Author: Elizabeth Schwartz
Date: 08:48:14 02/20/01
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I am enjoying it enormously. I am a beginner and it is *very* satisfying to play against a choice of personalities. With most chess programs, the only way to 'dumb them down' is to limit the time and depth of their move search. This makes them play very mechanical, passive chess - sort of like playing tennis against a mechanical serving machine. The Chessmaster personalities take risks, attempt attacks, hang pieces, and make dumb errors, just like a real 600- or 700-level player. I am probably a 700-level player myself and my games with the chessmaster personalities feel a lot like my online games with real human beginners. When I want to learn more, I play a 900-1100 level Chessmaster personality. At that level, the personality doesn't make dumb mistakes but I can still try out strategies. I haven't beaten it yet at that level but I've drawn a few times. My "goal" is to be able to beat the 1100 Josh-Waitzkin-age-6 personality. I am also enjoying the tutorials and some of the other features. I have been playing chess with my husband, who is in the 1500-1600 range and mops the floor with me, and he plays the same defense every time so far (French defense, he tells me) so I am studying some of the responses to this opening. Like the previous poster, it's not much value to me at this point to have a game with a superbly powerful engine or huge opening book or with very sophisticated controls - I'm just not there. I do wish the 3D graphics were easier to see - but after a while I got used to using a 2D board. I've also had some complaints about the tutorial interface but it is terrific that one of the developers is hanging out on this board and responding to questions.
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