Chessmaster 8000
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Chessmaster 8000
Updated on 08/27/01
Before I get down to details, I’d like to digress a little. I
receive quite a bit of mail from parents that are looking for a decent
program for their children. What I recommend for them is usually based
on the age of the child, and his/her seriousness about the game.
However, until this latest release of Chessmaster, I had not believed
that there was one program that would be a good match for most kids.
But I think that this one is. It’s got some simple tutorials,
which are reasonably well organized and easy to access, along with
some weakened computer opponents that play truly bad chess (i.e. miss
mate in one, hang pieces right and left, etc.). This is important,
because a lot of the other software out there is geared more for the
serious player. And your child may end up demoralized after a short
session with one of the heavy-duty programs.
Introduction
This latest Chessmaster represents a slight departure in philosophy
from previous versions. There have been efforts made to address both
the concerns of the hardcore chess software enthusiast, and the mass
market. In general, I think that the majority of people will be
pleased with this program. However, there are still a number of rough
edges and problems that I will discuss later in the review.
I think also that Chessmaster deserves a lot of credit for finally
taking an interest in users’ complaints and desires. They have
even gone so far as to appoint a sort of liaison to the computer chess
community. And I think there are already some positive results from
this. For instance, a number of pre-existing problems have been fixed,
and there are a large number of improvements to the program. I have
also not seen the usual huge volume of complaints on USENET.
Complaints posted on the Computer Chess Club bulletin board are
usually addressed promptly.
The first thing you’ll notice is that Chessmaster now has a menu
front-end of sorts. Normally, I’m not a big fan of this
approach, since it tends to get in the way after you’ve used the
program for a while. But, in this instance, I think the approach
works, and it will probably be of benefit to children and first time
users. Using the front end, you can decide whether you want to play or
study a game, run a tutorial, or play over the internet. It’s
all very straightforward.
People that use large fonts on their computer (and I am one) will
notice some problems displaying some dialog boxes. For instance, the
display of the internet play dialog box was corrupted on my PC
(whether this was a video driver or font problem, I have no idea). In
any case, this is something to watch for.
Now I’ll talk a bit about game play, the database, and tutorial
modules.
Game Play/Chess Engine
Previous owners of Chessmaster know that the program comes with a
number of handicap personalities that allow you to play a weakened
computer opponent. In this latest version, there are more of them, and
their ratings have been recalibrated. There are also more low-rated
players too. With this large variety of handicap opponents, I am
tempted to say that this is the best program to play against. But I
think that there is really no equivalent in Chessmaster to the
sparring settings of Fritz, and the Rebel club player setting.
There is also a new version of the Chessmaster engine. My subjective
opinion is that there is not a huge difference between the playing
style of the old and new versions. It’s also impossible for me
to say if the new version is any stronger than the old one (which was
stronger than most human players). And I really don’t think that
people should be too concerned about this. I think the new engine was
included mostly in response to those that wanted a little more for
their money when they upgrade.
The opening book editor has improved to the point where it is now
usable. You get a tree view of the book in addition to being able to
make moves on the board, and have them automatically added. You can
also import PGN games to make your own opening books (which I’ve
talked about before). Having this feature makes it easier to practice
openings with the program (and to create your own personalities). The
previous version of the opening book editor was almost totally
unusable. So this editor is a big improvement.
You can also use winboard engines within the program, which is quite a
big deal for computer chess enthusiasts. Because Chessmaster has so
many handicap opponents, I’m not sure that the casual user will
feel the need to make use of this feature, but it is nice to know that
it’s there nevertheless.
One more new feature is the ability to modify hash table settings for
any Chess engine that you use. By adjusting hash table settings, you
can control the playing strength of the program.
There is now an infinite analysis feature, although to get to it, you
need to enable the "thinking lines" window, and then click
on Chessmaster. Essentially, this gives you the ability to run the
Chessmaster engine in the background, while the current game is being
reviewed or played. It seems like this feature was added as an
afterthought, since it’s not intuitively obvious to access.
There are also additional check boxes for white and black on this
window, and it’s not explained what these boxes do.
I noticed that it’s not possible to copy the board position to
the clipboard as an EPD string. This is something that many other
leading program support (Chessbase, Chess Assistant, Fritz, Chess
Tiger). You can however, copy the PGN score of the current game to the
clipboard. Pasting positions and games is another matter. As long as
you are in the Chessmaster environment, pasting data works fine.
However, you cannot import PGN or EPD positions in via the windows
clipboard from another application.
As I mentioned in the introduction, you also have the ability to play
a game over the internet, with other Chessmaster users. However, users
of CMLive! on Mplayer should note that this feature has gone away;
IMHO, this is no great loss. It would be nice to see some sort of ICS
interface, which is the de facto standard now, but many people will be
happy with the ability to connect up to other users on the internet
(and via direct modem connection too).
The Database
The database is largely unchanged from Chessmaster 6000, which used a
windows version of Tascbase (although a very limited one). While not
feature packed, the database module does support things like searches
on position. Of course, a header search facility is also present as
well. I would recommend that you look at my review of Chessmaster 6000
if you want a little more information.
Furthermore, like Chessmaster 6000, you can store your games in a
Chessmaster database, but don’t expect the variations to be
stored also. This is a major failing, since most people that analyze
their own games will want this feature. So while there are some decent
database facilities, most people will want to use some other software
for game storage and analysis.
The Tutorials
The tutorial section provides a number of instructional positions and
games for the user to study and test him/her self with. The material
is organized by playing level, and it’s pretty easy to access
the material you’re looking for.
A very small random sample of the tutorials would seem to indicate a
number of omissions. For instance, I decided to look at one of the
"rate my play" games. The following position appeared on the
screen (question 33, Kramnik vs Karpov, 1999 Frankfurt Rapid):
r1b2k1r/4qppp/4p3/p2n4/B1n5/5N2/PB3PPP/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1
In this position, I wanted to play Qxd5. Chessmaster 8000 flagged this
as a mistake, and told me Bxg7 was the correct move. There was no
explanation of why Qxd5 was considered to be incorrect, and there
should have been (in fact, I think both moves are good). All told, I
spent perhaps 45 minutes going through the questions in this
particular tutorial, and I found this example after looking at the
position for less than a minute. So a reasonable inference to draw
here is that I would find other examples if I looked a bit longer.
What was even more bizarre was that someone seemed to do a half way
decent job of commenting on the opening phase of the game. So I can
only guess that there were multiple people responsible for this
section of the tutorials.
Now conversely, the Josh tutorials seem to be pretty good, and the
material on basic tactics and endgames is also ok. In fact, it’s
probably well suited to kids, with very nice spoken audio in
conjunction with the text explanations. There is also a collection of
problems from John Nunn that seem decent (that is, if you are into
composed positions). However, overall, the tutorial material is of
somewhat uneven quality.
Conclusion
This latest release of Chessmaster corrects a number of shortcomings
contained in previous versions, like the opening book editor, and the
somewhat strange menu structure. It also has a new chess playing
engine, which should make some people very happy. Since I wrote the
original review of this program earlier in the year, several patches
have been released, and all of the bugs that I mentioned before have
been fixed.
This is a decent program for kids. It’s easy to navigate, and
has a lot of shiny chrome to capture young minds. There are some
opponents that play truly bad chess, and I think anyone that knows the
rules of the game should be able to beat them. For those that are
stronger, there are also plenty of merciless opponents to play
against. The tutorial section of the program is a mixed bag. Beginners
will probably think some of the material is ok, but everyone should
probably stay away from the "rate my play" games.
If you are a club player, the program is probably worth getting for
the wide selection of handicap opponents, especially if you can get it
for little money. But for game analysis, you are better off with
Fritz, or a database program like ChessBase, ChessAssistant or
ChessAcademy.
Make sure you don't stop reading the review here. It turns out
that there will be two forms of copy protection for Chessmaster, so
read the next section.
Copy Protection
The first version of CM8000 (Version 1.0) did not require the CD to be
in the drive for you to use the program. however, there are now
several patches out, and they all require that the CD be in the drive.
So if you install one of these patches, or get a later version of
CM8000 on CD, then you will need to have the CD in your drive to run
the program. This is a problem for those of us that like to run other
CD-based software.
P.S. Please don't send me e-mail and ask me which version you are
getting, I really have no way of knowing.
