I can by no means call myself a Chess expert, I'm more of a play-to-pass-time-now-and-then type. During my last vacation, it turned out that there was some time to pass now and then, an available chess board and willing opponents, which was enough to develop an infatuation with the sovereign king of games.

Enter Chessmaster. Back from the vacation, I was not ready to give up on my new love, and went to a game store to look for the appropriate product to alleviate my longing. Chessmaster 8000 looked very impressive judged by the covers, but I noticed the price and didn't like it at all - 335 marks (about $55 US) for a chess game! Gimme a break!

So, instead, conserving my money, I headed off to the section with the older, more affordable games, and found Chessmaster 5500, which, I thought, would do the job quite nicely, and the price was right too. Proud of my strength of will to be more sensible with my money, I headed home.

Two days after that I returned to the store to bleed my wallet to death; Chessmaster 5500 was brilliant, and worked as a devious appetiser. I had to have the newest version, no matter what the price.

The features

Chessmaster is truly the right choice for beginners, intermediate and advanced alike. The program is divided into seven different "rooms", each dedicated to a different aspect of game playing and learning experience. I'll concentrate on the rooms that I am best familiar with, and that have given me some wonderful chess experiences and insight.

The Game Room

The place for casual gaming, here you can play unrated games against the computer opponents of your choice - instead of some impersonal "beginner, intermediate, advanced" type opponents, the program offers simulated opponents that mimic the style of real living players, starting from the very beginner (making almost random moves) to a true chess grandmaster. Play against Kasparov or Fisher, if you think you're up to it - though of course a program like this can't quite attain their level of play, still, the simulated opponent is true to the style of playing of the person it is crafted to resemble. The opponents on offer each have a chess rating, by which you can determine which opponent provides just the right level of challenge for you.

Also, should you so desire, you can create your own opponent with great control over it's "personality" and game-play styles. Should you want to learn by watching, you can also pit computer opponents of your choice against each other.

A beautiful feature here is the annotation of games - you can ask the computer to analyse a game you have just played (or watched), and it will go through it move by move, offering advise and analysis in natural language. Very useful indeed! You can also copy games from other rooms here for analysis.

In the game room, you can open various windows that help you out during the game - the coach window, or the teacher window for example. Here you can also "cheat" by taking back moves or switching sides should you so desire.

In other words, the Game Room is great for practice - alone it would be a pretty nice chess game, but it's only a small fraction of what Chessmaster 8000 has to offer.

The Classroom

The Classroom consists of a variety of tutorials ranging from the teaching of the basic rules of chess to the coaching of advanced players.

You can test your chess skills on various aspects of the game, and Chessmaster will give you an idea of what your rating might be on each of the aspects - this is a great way to determine your own level of play, which is helpful in selecting challenging opponents within Chessmaster or in the real world.

There are chess drills to help you work on any aspect of the game you feel you need to work on, and brain-teasers for sharpening your eye for chess positions.

The most interesting part of this room is a selection of annotated games, where you can listen to the international master Josh Waitzkin go through a selected variety of chess games, explaining move by move what goes on inside the head of a grandmaster in a game. His commentary is quite entertaining and informative.

The Tournament Hall

Like the Game room, except without the aids, and without the cheat options. Based on the games you play here, the Chessmaster program will give you a rating - an initial rating is given to you first, which after 20 played rated games becomes a "real" rating. This will allow you to set up tournaments with selected computer opponents and take part in them yourself.


In addition to these features, there's a lot more Chessmaster 8000 offers - The Library, The Kids Room (as chess is a game good to start early), The Database Room, and finally The CMLIVE room ensure a chess experience like no other available on computer.

The live playing option allows you to connect to remote hosts and play games against people all over the world - the games played in this way will affect your rating, which the Chessmaster program keeps track of.


The Looks

The appearance of different rooms and the chess sets you play on are very customisable, you can select from a variety of backgrounds, 2-d or 3-d boards and a nice selection of pieces. There are boards shown from different angles too. Should you not find a board and angle you like from what is available, you can design your own. Chessmaster 8000 is a very good looking game.

I can sincerely recommend Chessmaster 8000 - what I have writen here is just to give you an idea of the huge variety of options the game offers you, and the tremendous quality and volume of content you get with this brilliant product. It's most definitely worth the cost, you'll get more out of it than you can imagine.


Recommended: Yes