Battling chessmaster

Hey everyone I've got Chessmaster 10th edition and there's something about it that I really don't understand: I can take on opponants up to Berry and then it gets REALLY difficult. On this site I've presently got a rating of about 1600 and its steadily rising. But it doesn't seem to matter how hard I try I can never really beat any foe better than Berry(rated 1064)! In the opening it's allright but sooner or later I always fall victim to some profound tactic. It is as though every personality above Berry immediately spots any misstake you make and exploit it mercilessly. And this sounds a bit crazy but I get the feeling that all personalities are actually very close to the Chessmaster personality in skill except that their strategical senses are a bit off.

Does anyone else know what I mean? Anyone have any ideas why this is? Please help me I've heard Chessmaster is supposed to be great for learning but all it does for me is kick my butt :(

 Oh and I should note that I HAVE in fact beat personalities above Berry but not in the sense that I usually "beat" other chess players. How I beat them is merely to push my pawns to the other side of the board and queen 'em while he demolishes the rest of my army or because my foe all of a sudden takes a pause from his totally dominating brilliancies and runs one of his pieces straight into pawns for me to capture etc. I have never ever won a game using tactics or dominated a foe strategically(he always finds a single diminute mistake and destroyes my whole game through it)

I also experienced this dilemna when I first got the game.  Personalities ALWAYS make the correct move, with a programmed mistake every X number of moves, and, as the ratings get higher, the programmed mistakes decrease and the depth of the personality, or the number of moves it looks ahead, increases. So, you might be rated 1600 here, but that is against a human player who may have had a bad day, may have been stressed and not thinking, or might not have clearly considered the position. 

The computer sees mistakes that humans may not see, so your chessmaster rating is not indicative of your rating at all.  The Chessmaster Program's personalities are not truly that rating, as there is no way to simulate game play at that level.  Take Raj, a 1031 player, he is able to see three moves ahead, and makes a mistake every 10 moves.  This is an estimation of what a player of 1031 strength would do.  But, Raj always makes the correct move within his three move depth and makes a programmed mistake every 10, which a normal 1031 would never do. The ratings are estimations of strength, and, because you are playing a computer and not a human, do not really indicate anything.  

Also, in response to your comment regarding the feeling that you are playing the chessmaster every time with a lack of strategical and tactical knowledge, you are.  The personalities are simply the Chessmaster with a limited depth and programmed mistakes.

The GMs on the program however, are simulated play based on their own respective games, so beware! 

What I meant was that every single personality (with a few exceptions) starting from Marius and up has a completely flawless sense of tactics(it is only their tactical sense that really separates them from the masters). Heck they can calculate 99 moves ahead! I know that depth will probably never be reached but it seems to me impossible of ever beating any personality using anything else than strategy since as you said he is essentially Chessmaster - just with a slightly lower 'selective search'-value, not that it matters that much when the computer gets to think for a couple of minutes!

It would be great if someone could post a game here where they actually checkmated or won a big material advantage against one of the personalities just to show that it is possible :) Like I said all my games that I've won are basically when I manage to queen my pawns and then start stripping away my opponents material until there is only the king left. I want to see a checkmate in the middlegame!

Regnskog, I have personally seen people beat the GM personalities.  Chessmaster is not a game of chess, attack and counter-attack, it is a game of defense, because the computer will eventually make a programmed mistake.  I personally have beaten up to 1600 personalities using this strategy.

I have also outmanuveured personalities up to 1200, simply because their depth was low, and they could not calculate the end of the Spanish (Ruy Lopez) opening.  It is possible, just play defensively and be ready to exploit their mistake.  The fact that this is not possible against an opponent is what made me go to chess.com.  One does not learn anything in Chessmaster except defense. 

My experience has been rather different than all of yours.  I starting playing with personalities in the 1000 area and am now playing those around 1400.  I regularly beat them.  I find that the opponents strategy is normally very weak and that they often make random moves that are outright blunders (hanging pieces is very common).  I do find their tactics to be decent but but not mistake proof (but then my tactics are rather poor).

Overall I have learned alot by going over the games using their analysis tool.  I wish that they would allow you to print out their analysis and would show more than one line.  I think that these are serious impediments when trying to use the program to improve your game.

I don't normally save my games but I will post the next one I play (and win!)