Author: John Merlino
Date: 10:34:52 09/15/02
Go up one level in this thread
On September 15, 2002 at 03:44:56, Lawrence S. Tamarkin wrote: >Here's what I posted on the Chess Cafe: 433-3 I highly recommend the latest >version of ChessMaster - It combines almost every imaginable feature one could >want in a playing program, and includes many tutorials, some of which are >written by a ChessCafe columnist! It has at least 150 different historic and >custom made 'personalities', some of which are children players and beginners. > >Some of the key features of this program are listed on the chessmaster page, >www.chessmaster.com. > >The Ubi Soft company provides good customer support for this product, and is >quite responsive to user feedback, for new features in the next versions. > >I've never been disappointed in a ChessMaster program, which is updated about >once a year. The program is advanced enough for masters, yet comprehensive >enough for complete beginners and children. Also, the price is quite nice for >such a complete program. Larry S. Tamarkin [9-7-02] > >Since posting this comment, I have used some of the Waitzkin tutorials, and >tried the Rate your chess feature, as well as a few of Larry Evens and John Nunn >problems. The program is very rich in all these different tutorials, and is >very challenging for me as a USCF Life Master with a FIDE rating of 2184. > >I found it significantly better organized then previous versions of the same >program. I do reccomend the following improvements for the next version >though; Many thanks for your kind words and your wonderful post. To comment on some of your suggestions below: > >1: Make the 2d boards resizable using the drag & drop via the right mouse key. >(In fact, please make all windows resizable via draging). The True3D boards are all resizeable, via the mouse-wheel or the PgUp/PgDn keys. I suggest trying one of the "flat" 3D sets and rotating the board so that it is "2D". Almost all windows in the program are also resizeable, just like a typical window in any other Windows program. As far as I know, the only windows that are not resizeable are the Visual Thinking and the Shortcuts windows. >2: Make scrolling through the moves in a game possible with the right arrow key >in any envirement, including the tutorials (Use a switch to activiate it, if >this is an envirement where your normally not suppossed to do this - choosing to >scrol through moves here, being equivelent to ending the test). Good suggestions. Scrolling through moves in a game can be accomplished with CTRL+R (replay) and CTRL+T (takeback). However, there are no keyboard navigation equivalents for tutorials. We will try to add these ASAP. >3. Make all the moves of the Josh Waitkin games replayable via the right mouse >key, even though Josh only analysis some of his games at the critical moment. > >I really hate having to search the database seperately to see all the moves of >these games, & I'm not sure that they are always included in this database >either. Also, sometimes Josh refers to his opponent or himself playing a game >in this or that same line in an event - I'd really love it, if he would include >this game in the database, or better still, in a seperate 'Josh Waitkins >selected games' database - A possible new database for a future version! To the best of my knowledge, all of the Josh games that are in the Classroom are also in the Database. If you find any that aren't there, here's a little tip. The Josh games themselves are actually just CMG files with the extension removed. You can load these games in the Game Room with "File -> Load" (CTRL+L), navigate to "My Documents\Chessmaster 9000\Josh Games\Josh" and then select "All Files" in the "File of Type" control. You will then see all of the Josh games and you can load any of them. >The above being said, I really think that Josh Waitzkin has found a beautiful, >instructive & unique ninch as a chess commentater with these Chess Master >products - I've enjoyed his lectures more then any others, and I hope he >continues doing this for a long time to come! We do too! Many thanks again! jm
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.