If you want to teach your kids,you should consider perhaps buying a book.And there s no harm on having them practicing on a strong engine,they can learn much more from playing a strong engine rather than a lousy blundering one.
Best Chess Engine for Weak Players?
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Smartattack wrote:
If you want to teach your kids,you should consider perhaps buying a book.And there s no harm on having them practicing on a strong engine,they can learn much more from playing a strong engine rather than a lousy blundering one.
I'm sure you didnt mean it this way, but your implying the question I actually asked was foolish. And it wasnt, it was carefully considered. My kids are too young to slog through chess books -- one cant even read. And when I have time to teach them, I dont need a book to do it as I'm a Class A player, more then good enough to teach them for years to come. But sometimes they like to play on their own, or when I dont have time, and a computer opponent is good for that. With my kids, playing a strong chess engine and constantly losing would kill their interest. They are still at an age where learning for learning's sake isnt something they understand, they need to see victories against progressively higher rated computer opponents.
Sorry for the rant...we have all been guilty of imagining we know more then an OP. In this case, however, my original question was a good one.
Get Chessmaster 10. It is so awesome. I have it. It can satisfy from beginner to grandmaster, as there are many different computers to play. You can also get lessons from IM Josh Waitzkin and Larry Christiansen's annotated games.
There are computers from ELO 1 to grandmaster
Dec 7, 2009
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#6
Chessmaster has always been fun - nice graphics, funny features, etc.
Dec 7, 2009
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#7
Chessmaster is excellent for children and useful to kids and adults at all levels. It's engine playing full strength can give most Grandmasters a good game, despite its limited opening book. Its personalities represent a significant effort, more successful than most, to weaken a chess engine now that teaching a computer to play well has been mastered (fifteen years ago).
Once your kids get over 1500, get them Fritz so they have good quality database access for comparing their own games to master games. Chessmaster's database capabilities are disappointing.
i think Kasparov chessmate is more useful.
for playing games with a computer, the chessmaster series is by far the best. with all its playing styles it has on there. And there are even a few personalities on it that ppl who only know how to move the pieces can beat.
if they're interested in improving, the chess lessons in the program are worth more alone then what it cost to buy it.
Chess engine for kids? Chessmaster isn't so bad. It's probably your best choice for what you want. It isn't perfect... but the interface will be more appealing and intuitive to your kids than Fritz. And you can try to custom create some weak personalities -- I think you'll want to do that, and I don't think you'll get exactly what you're looking for, but I think you'll be able to create some opponents your kids will enjoy playing. It isn't perfect. If there's a good program for emulating weak human chess I'd like to know what it is.
@ "there are programs that play from ELO 1 to GM" -- Just because a program would be rated 1000 or whatever, it doens't mean it plays chess like a 1000 human. Imagine a program that plays full strength (say 2900+) for 15 moves, then it always sac's it's queen (or best available piece) on the nearest pawn, and then continues at full strength... -- if matched against a variety of human opponents it would rate much lower than 2900+ -- I dunno maybe 1900? But playing chess against it would feel NOTHING like playing a real 1900 opponent. There are chessmaster opponents who function much like this example by the way. It's not satisfying.
JG27Pyth wrote:
@ "there are programs that play from ELO 1 to GM" -- Just because a program would be rated 1000 or whatever, it doens't mean it plays chess like a 1000 human. Imagine a program that plays full strength (say 2900+) for 15 moves, then it always sac's it's queen (or best available piece) on the nearest pawn, and then continues at full strength... -- if matched against a variety of human opponents it would rate much lower than 2900+ -- I dunno maybe 1900? But playing chess against it would feel NOTHING like playing a real 1900 opponent. There are chessmaster opponents who function much like this example by the way. It's not satisfying.
Very true. Chessmaster will also teach your kids how to defend against early (unsound) attacks on the king well. At least at the lower levels, CM10 really seems to like sacs on f2 early in the opening.
Nevertheless, I'd still say it's a good choice for the reasons mentioned above (and at $10-$20 nowadays, even if it isn't very good, I'm sure you'll get your money's worth from it). The Waitzkin courses are also very helpful for learning chess.
Ruffian 1.1 is good for beginers....
Holy necromancy, Batman!
ArtNJ wrote:
Hey all, I have Fritz 8, but its too strong for my kids, you cant dial it down below 1300something. You can up the blunder factor, but then it plays incredibly oddly. I also hate how it resigns when my kids get up material and cant seem to turn that off.
I know Chessmaster 10 is cheap, but I read a bunch of bad reviews on Amazon and am wondering if there is something better.
Get shredder classic. It has a human factor in that it throws in some subtle mistakes but you don't know what they are so it is like playing a human. no other program has this feature. they either play strongly every move or weaklly every move depending on the handicap setting.
I remember the old Chessmaster for the PS2 (you can purchase a PC copy) had a digital monkey to play against...
some weak chess engines:
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/dwnldpage.html
both neg and micromax are good for beginners
http://www.vanheusden.com/pos/
https://code.google.com/p/ace-chess/
and, when your kids become better
http://www.nanochess.org/chess3.html#wb
just some recommendations from a noob
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from my point of view, lucas chess is good for kids, and arena (also free)
is good for adults
there's also this (press the big button when the game is over)
http://chess.plala.jp/chess_beta.html
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I have chessmaster 10 or something like that and it is very good with different levels of play. However you need to constantly have the disk in if you want to play. And my most recent computer doesn't even have a disk player anymore.
I don't know if the later editions of chessmaster require you to have the disk.
I checked out lucaschess and it seems very good for kids.
Hey all, I have Fritz 8, but its too strong for my kids, you cant dial it down below 1300something. You can up the blunder factor, but then it plays incredibly oddly. I also hate how it resigns when my kids get up material and cant seem to turn that off.
I know Chessmaster 10 is cheap, but I read a bunch of bad reviews on Amazon and am wondering if there is something better.