How to analyze games in chessmaster GM

Hi.

I'm a beginner of chess. I started to play chess 3 weeks ago. My rating in chess.com (standard) is around 1,200 with just a few games. 

I purchased chessmaster XI GM edition the other day. It's really fun, but I have some questions about the software. I hope anybody could help me.

I guess, though I'm a beginner, investigating past games must be pretty important to improve my skills. When we'd like to learn from famous games, maybe several explanation would be available in books, webs and so on. But when we'd like to learn from past games played by ourselves, what can we do in chessmaster? This is my question.

When we play `Ranked Play', we can see what was the worst move in a dialog after the game. Also a kind of graphic chart is available. We can save the game, load it in training mode, and use several useful functions such as Advice.

Meanwhile when we played in the other places (chess.com, anywhere, you can name it) and just have PGN, what can we do in chessmaster? We can load it in training mode. We can use `Advice' or some other functions. If we clearly recognize what movement was pretty bad, we can use such useful functions. But I guess it would be difficult to recognize what movement was really bad, and I'm wondering how we can do analysis for such things.

I checked past discussions in this forum. Some people say `just buy Fritz'. The other say `Scid'. But those opinions were pretty old one. So can I ask you this question again?

Thank you in advance.

I think Chessmaster is a good tool for practicing against, and it will give some natural language analysis that is helpful for the beginning player.  Go into training mode.  From chess.com, get your game as a PGN and open it in a text editor.  Select all and copy.  Now go back to chessmaster and select edit--->paste--->PGN.  Then after the game is loaded, go to mentor---->game analysis and enter the time per move for the analysis.  I would do a minimum of 20 seconds.  Once it is finished, you will be able to review the game and get natural language analysis.

Eventually you will find you want to be able to quickly review a game for blunders and focus on the key moves and chessmaster is not very efficient for that.  You will also want to use a stronger engine and a better/faster interface.  

The chessbase products are great and you can install any engine to them (like houdini, stockfish, and komodo).  ChessOK's Aquarium is also excellent and has some unique features, like IDEA, for very deep analysis....but most people prefer chessbase and that is the gold standard.  I have both.  I use chessbase 12 as my database and primary analysis tool to review my games, and I use Aquarium for studying opening variations in more depth.

But you can get some great programs for free.  Scid vs. PC is an excellent database and you can install the Stockfish chess engine.  Both free.

For all these alternatives, the engine analysis will just give you a numerical evaluation and you will need to work out why the candidate moves are better than others by playing through the lines suggested by the engine.

Not sure if that helps or not.  Short version I would keep using chessmaster as a sparring partner but at least get SCID and Stockfish for your database and to do more in depth (and faster) analysis of your games.  Chessmaster is pretty slow for analysis by comparison.

Mattchess,

Thank you for your kind and thorough explanation.

I understood that 1) chessmaster is not good at such analysis, 2) chessbase and Scid are good at it.

Because I'm a pretty beginner, I guess trying chessmaster is early for me. I'm reading the first chess book now

Meanwhile I think I should try Scid vs. PC. I didn't even know Scid vs. PC is a fork of Scid. I googled it just now. I had thought Scid is a database and I had thought database things are too early for me. But now I understand Scid vs. PC has a function of such analysis.

I have an additional question. You suggested I use `Game Analysis'. I tried to use this function several times, but I didn't feel it's useful. It showed, after some time, just some statistics such as Book Move, Leave Book, CMX Agrees and so on. I don't even know some of these words, or I don't know how I interprete it. I checked the manual of chessmaster, but I couldn't find how it is useful for me. 

I tried to use this function when games aren't over. In such case, the dialog shows some icons of pieces and give me some message, but I didn't feel it's useful neither.

Do I fail to recognize some important thing about this funcdtion?

Thank you.

When you let it analyze a completed game it will explain if you missed tactics or had better moves and then animate the sequence of moves after its suggested move and try to show why the move was better (gain material, etc.).  Make sure you have the annotation window open.  You can hit "play" on the annotation window to see animations and have CM speak the comments.

"Book" moves are moves that are considered good/best by theory - it refers to being out of an opening book.

I would go ahead and get Scid vs. PC and Stockfish - primarily to make it easier for you to create a database of your games.

There is a lot to learn about chess databases and engines.  Your best bet may be to do some looking around on youtube.  There are some good videos explaining features there.

Since it is pretty early for you I would not get too worried about all the features with the engines.  I would focus on two things right now:  (1) Look over your games to see if you played your openings correctly by comparing to book moves.  This is really a database function rather than an engine function.  Try to understand why the book moves are good.  Work on building an opening repertoire and get out of the opening with a decent position and (2) Do quick "blunder checks" with the engine to make sure you did not miss any threats or tactic opportunities.  You probably will get more bang for the buck spending time with something like tactics trainer to get better at spotting tactics than by doing a lot of engine analysis right now.  Use the engines to check for tactics you missed and use the database to make sure you are getting out of the opening OK.

Mattchess,

Thank you again.

After trying to use `Game Analysis' function several times, I found out just now that I can change turn in `Game Status' window. Now I understand chessmaster shows me how I should've done, how effective the move was and so on. It's great.

Meanwhile I understood two things you advised. Yes, those two things in Scid vs. PC must be very helpful for me. I'd try to learn Scid vs. PC.

Thank you so much.