I would go with Chessmaster 10 or 11. Great program, easy interface, analysis of games, leassons in the academy section are fantastic help. Overall good program in my opinion.
best chess program?
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KnightNotHorse wrote:
I was at Best Buy a few days ago and was thrilled to learn that Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition is down to $20! See the link here.
My apologies. Which is the preferrable program between CM Grandmaster Edition and CM 10th Edition?
RedCell, the Grandmaster Edition (version 11) includes everything version 10 does plus several extra hours of tutorials by IM Josh Waitzkin, and only costs $10 more.
I'd say if you're interested in learning, just getting a diamond membership here that comes with chess mentor is one of the best options. I didn't like chessmaster, and fritz was okay. They're fun to play against sometimes but it's not as instructive as the tools on this website.
very nice chess-game is War Chess!
CM 10th edition
Chessmaster 11 is your best bet at this stage.
diskamyl wrote:
I'm only a novice player, but believe me, I've got experience about all three options you mention, you can take my word for this:
if you're going to get Rybka with the GUI (that is, not the UCI engine only), don't bother getting Fritz 10. They are practically the same category, only Rybka 3 UCI engine being a lot stronger than Fritz, and actually it's GUI comes with small improvements to Fritz's GUI. (you can think of engine-UCI as a car engine, and the GUI as the body of a car).
So if you are looking for a program with training features, Chessmaster is simply the best you can find. It has endless hours of tutorials from an excellent teacher, Josh Waitzkin, who will take you from the very beginner level, and if you get serious about it, it will take your hand and move you to the next level. Chessmaster was the single best thing that happened to me when I was a beginner.
Fritz is never a good choice for training purposes only, it's only a great tool (but an inferior one to Rybka) for serious game analysis.
I second this opinion. This sums it up well.
how could anybody possibly say that in pure engine terms chessmaster (which uses the king engine) is better than fritz. solely in terms of engine strength fritz is far stronger. but if strength is what you are after then both are tame compared to rybka 3. but why buy fritz, 10 or 11 when rybka 2.2 is a free download, as is the arena GUI. unless you want it for serious top end correspondence play etc., when rybka 3 must be your choice, then rybka 2.2 is all the strength you will ever need at your level. as for josh waitzkin, hes only an IM, and even in US way way down on your chess player rating list. maybe they made a film about the guy, but it was corny, inaccurate and bad. no, unfortunately he doesnt have it! and since when was hollywood a hotbed of chess?
what it like for all of you being 20y old+ virgins?
tylerkhandixon wrote:
what it like for all of you being 20y old+ virgins?
I really like Chessmaster 11, aka Chessmaster Grandmaster edition, and highly recommend it. You can download it directly from Ubisoft's website for $20. The download consists of several 700 MB files (3+GB total), so it will take a while to download. But, it's still faster than waiting on shipping from Amazon.com.
The only thing is that if you download it and the program later gets corrupted on your computer, you have to buy it again since they don't give you the disks to load it from. However, I solved this problem by putting the installation files on a 4 GB flash drive.
And yes, the courses in the program are excellent. Right now I'm studying different openings, and when I'm done with that I plan to go through the courses past the beginning stage. And the good thing about it is that my wife can learn how to play at her own pace.
tylerkhandixon wrote:
what it like for all of you being 20y old+ virgins?
I don't know, why don't you ask my wife?
00Selbym wrote:
TheChessGod wrote:
00Selbym wrote:
I would advise, chessmaster:grandmaster edition, its EXCELLANT!, its taught by Joshua Watzkin(i think thats his name lol), the american grandmaster
Josh Waitzkin is an IM not a GM. As for chess engines I recommend Chessmaster over Fritz.
Are you sure, because in the film 'searfching for bobby fischer' his teacher gives him the certificate of grandmaster. If im wrong, then i apologize.
Matthew
His teacher gives him the title honorarily; as an inspiration - it's not an actual award. He just gave it to him so he'd believe in himself.
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I would pick Fritz 12, if for only because the engine supplied with with Chessmaster is bad in comparison. And as for the videos on Chessmaster, Fritz comes with 1 year premium membership on playchess.com, and on the server they have thousands of videos in their archives.
Don't forget that Chessmaster 11 can only be installed 3 times. I had a couple of cheap used computers die on me and so reinstalled CM last week on my latest purchase. For some reason it didn't give me a desktop shortcut so I deleted it and tried to reinstall it. After about half an hour trying to figure out what was going on, I remembered the 3 install controversy in the reviews when it first came out. I still have CM 10 so no real problem, but still very annoying. Just a word to the wise from someone who obviously isn't.....
Depends on just how good you need it to be, but yes. You also need the multi-threaded versions of the engines so that they use the multiple cores. Chessbase refer to these as "Deep" Fritz, etc.
Of course, a better PC doesn't just increase the engine's playing strength, which may or may not matter to you, but will also reduce the time taken for it to analyse games.
Being a beginner I am happy with my old & slow PC. It thrashes me at chess, but it's no match at kick boxing
Matthew, in real life at least, he never achieved the rank of grandmaster.
http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2005158