Rating: 
Summary: Excellent chess program!
Review: I'll start by saying I'm running XP on my machine, with a GeForce 4 64MB video card.Now, having said that - this is the program to get. I've had a few others, but none of them could touch CM. The last version I had was 5000, and the only reason I even upgraded was because it couldn't run on an XP machine. The tutorials are tight, and I really liked the different levels of opponents. Haven't had the opportunity to play the monkey yet, but just for laughs, I'll be looking to. On the other side of the coin, from what I've read, there are some opponents that beat some of the best players in the world. I'm a mid-beginner when it comes to chess (unrated), but am also a student of the game, and look forward to many hours of playing with this game! Note to the gamer from SF who complained that this doesn't run on Win2000 - Win2000 is not a gaming platform, as it's built on entirely different code from those of the Win9x variety. It's geared more toward business use, and towards network use. However, XP is the first step in bridging between these two platforms.
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: Be warned - do not buy unless
Review: Another buyer recently wrote in of problems with Chessmaster 9000 on his/her computer. I ordered it from Amazon but have not yet opened it, and intend to return it to get a refund. I called UBI Software (the maker) and was told that the CDRW I have on my 8 month old Dell 2400 Desktop would not run Chessmaster. You have to call UBI to find out. It might not even be due to the W part of RW. They claim that the problem is more general than Chessmaster, but the Dell people plead ignorance, and say their installed hardware is good. So, I might have general "game software" problems in the future, but I won't have it now with Chessmaster 9000. "Thanks" other guy.
Rating:
Summary: Good chess teacher, reservations about software
Review: Don't know how to play chess? Wish you could play better? Looking for an all-inclusive tutorial program, plenty of classic and well-annotated games, a monster chess engine, and hundreds of chess puzzles that will make you a better player? This game is for you. Looking for a perfect chess program with robust programming, good graphics and sound, and easy of use? That chess program hasn't been written. Hopefully we'll see that in Chessmaster 10K. The Chessmaster series is far and away the best chess software out there for people who are serious about learning chess. A lot of work went in to preparing this program to be just that. Unfortunatley not a lot of work went into the interface, which is horrible. The graphics could have been improved with minimal effort - the 3D boards are so horrendous they might as well not have been included. It is difficult to navigate from one section to another. The online feature is particularly poorly designed and basically useless - but there are so many free online services that I consider that irrelevant. Despite its flaws, this game is still the game to buy. If you are a novice and think playing this game's tutorials will make you a master - think again - but plenty of games against Chessmaster's excellent "personalities" of all levels will prepare you for serious play and certainly make you a better chess player. Chess players seeking to hone their skills will find this program incredibly useful, since the mentoring aspect and advanced strategy sections are complete and easy to understand. This is definitely a program to own if you are interested in chess. Those seriously concerned with sound and graphics may want to hold off until the next version, but if you intend to start playing chess now, click and buy this software now. At less than $40, it is an amazing value compared to expensive chess books.
Rating:
Summary: Review by Class A chess player
Review: As a class "A" chess player rated at 1850, I can say that chessmaster is probably the best chess program available if you are serious about chess and want to improve your game. If you are looking for better graphics, it doesn't have a whole lot to offer (in fact, it doesn't even have my favorite "bird's eye" view like CM 5000). However, there are so many tutorials on every aspect of chess that it is almost certain that you will come across something you didn't already know. One could easily spend a month going through all the tutorials and annotated games it has.
Also, the skill level has increased to being on par with the world champions (appx. 2800). If you are a novice chess player, then you probably won't notice the increase in skill level (it will whip you like all other chess programs), but if you are an advanced player, then you CERTAINLY will notice the difference. I could at least make CM 5000 work for its victory, but CM 9000 freakin' demolished me! It has improved my game significantly, and renewed my interest in the game.
Rating:
Summary: Delighted!
Review: I've had Chessmaster 9000 for about a month now and just love it. It's a challenging opponent, a wonderful tutor, and has all kinds of exciting features that will keep you engaged. It's helped improve my game significantly.
I noticed that some reviewers here love it while others cite all kinds of terrible problems with the program (in fact, I hesitated to buy the program after someone said it wouldn't run on any Dell PC with a CD-R or CD-RW drive, and that UBI customer support didn't care). I found this to be *completely* untrue. It installed on my Dell 2400 with my CD-RW drive without any problem at all and continues to work perfectly. I downloaded the v1.02 patch from the Chessmaster website and I have never experienced a program crash in Windows XP. Graphically, Chessmaster 9000 is simply fantastic... I have NO idea why a few people have said that it isn't. The bottom line, in my opinion: a terrific chess program that is definitely worth the $29.95 investment.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Game (Except for the feature I bought it for)
Review: I am an advanced-beginner (not quite intermediate). I bought this game so that I could play rated games against real players online. However, I cannot connect (even though I have DSL). The computer personalities are fun to play with, and the tutorials are awesome. Most of the features are really cool. The 3-D however is misleading. It is 3-D graphics, however there is no way to move the board around... so if that pawn is in front of your queen, it is really hard to see. Therefore, I use the 2-D boards most of the time. So.. great game, good tutorials, good game play. No Internet Connectivity, 3-D sucks, AND NO SUPPORT. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? NO ONLINE SUPPORT THAT COVERS CONNECTIVITY! NO EMAIL SUPPORT TO GET HELP! NO SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION OPTIONS!
Rating:
Summary: CM9K on WIN2K ...YES!!
Review: Absolutely no problemo on a Dell 530 workstation running Windows 2000! ... Quick observation - it's the best CM ever. The defaut settings are more appealing in the past - a lot more mix and match with the pieces and boards - although I still like the black and white metal with the black and white figurine sthe best. Rated games with winboard engines - that's cool. (You can use CM9K with over 200+ freely available WINBOARD chess engines - that's like having the ability to play over 200 different chess programs - all from within the CM9K GUI) The biggest ++++ - besides the world class engine with all the goodies and much larger tournament capability - IM Josh Waitzkin's "The Psychology of Competition" course. That is a top tier chess course that alone is worth MORE than the [money]. If you had to pay for a chess lecture that good - you would easily pay [much more money]. He's an excellent speaker and makes very good analogies and points regarding chess competition. Anybody who listens to the full course will play better in their next tournament IMO. This program will be a top seller and is a great stocking suffer for anybody interested in chess from the raw beginner to the master and above level I have never been a big fan of the CM series - but they started to win me over with CM8K - they hit a home run here. Congrats to the Cm9K team!
Rating:
Summary: Great tutor, lousy interface.
Review: The previous reviewer who called this an excellent tutorial with a chess program on the side nailed it best. The interactive teaching aids on this program are very helpful--even the chess puzzle you get on the login screen every time you fire the program up is fun, though at first I found it annoying. (You can skip it and just get to a game.) The database of games is terrific and Josh's annotated games are highly informative--it's fun to have a master sitting next to you, so to speak, explaining his every thought. But where the program falls short of other software on the market is in the GUI. Perhaps to appeal to as large a market as possible, the Chessmaster people have cluttered the screen with all sorts of meaningless (but "cool-looking") windows, graphics, sound effects, etc. Many of them can be cleaned up, but the fact remains it's hard to create a setup that displays much *meaningful* information during a game, and does it cleanly. I am running this on a 21" monitor and I still feel like my screen is cluttered and cramped every time I have this program up. Compared to the GUIs in the Chessbase software (Fritz, Hiarcs, Shredder, etc.), Chessmaster 9000, along with 8000, 7000, 6000 and so on, leaves a lot to be desired. The "analysis" feature is particularly ineffective, not because the engine is weak but because the graphic interface makes it hard to get a lot out of the analysis. The Chessbase programs analyze in English (or German if you wish) and print the results after the move, much like you read in a chess book. Chessmaster is "fancier," but less useful: it talks to you while animations of what it is saying zip around the board very rapidly, as in "The Chessmaster recommends Bishop to e5. You move your Bishop to e5. Black responds with Knight to a7. You counter with Queen to h1. Black responds with pawn to d6. You move your Rook to f1. Black responds with Bishop to G7. You move your Knight to c4. Black responds with pawn to a5. You move your king to f1. Black responds with Rook to e8. You move your queen to d2. Black reponds with..." And on it goes, while pieces whiz around the board. Then it's over and the original position reappears. When you think about it, that's not very helpful. Fritz less automatic, click through the moves yourself and read the text next to each move, is far more helpful, though less "cool." The engine is, of course, incredibly strong at the highest levels--don't listen to anyone who claims this isn't a "really good" chess engine as some people seem to think. At its highest settings I'm confident it can slaughter just about anyone reading this review unless you're a Grandmaster. And there are more than 100 "personalities" you can play against, which are just the engine with different parameters tweaked. These really do result in different-feeling games, however; you have the uncanny feeling you are playing a good cross section of players in a club. Virtual opponents range from Grandmaster caliber to small child just learning how to move pieces, so the game can educate everyone. This is also a great program even if you don't know how to play chess, for it can teach you. There's even a special "Kids Room" that caters to even the youngest players and would-be players, though, again, some of the graphics are annoying and the "kiddie" chess sets are virtually useless, in my opinion, and are probably just eye-candy for the back of the box. The major weakness is the GUI. If only the Chessmaster people would cut out the cutsey fonts, fancy (but distracting) backgrounds and colors and textures and sounds, and the many windows you need have open to get just a small amount of game info, this would be a great program. As it is, I can't recommend it over the comparably-priced Chessbase programs, unless you're far on the beginner side of the game and need tutoring more than anything else. [Note later: After playing this program more, and rereading this review, I have upped my rating from 3.5 to 4 stars. I still think the interface is lousy, but the virtues outweigh the limitations more than I originally indicated. The gallery of simulated opponents in particular is a great reason to get Chessmaster. I still recommend supplementing it with one of the Chessbase programs (Fritz, Hiarcs) for analysis, however.]
Rating: 
Summary: A good program that could be better
Review: Chessmaster 9000 has a lot of things going for it. To start with, the chess engine itself ("The King") is very strong, and on its highest setting, it will beat all but the very best players. It is quite flexible, and comes with hundreds of pre-set personalities that range from the lowliest novice to the juggernaut grandmaster. It also allows you to create custom personalities with a fair amount of detail, including their overall strength, preference for material or positional play, how they value the pieces with respect to one another, and so on. Your options for controlling the games are also quite sufficient, with plenty of different time controls available, and the ability to make the controls different for white and black. The best part of CM9000, though, is the wealth of tutorials and practice drills that are built into it, which cover an array of chess topics and will teach the beginning player a great deal. I especially enjoyed the material contributed by IM Josh Waitzkin, including a dozen of his games that he gives a full running commentary for, an endgame course illustrating strategies for how to use the different pieces to full advantage in the endgame, and a course on the psychology of competition which was very interesting even for someone like me, who's never played chess competitively. I have already learned a lot about chess theory from going through these tutorials, and I've not even been through half of them yet. CM9000's first weak point is the interface. Run the game at a low to medium resolution and the various windows will soon be taking up way too much valuable real estate on the screen. If you use a fixed view or 3D chess board, the Captured Pieces window is particularly offensive, taking a ludicrous amount of space to show the large piece graphics with plenty of space between them. There are so many improvements that could be made to the interface, and most of them would be extremely simple to implement. The graphics are not particularly good. There are numerous chess sets available, but many of the options are custom sets that take more time to get used to than they're worth, and even some of the more straightforward designs tend to blend into one another and wrench your eye when they're actually placed on the chessboard. The piece designs and textures could have been much better. Furthermore, the 3D view doesn't run very smoothly on older machines, even with 3D acceleration. This would be acceptable for a graphically complex game, but even a novice programmer should be able to display a 3D chessboard efficiently on a Pentium III-500. In the tutorial mode, using the fixed view boards, I've noticed the pieces sometimes scale strangely, getting smaller and then larger as they move. There are all kinds of little quirks like this. The bottom line is that while the game seems to have lots of graphical options, most of them are worthless. Stick with the simple 2D boards. Finally, the program has crashed on me way too often for comfort. It crashes sometimes when I switch from one room to another, particularly if I hadn't been to that room before. It crashes occasionally when I try to switch from 2D to 3D. Once in awhile it will crash at the end of a game analysis. This is very irritating. I am not using an unsupported OS or hardware, and I've installed the latest patch, so I don't know what the problem is. And that brings me to another point: non-support of Windows 2000. Other reviews say it does run on Win2K, but the fact that UbiSoft won't support it is absurd. Speaking from a game programmer's perspective, this should not be a big issue with a program like this one. It would have been nice to have some other modes of play available, since there are a ton of chess variants out there that are fun to play, but CM9000 doesn't support any of them. (You can play blindfold chess, but I have enough trouble memorizing a position, much less a whole bloody game!) I realize that this might introduce some difficulty in getting the chess engine to play the variants well, but I'd be happy just having the options there, even if the computer doesn't play them to full grandmaster standard. At least throw some of them in for online play against other humans. So, the bottom line: Chessmaster 9000 is a decent program, worth the price of admission for its tutorials alone, much less its strength of play, but it does have a number of flaws that stand in the way of it being a much better program.
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