He then moves on to learning how to do forks, skewers and pins. The first lessons are fairly straightforward, where he walks you through how the pieces move.
Josh Waitzkin, the child prodigy who was the focus of the movie "Searching for Bobby Fisher", again provides excellent voice-overs to the vast learning tools, as well as giving real-life examples of how these lessons aided him in winning his World Championships. However, CM10k does continue the excellent learning tools that in my mind define the series. If the old version schooled you, the new one still will. While CM10K brings about yet another upgrade to King AI engine, only a Grandmaster is likely to notice the improvement.
Therefore, the brilliance to the ChessMaster series isn't how fast it can beat you, but in how great a job it does at teaching you how to play the game. As the old saying goes: Chess can take but a day to learn, but a lifetime to master.
Oh sure, the piece moves themselves are straightforward, but to understand what a fork, pin and skewer are to see a mate in 3 or more moves and to truly understand how to develop your pieces and control the board, well, now you are talking about the keys to the game. The only luck is that your opponent isn't skilled enough to capitalize on your mistakes while committing enough blunders for you to take advantage of.ĭespite its overall simplicity, Chess is a real bear to learn. Instead, Chess is all about you you either got it, or you don't. No random dice rolls to stymie your army's marches no crappy table to make your cue-ball take a 90-degree turn on its way to the 8-ball no clunky interface to get the hang of and last but not least, no quick-playing civilizations to rush you early in the game. The good news is, Chessmaster 10th Edition is a wonderful product that does an excellent job at continuing the series the bad news is, if the version of Chessmaster you already own runs great on your existing system, there may not be a big reason to upgrade.Ĭhess is one of my favorite games, mainly because there is no luck in the game. ChessMaster 10th Edition is the latest release in the seminal ChessMaster series – a series that seems to stretch back to the dawn of computer gaming - I have a vague memory of playing it on a Mac, of all things, back when the Mac still had a lion's share of the market.