Best Chess Software?

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Avatar of Ziryab

Chessmaster is no longer sold. Nor could it compete with Chessbase products after about 1998, although I continued to buy new versions into this century a couple of years.

Avatar of long_quach
Ziryab wrote:

Chessmaster is no longer sold. Nor could it compete with Chessbase products after about 1998, although I continued to buy new versions into this century a couple of years.

Chessmaster 3000 is free on emulation.

Free can compete with anything on price.

It was the most popular series.

Avatar of long_quach
long_quach wrote:
Ziryab wrote:

Chessmaster is no longer sold. Nor could it compete with Chessbase products after about 1998, although I continued to buy new versions into this century a couple of years.

Chessmaster 3000 is free on emulation.

Free can compete with anything on price.

It was the most popular series.

Hah, hah!

I am quite the philosopher.

Avatar of Ziryab
long_quach wrote:
Ziryab wrote:

Chessmaster is no longer sold. Nor could it compete with Chessbase products after about 1998, although I continued to buy new versions into this century a couple of years.

Chessmaster 3000 is free on emulation.

Free can compete with anything on price.

It was the most popular series.

“Free is often more expensive than it is worth.” Me (originally stated in reference to Free Internet Chess Server).

I had CM 3000 on my first Windows computer. Used it extensively.

The database is too small and cannot be expanded. The search methods are limited. The playing levels are clumsy. It is primitive software by any standard, except for its time (early 1990s).

Avatar of Lebowski_Plays_Chess
Most used = cheat bot
Avatar of DrumstickChippopotamus

CM 3000 is great, but even better is Chess Master Learning Edition, has great videos by IM Josh Waitzkin as well as other great teaching tools.

Avatar of Ziryab
DrumstickChippopotamus wrote:

CM 3000 is great, but even better is Chess Master Learning Edition, has great videos by IM Josh Waitzkin as well as other great teaching tools.

I had almost every version of Chessmaster starting with 2100. Later editions have instructive videos, but you can find better on YouTube and this site. Everything I wrote in this thread about the limitations of CM 3000 applies to all later versions. The last two were completely redesigned by gamers who have no knowledge about the nature of chess training. Mobility between different features of the software was destroyed. IIRC CM 9000 (it might have been 8000) was the last version before this destructive redesign.

Despite finding the software cumbersome, I used it extensively to play online and against Vlad, perhaps the most interesting of the weakened bots. That was 20 years ago. Eventually, the online option went away with no real loss to the chess world.

Avatar of long_quach

I use different chess programs, each does something the best.

Sargon IV to pick a random opening. Sargon IV is random, not weighted random like Chessmaster.

Chessmaster 3000 to spar with. You can turn off book openings. There are so many ways to tweak the levels and plys.

Extreme Chess (Fritz) for analysis. You can set a resolution. I set it to ¼ of a pawn. If a move is not better than ¼ of a pawn, I don't need to hear about it. It can tell you what to move and what not to move. I still don't know how it does it.

Chessmaster 6000 for Natural Language Advice. It is really good. It has human-like probabilistic, impressionistic way of speaking.

Chessmaster 8000 to import PGN.

I like CM 6000 way of mimicking a person taking his time. It already calculated the movie in 1 second but takes its merry time to simulate a person taking his time thinking.

Chessmaster 8000 is horrible to play with. It makes more random mistakes as the level moves down. Even I can program that.


There is no best. Each does something best.

Avatar of long_quach

Chinese chess.

Uncle Wang

Chessmaster 3000 is deterministic. You set up the personality and the plys.

You input your moves, the program with respond the same way, every time.


Uncle Wang is probabilistic.

Let's say choice A improves 0.5 a pawn. Choice B improves 0.3 a pawn.

It will roll a dice. 5/8 it will choose A, 3/8 of the time it will choose B.

You get a different game every time. Genius.

Avatar of long_quach
long_quach wrote:

Uncle Wang is probabilistic.

Let's say choice A improves 0.5 a pawn. Choice B improves 0.3 a pawn.

It will roll a dice. 5/8 it will choose A, 3/8 of the time it will choose B.

You get a different game every time. Genius.

This concept of probabilistic advantage and disadvantage was invented in Kriegsspiel. Your advantage is that you have more dices to roll, but that does not guarantee that you will automatically come out ahead.

Genius in conception of recreating real life advantages.

Avatar of Ziryab

Been using ChessBase 15 for 4-5 years. Thinking about upgrading to CB 17.
Anyone familiar with the differences care to weigh in? I understand they've made some changes to the file structure.

Avatar of Khnemu_Nehep

Battle Chess.
It's not great but i love the death animations haha

Avatar of Ziryab
Ziryab wrote:

Been using ChessBase 15 for 4-5 years. Thinking about upgrading to CB 17.
Anyone familiar with the differences care to weigh in? I understand they've made some changes to the file structure.

Upgraded to 17 two days ago. Some things are better. It is certainly faster. But, I miss the endgames key.

Avatar of NONE00007

Try Chessflare.com for create repertoire and visualize it on node tree

Avatar of Ziryab
Ziryab wrote:
Ziryab wrote:

Been using ChessBase 15 for 4-5 years. Thinking about upgrading to CB 17.
Anyone familiar with the differences care to weigh in? I understand they've made some changes to the file structure.

Upgraded to 17 two days ago. Some things are better. It is certainly faster. But, I miss the endgames key.

The endgames research option is terrific! I use it with more effectiveness than the old endgames key. Took some use to understand that ChessBase did, in fact, improve their software.

Don’t know about CB 18 and always avoid a new version for a year because they tend to be buggy. Same with new OS from Microsoft. Will need to accept Windows 11 soon.

Avatar of BoltChessApp

There are plenty of learning platforms like Chessable, but it’s equally important to test your knowledge by playing against stronger opponents. Even if you make mistakes, players at a similar level might not capitalize on them. On BoltChess, you can play against titled players anytime, anywhere: https://boltchess.com

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