everyone
Media: Video Game
Edition: Jewel Case
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: 15540
Model: 15540
UPC: 705381155409
EAN: 0705381155409
ASIN: B0011UEPB8
Release Date: January 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new Item. CD, DVD, Book, VHS more than 400 000 titles to choose from. ALL days Low Price !
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 7 | | NEXT » |
 Mediocre game from a company with bad tech support November 18, 2008
I recently purchase and installed Chessmaster 10th edition.
This game takes 1.6GB space on hard disk and requires keeping CD in the drive or it doesn't start. According to Ubisoft tech support, it only works for one account- administrator who installed the game.
Game has some obvious bugs, such as pop up windows sometimes stay on top of chess board and you can't see the game. Tech support said this issue may have been solved in their updates, but problem is that updating doesn't work and I was unable to resolve the issue with Ubisoft tech support. Their help is laughable: Update drivers, defragment disk, empty windows Temp directory, and empty recycle bin. None of that had any affect on updates.
Buyer be ware.
Chessmaster 10th Edition JC
 media quality is suspect October 13, 2008
I have really benefitted from the instructional materials in Chessmaster 8000, but it is very unstable on Windows XP. So I was very eager to give this 10th Edition a try, now that the price is so low. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked for me. My 6-year-old laptop could not read disc 3 during the installation, so I obtained another copy. This time, two of the three discs were unreadable. My laptop reads other discs just fine, and my other computer (a hefty mid-tower desktop machine) seems to read Chessmaster 10th Edition OK. I guess I can't entirely rule out a problem with my laptop's drive. However, looking at the software CDs, I suspect that Ubisoft has been using very low quality discs. They contain a lot of speckling, scratches, and other surface defects which can be felt with my finger. My laptop's DVD+RW drive might not be the best at handling these things compared with what's in my desktop computer, but it seems clear to me that something's wrong with these discs - not the drive.
Since I want this primarily for my laptop, I'm going to try to return this software again. I don't think getting this to work is worth a hardware upgrade. Perhaps I'll try the next edition instead.
 great chess game September 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the classic Chess tutorial and adversary - and this edition does not disappoint. Intuitive interface is easy to navigate, tutorials bring a player of any level up to speed, the sophisticated adjustable skill rating for the computer opponent is great, the advanced attacking tutorials are useful, the puzzles are good breaks for work/studying. Overall an amazing value for just ten dollars. Buy if you want to improve your chessgame or if you want a new challenge.
 Game is great, packaging is misleading. August 3, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
First, this is not a review of the game, just the packaging and contents. This "JC", or jewel case version, shows on the cover that it contains a DVD Rom and requires only 120MB of hard drive space. The package actually contained 3 CDs, the install routine copied about 1.6 GB worth of files onto the hard drive it and requires the CD to be inserted to play. This wouldn't have been a showstopper if it had been stated in the product description, but you may wish to look for a package with the DVD.
Not completely compatible with Vista July 31, 2008
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
The real question for most chess players looking for some chess software is whether to buy Chessmaster or Fritz (or Fritz's Shredder). I have used both for many years. I actually go back to the days of Chessmaster 2100, which had the playing strength of perhaps a subclass F player, if such a player existed.
For the average player the conventional wisdom has always been that Chessmaster is better because it has more training features and is more user friendly, both in terms of "fun" kinds of chess activities and in terms of how intuitive the software is to navigate. Fritz clearly has been the choice of professionals, partly because it will run without the disc in the drive (although earlier versions of Chessmaster did run without the disc in the drive), partly because Fritz's architecture is considered more elegant, partly because Fritz has a much bigger database of games, and finally because Fritz's chess engine is stronger.
Chessmaster's "personalities" (with ratings) that you can play against have always been one of its most popular features. Chessmaster 10 has the same personalities, from grandmaster-like virtuals to everyday kind of people (complete with mug shots) playing at easy to beat levels, that it has had in previous editions. The problem with these personalities--or maybe this is their main virtue--is they are not as strong as the ratings that Chessmaster gives them. A 2100 Chessmaster personality actually plays like a low B player, while on Fritz it is the other way around, with their 1800 players playing like experts or in some positions like masters. Psychologically speaking, I think Chessmaster has the right approach. For someone preparing for their first tournament against rated players, however, just playing against Chessmaster's personalities can be like living in lollypop land. Still, these personalities have some real value as training devices. Some of them (with ratings between say, 1900 and 2150) function like this: they give away material, even as much as a piece for two pawns and then play a very strong game that can test the user's ability to "win a won game." Stronger personalities will lose a tempo or make an antipositional move or two that can, with careful play, be exploited.
One of the personalities is "Josh age 12, Attacker, loves endgame, weaker positionally." This would be IM Josh Waitzkin as a preteen, complete with actual photo of him then. I played against this personality a few times and "he" can make some strange moves and still manage to have a good game, and you need to watch out for traps. "He" can also stir up an attack out of seemingly nowhere. But his endgame is not very good. The real Josh Waitzkin at age 12 would have no trouble beating this personality in a match.
Chessmaster 10 does not automatically save your game, as Fritz does, and I must repeat, you have to have the DVD in the drive to play the game. Both of these "unfeatures" are annoying. Additionally, Chessmaster 10, despite offering three patches at its Web Site, is still in not completely compatible with Windows Vista--at least not on my computer. The line at the bottom of the page that gives the opening is so narrow so that the words and numbers don't quite fit. The same problem exists with the text in some of the windows. The program crashes on occasion for no apparent reason. And there are a number of little bugs, such as once I set up the 2D chess set, I couldn't get back to a screen that will allow me to change to a 3D set.
Still, the program is very much worthwhile, especially for those of you who remember Zarkov and Chessmaster 3000, etc. Today's Chessmaster engine is easily strong enough for all but the very best players in the world. Chessmaster 10 will analyze your games to any degree you like (and alas find all the errors you made that you didn't think you made), and unlike Fritz it makes it easy to either load your game or to record the game using the human vs. human playing set up. (Go to "Game set up" and click on both human avatars.)
Like Fritz, Chessmaster has an Internet play feature that I haven't used.
So--which is better, Chessmaster or Fritz? You know the answer--it depends! Personally I like them both for different reasons. But if I had to choose just one, I would choose Fritz because (1) the huge database, and (2) to say it for the third time: you don't have to have the DVD in the drive to play. For the less than master level player Chessmaster may be the better choice because the software is easier to navigate and more intuitive. Chessmaster 10 is also cheaper than Fritz Chess (which is the same as Fritz 10).
But should you upgrade if you already own a previous version of Chessmaster? Alas, probably yes, since earlier versions (or at least the Chessmaster 8 that I have) are not compatible with Vista at all. Even so, I am disappointed that Chessmaster 10 is virtually the same program as far as features go as Chessmaster 8. It feels like a dying program that has been abandoned by its creators. Too bad. At one time it was the best.
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