Rating: 
Summary: Chessmaster is a powerful, useful engine
Review: I recommend that people who have purchased Fritz 8 check out
Chessmaster 9000. I have both programs, and I even have a few other chessbase programs like Shredder. I've played Chessmaster 9000 versus Fritz 8, Shredder 6, and Hiarcs, and Chessmaster won every time-- sometimes it crushed Fritz 8 in twenty moves. The amount of chess knowledge in Chessmaster 9000 is incredible. It would take a whole lifetime to review all of the games. The detailed analysis of games and the various workshops are great. I am surprised that so many reviewers claimed that Chessmaster 9000 is a weak engine. This is untrue-- even in the last world computer tournament, Chessmaster won (Chessmaster is called the King, so when you see the engine that won, look at the fact that none of the Chessbase engines performed as well). The best function so far is the hints that Chessmaster gives-- sometimes analyzing as far as twenty moves ahead, while Fritz only analyzes one move ahead. The downside about Chessmaster is a problem I have had with the windows-- they sometimes don't open right on my computer. Second, Chessmaster can be confusing because it is so elaborate. In this respect, Fritz 8 is much easier to use, even though it is a weaker chess engine. Any of these engines play at a level that most humans cannot even comprehend. I recommend that owners of Chessbase engines try out Chessmaster before they condemn this product-- both Fritz and Chessmaster are good products.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH
Review: The graphics are outstanding. Graphics is the only area that Chessmaster beats Fritz 8. Chessmaster needs less graphics and more database utilities, better analysis, and more teaching options. If you just want to play chess then you will like Chessmaster. If you want to not only play but also improve then you need more. For just 7$ more you can have the best program on the market today (Fritz).
Rating: 
Summary: Chessmaster 9000
Review: I bought this to improve my chessplaying. But in a couple of days I removed it from my PC. I find the chessboards included akward to look at. I recommend to chessplayers to try chessclub.com instead.
Rating: 
Summary: A really cool game!
Review: Just to let everyone know do not believe the reviews that say it doesn't work on Win2k i installed it and have been playing it just fine on my Win2k. Chessmaster9000 provides a stronger engine and has a database with basically 500,000 games! The toutorials are absolutely fantasic. My rating when i was 9 was 1350 USCF after a year of training with Chessmaster9000 I went from 1350 USCF to 1800 USCF although I would like to thank Fritz 8 and the authors of many books I have purchased as well. I hope my rating will improve with Chessmaster 10k and Fritz 9.
Rating:
Summary: Chessmaster 9000
Review: Classic ........ The board is tilted so that it is hard to make out the position of the pieces. The program is slow to load (on a very fast game-oriented PC, BTW), and very slow to close. About half the time it errors-out on closing. The program does a poor job remembering its setting, so each time I have to drag it to the desired screen. Then, on top of everything else, it is a resource hog.As far as the game goes, it is often difficult to grab the correct piece (due to the tilt of the board), and the drag function is ungainly. The pieces themselves were quite ugly and unimaginative. This program is reminiscent of playing chess on a 386 with 4MB of memory. Frankly, the chess game on my palm pilot is a superior and much more enjoyable program. Very disappointed. If you buy it, buy it used. You'll have no desire to keep this dog.
Rating:
Summary: Chessmaster has an opponent for YOU!
Review: Boy, the reviewers who gave this less than 4 stars must be pretty spoiled! I think my rating is about 1100, and this is the chess program I imagined was possible when I used to study chess (I think the last program I used was Chessmaster 3000 before my hiatus). The lessons are much better than I expected, and I love the incredible variety of opponents with various playing styles and ratings from 23 to "2761." At first I thought the pictures and bios of the opponents were a little silly, well I guess I still think that, but somehow it makes it more fun to have names and images of opponents in mind as you're trying to work your way up the rankings. Most chess programs only have difficulty levels that are too hard or too easy for someone near my rating. The opponents make varied moves that are sometimes as off-the-wall as playing a human. Many of the graphics and sound options are totally unnecessary (can anyone really play with those 3D pieces?), but it runs fine on my Windows XP desktop (1.5 GHz, 640 MB RAM).
Rating:
Summary: Good Chess, flawed XP compatibility
Review: This is the best Chess program bar none. However, the installer is not "multi-user" aware for XP. This means that my kids have to log in as me to run the program. An odd flaw for a great program.
Rating:
Summary: ChessMaster - OK But Many Bugs
Review: The ChessMaster 9000 is an OK game; However there are still
many bugs (esp on Win XP) which makes one lose any motivation to play. UBI Support is non-existent. Once you post a bug, you
will always receive a 'generic reply' within 48 hours. But they
then close the ticket and your 'bug' has now vanished.
I'm now looking for a more stable and challenging program
Rating:
Summary: Great for learn
Review: Great game. Teach you how to play. Excellent
Rating: 
Summary: I was quite dissapointed with the program itself...
Review: To start out the game is pretty good, there's all these features to explore, begginer training, online gaming, and libraries with opening references. However the chess is pretty [crummy]. First of all many computers have Intel graphics processors, or maybe not all but a lot of them do, whether it's 4 or 64 MB, the 3D graphics, however, do not always appease me they may look a lot like a real board but since I can't touch them I'd rather have flat screen, but the game crashes if you try to make it fixed view or 2D, my video card is only 4 MB anyway so the board looks pretty bad. That isn't really a huge issue though, I just think it should have been fixed by now. The computer AI is where I am most dissapointed, their gameplay is plain fake, and materialistic. I've played real masters and I could only survive for 25 moves at most. (not that I'm a bad player I just can't beat masters in 1v1 but I can draw them in simos). Now imagine I survived against Capablanca for 40 moves without any help! Well thats what happened on CM9K. I also feel a little insulted by the fact that Ubi decided to emulate some of the best players in history and not even give them their proper rating. I mean common we all know Capablanca is rated way higher than Josh Waitzkin, and than Karpov, Capablanca, Alekhine and a few other top players could beat this machine without even trying. The players it tries to emulate sometimes make pretty stupid moves just for the sake of their persona, and the players are severly overrated. Maybe the players actually did own those ratings, but the computer fails to play with style, I know a 1200 player is probably not great but I know that no human in his right mind would give up his knight because he lacks skill. I say all these things because I have seen a chess computer that is of the same price but plays a lot more like a human (Fritz). There're some good points to CM9K, you get excellent begginer to advanced training, and 12 audio annoted games by Josh Waitzkin they are guaranteed to boost your rating by 300 points if you listen and take note on what he says. Ubi online is free, another good point most chess servers are paid but this is FREE. I guess the verbal analysis and blunder alert are pretty useful too, I myself don't have much trouble reading long variations of moves with the 100ths of pawn advantages you gain in the end but many people would rather have the simple language analysis provided by CM9K with visual examples. And I guess the chess databse is pretty useful it has a lot of games it takes quite a bit of cash to buy all those games in some places. Overall the game has many features for the average gamer but fails to give you a decent human like opponent and crashes A LOT. On the bright side it has annoted game by an International master a huge database and a great chess coaching device, I think it serves well as a training and learning tool. I'd give it a five if ubi would just admit that the computer opponents are [crummy], but since this is considered a computer opponent in addition to teacher i give it a 3.
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