I was thinking of purchasing it for my pc.  I was hoping to get some reviews from somebody who has bought it already. 

I have a copy. What do you want to know?

Likes:
Excellent lessons and tutorials.
'Human-like' sparring partners.
A fairly strong engine.

Dislikes:
The annotated games are barely annotated.
Auto-annotation is useless for intermediate players.

likesforests wrote: Likes:
Excellent lessons and tutorials.
'Human-like' sparring partners.
A fairly strong engine.

Dislikes:
The annotated games are barely annotated.
Auto-annotation is useless for intermediate players.

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Thanks for the comments.  Are there different difficulty levels of play against the computer?  Does it analyze different moves or positions for each game you play?

Are there different difficulty levels of play against the computer?
 

Yes, this is one of its strong points. CM has almost 200 "personalities" created by tweaking the engine's attributes. For example, George (1736 USCF) has a special opening book, overvalues knights, undervalues control of the center, prefers sound positions over complex tactical ones, and doesn't have access to endgame tablebases. The ratings for these personalities were calibrated (back in CM9000) from games against USCF-rated human opponents and range from 23 to 2947.

 

No other PC software matches this.

 

Does it analyze different moves or positions for each game you play?

 

There's a feature called auto-analysis that looks at your whole game and tries to explains what's going on. I think the feature is useless except for beginners just learning to spot hanging pawns, mates, pins, forks, and skewers... but  you can see a couple examples vs human annotation in another thread to decide for yourself.

 

For improving players there are two useful features:  mentor lines which shows what the very strong CM11 engine believes are the top five (or so) moves, and situation report which shows typical opening lines and stats for how successful opening moves are based on its game database. The annotation window also has separate places for computer analysis and human analysis. These features should be enough for many players.

 

Chessbase 9.0 ($150) and Chessbase Light ($70) have more advanced annotation capabilities, like the ability to track variations and insert arrows or colored squares, but they don't come with so many excellent tutorials and human-like sparring partners.

likesforests wrote:

Are there different difficulty levels of play against the computer?
 

Yes, this is one of its strong points. CM has almost 200 "personalities" created by tweaking the engine's attributes. For example, George (1736 USCF) has a special opening book, overvalues knights, undervalues control of the center, prefers sound positions over complex tactical ones, and doesn't have access to endgame tablebases. The ratings for these personalities were calibrated (back in CM9000) from games against USCF-rated human opponents and range from 23 to 2947.

 

No other PC software matches this.

 

Does it analyze different moves or positions for each game you play?

 

There's a feature called auto-analysis that looks at your whole game and tries to explains what's going on. I think the feature is useless except for beginners just learning to spot hanging pawns, mates, pins, forks, and skewers... but  you can see a couple examples vs human annotation in another thread to decide for yourself.

 

For improving players there are two useful features:  mentor lines which shows what the very strong CM11 engine believes are the top five (or so) moves, and situation report which shows typical opening lines and stats for how successful opening moves are based on its game database. These features should be fine for most intermediate players. The annotation window also has separate places for computer analysis and human analysis.

 

Chessbase 9.0 ($150) has more advanced annotation capabilities, like the ability to see many variations and insert arrows or colored squares, but it doesn't come with so many excellent tutorials and human-like sparring partners. 

Thank you very much likesforests.  I appreciate the insight.  I also enjoy your blogs and endgame tactics.

Glad I could help.

I bought CMXI and so far I would say that CMX is a better buy. I picked up CMX for about 10USD and I don not think the Grand Master edition is much of an improvement.

 Please note that I think CMX is an excellent product. Maybe I had too high expectations of the new release.

The ds version is week. the opponents even at the highest rating don't put up much of a fight.

What about the instructional help? I know the previous ones had instructons on tactics, have they improved and is there instructions on openings?

I echo skwirlguts' comments about the DS version, it really isn't very good at all. The PC version is the way to go.

The ds version is week.

 

Yeah, the DS version is much weaker and includes fewer features. Others have commented on its drawbacks here and here.

 

What about the instructional help? I know the previous ones had instructons on tactics, have they improved and is there instructions on openings?

 

The tactics, strategy, match the master, opening moves, psychology of chess, rate your endgame, attacking chess, christiansen vs cm9,  annotated games, endgame course, and psychology of competition tutorias appear to be about the same as in CM10. What's new is Waitzkin's Art of Learning which includes 7 lessons and 14 annotated games.

 

"Opening Moves by Bruce Pandolfini" teaches the opening principles and most common moves a player under 1200 USCF/FIDE or 1400 chess.com should be focusing on if they want to take their game to the next level. It seems to be the same as in CM9 and CM10.

 

There's no instruction on specific openings beyond the first few moves and a collection of master games. You will need to look elsewhere for that.

likeforests would you recomend CM GM if you already own CM10?

What I like best about CM10 is the lessons and tutorials.

well that's the best in CM11 as well, so if that's what you care about the most, you don't have to spend all the money on a new game in my opinion

Well, there are maybe 8 hours of new lessons from Josh Waitzkin. After watching his CM10 lessons, do you believe that's worth $40?

Fritz 11 is what i would prefer

likesforests wrote:

Well, there are maybe 8 hours of new lessons from Josh Waitzkin. After watching his CM10 lessons, do you believe that's worth $40?

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That Much?? I will have to take a closer look! I was rather pissed off when I bought "CM GM" becuase I thought the the improvements from CMX were rather slim. That amount of new lessons would put the software in a better position in my book.

I don't buy a piece of software since 2000...

 ..

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ups... :-( 

If you want details about the game. Try this official CM11 forum link:

 

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/frm/f/4221052685 

 

By the way if ever you buy the game and play online, my name there is fusoab.

As far as ive read(i don't have the program) Chessmaster XI is just a few new sets and some more training features on top of CMX. They should offer a cheap upgrade, whose with me on the upgrade thing?