Rating: 
Summary: Good but not Great
Review: I have loved chessmaster since i first bought one. Prior to that i used Sargon. I finally upgraded to CM9000 and im not so much in love anymore, now more of in like. CM9000 has soome major flaws, it likes to hang up on you in the game room and if you are lucky you can get it to go again by pauseing and restarting. This was not an issue in previous releases and contrary to popular belief and ubi tech it will not be solved by installing thier patches. The online playing ability via the ubi site is hit and miss, usually miss. The only remedy is to create login after login in hopes of conencting, all those extras that didnt connect are a waste. Of course some people get lucky and make it in 3, others ive read at the ubi forums are on more than 30 logins and counting. One of the sell points is "true 3D game play" well its 3D but you are limited to whats in the game and Two others downloaded. Not a big gripe but would be nice to have more choices. Tech support is non existant, any real support comes from the forum members at ubi, not ubi itself. There are other little nags but they can for the most part be overlooked..like opponent maker really needs to have better options. If they did it like the Hoyle games software it would be outstanding. Although unlike some i really like the new and improved teaching areas. This in itself makes it a great purchase for the beginning to mid level student of chess. The final gripe its been 10 months since anything was done to even try to fix the bugs... will 2 more months make a difference? The world waits to see what will come first... bug fixes for the CM9000 or the rumored CM10K (which one has to wonder, if they dont admit to the bugs they have now will they even bother to fix them in a new version?) CM9000 Is still the best IMO user friendly interface and the engine is pretty good but if you can put up with the less user friendliness and a higher price, or you are a more experienced player ready to meet the challenge then I would suggest going with Fritz.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Win2K
Review: Beware!!! Supposedly runs on Windows, just not Windows 2000.After trying to install Chessmaster 9000, I checked out ubisoft's FAQ to find out they explicitly do not support Windows 2000. Why can't they call this out on the box? Okay, shame on me for not reading the box closely. When I bought Chessmaster 9000, I glanced at the box to make sure it supported "Windows". How on earth does a company with supposedly a great product not support Windows 2000 is amazing. So, now I am stuck with software I cannot use. Fritz runs well on Windows 2000 and is a great product.
Rating: 
Summary: EXCELLENT TUTOR
Review: If your searching for the perfect computer chess program, there isn't one. I own Chessmaster 9000 and Fritz 8, both are very nice computer chess programs, and both could learn from each other. If your looking for a tutor, Chessmaster 9000 rules! The multimedia approach for teaching chess is excellent for both kids and adults! I would have to give Chessmaster extra points for it's multimedia approach to game analysis as well. In addition, Chessmaster 9000 will analyze your game, just as well, in a fraction of the time, compared to Fritz 8. Both programs have an excellent game play interface, but I would have to rate Fritz slightly higher for it's 3D graphics, and 3D interface... Chessmaster still needs a little work in this area. However, I'll give Chessmaster extra points for user friendliness, it is much less complicated to use in comparison to Fritz, in my opinion. Where Fritz blows the competition away, is in it's online game play. If playing against a computer grows old, Fritz comes with a one year membership to playchess.com... if you want to play other people online with a nice chess program, Fritz 8 is the program for you! However, if your looking for a tutor to learn the game of chess, even if you know absolutely nothing, Chessmaster 9000 is the program for you!
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT family fun!
Review: We're learning to play chess as a family, so I really wanted software that could accommodate all of us (ages 5 to 36). Chessmaster 9000 has it all: the tutorials, the game room, the kid's room and tournament play. With over 150 opponents, you play with everyone from Stanley the Monkey (which really made us laugh...and a wee bit nervous about losing to a monkey) to the Chessmaster himself. We've only had this for 3 days and have been playing with it every chance we get. My daughters (ages 5 and 8) beg to play "just one more game," so I say that's a pretty good sign. :o) The graphics are cool, and you can change chessboards if you like, which is kind of fun. Oh, and move advice is offered throughout the game if you need it (great for the new chess player). I highly recommend this!!!
Rating:
Summary: Great Program
Review: Excellent software for learning chess and improving your skills. There are scores of simulated opponents ranging in skill from children to grandmasters. It feels like you're sitting down and playing a game with another person. This is a very good program. I've been playing it every night. Hey, there's a reason this series has been around so long.
Rating:
Summary: Keep looking
Review: This product is ok, but I rcommend Fritz. There are significant problems with both the interface and gameplay: INTERFACE PROBLEMS:
-Nonstandard window background (I hope you like fake woodgrain)
-No docking windows (dialogs floating everywhere)
-No ClearType support (ClearType makes text HOT pink) GAMEPLAY PROBLEMS:
-Takeback causes erratic play (serious flaw)
-Minimizing causes the thinking lines to be reset
-Computer never resigns Furthermore, UBI doesn't have plans to fix any of this before releasing ChessMaster 10000 (no free upgrade).
Rating:
Summary: Chessmaster
Review: I recently bought the Chessmaster 9000. The last program I had before it was the Chessmaster 2100. Let me say that I'm impressed. I'm a Class A player (1800-1999) and I enjoy this program. The Chessmaster is an extremely tough opponents. It even beat US Champion Larry Christiansen in a 6 game match. It's divided up into several sections..... Tournament Room:
You play "rated" games or hold mock tournaments. There at least 50-100 different "personalities" that you can play against... different "people" that prefer different openings or style of play. This can be interesting to play against different styles and different levels. The downside to this is that the poorer moves they make is not typical of how a poorer human would play. Typically, you might push a pawn to attack a piece and the computer progam of "1400 rating" may leave it hanging. A real player rated 1400 does not make such dumb obvious misses. The tournament is nice but after you play your game, you have to sit and watch all the other games. Boring. You can play in 2D or 3D. However, even after a patch installed, it still crashes when I switch to 2D mode, though the 3D is much better than in CM 2100. Game Room:
Allow you to play unofficial games against any personality or yourself. You can see what the Chessmaster is thinking the best line should be and what the "score" of the game is. Two of the better features are the "find the best move" and "analyze game." The "find the best move" will sit an analyze for a specified time, then play out the best sequence of moves, with audio, showing what the best line is. The "analyze game" spends a specified amount of time analyze a game and it will tell you what moves it agreed with, what moves you missed, if you missed a mate, etc. I use it to evaluate real games I have played in tournaments. It's almost like having a master go over your games with you. This is a very good tool. Classroom:
This is a great feature. You have many tutorials and drills for beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. These include annotated games, chess puzzles, finding mate, checking mating with given pieces and annotated games. Whatever level you are at, you can learn something from it. Then you have session called "Josh." Josh Waitzkin is a International Master and subject of the move "Searching for Bobby Fischer." Josh has audio sections of annotated games, endgame examples, and psychological aspect of competition. This is a nice section, because you can sit back, watch and learn. The pieces move, a human talks, and I've learned a bunch from it. It is more geared to intermediate-advanced players. I can sit back at watch instead of having a board and book and having to mull through variations... instead its played out for me. Library and Database:
The library and the database has a bunch of stored games and opening book for reference. I haven't spent much time here. This is 5 star program that almost gets a star knocked off for a couple bugs (It also crashes if you switch profiles.). With the program, the database, and the learning tools, all for $30, you can't go wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good For Chess
Review: I am really into chess, and the Chessmaster 9000 software is pretty good for a chess tutorial. My favorite features are the Josh Waitzken's audio tutorial with his recorded help. The features such as Blunder Alert and the game library with historical chess games are also helpful. Although Chessmaster 9000 is probably the best chess software, it gets old facing a computer player. The tutorial is helpful, but the best practice is to play against actual players, thus I would not reccomend this software. Play on the Internet on various sites instead, for free. Playing games is experience and the best way to improve chess skills.
Rating:
Summary: Great program for beginners
Review: I'm a beginner chess player and I found the tutorials and the drills really well done. Infact I find the whole "Classroom" section of Chessmaster 9000 really well done: it guides you from the very basics to advanced techniques with clear and interesting lesson, complete with "voice acting" which makes things even easier to follow. As far as the playing engine goes, I can't tell anything useful as I'm just a beginner, but I'm sure that it's more than enough to help any player to develop his playing from beginner level to advanced as he tries what learned in the lessons. The screen is a bit cramped at 1024*768 (though it's ok enough if you use small 2D boards) but it looks as it would look perfect at 1280x1024 (which sadly I can't try). All in all I find it an excellent beginners tool and to me the "Classroom" is worth the price of admission alone. A final note: though officialy "unsupported", it works fine on my Windows 2000 PC.
Rating:
Summary: Git you some chess learnin'
Review: I love this game. I took Majestic Chess (Sierra) back to the store and collected my well-earned refund and purchased this product. I haven't played chess since high school which was many, many years ago, and this game has renewed my interest. I don't know my ranking, but I would estimate it to be around -2, so I'm going through all the tutorials from the most simple and basic ones. If you are a beginner, you might find these big fun. After each brief lesson, there are lots of practice quizzes. If I had any criticism at all it would be that if you miss a move on the quiz, it doesn't tell you why your move is incorrect, it just lets you try something else. As far as all of the other features, I doubt that I'll be using them any time soon since I still get beaten by the beginner player in the Hoyle chess game from the Bicycle Board Games. My computer is a Toshiba laptop running XP Home. I have had no problems with Chessmaster locking up yet, and the screen resolution problem that Sierra products can't seem to overcome doesn't seem to be present here. I love this game.
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