Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 17:20:36 01/22/03
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On January 22, 2003 at 18:14:45, William H Rogers wrote: >Does anyone know how stong the Chessmaster program is that was designed to run >on the Palms is. All of the advertising only states that it has 16 >personalities. >Thanks in advance >Bill In my opinion, the two best chess programs for the Palm are Chess Tiger and Chess Genius . Chess Tiger is the strongest, is bug free and you have the latest state-of-the-art chess engine. They have been numerous free upgrades since it's release. I actually beta tested the text version and I thought that was even great. The nice GUI makes it even nicer. Chess Genius is also strong, but maybe 100+ elo points weaker than Chess Tiger. I would estimate the latest Chess Tiger on the Palm at around 2200 USCF at tournament time controls on a fast 36-42 Mhz Palm . I believe the Chess Genius would come around 2050. Chess Genius is also bug free, clean interface with a slightly fewer options, bells and whistles than Tiger, Chess Genius's engine for the Palm is also historical as it is the same engine as the Mephisto Roma engine written by Richard Lang that won the Wolrd Championship in the late 80's. I clearly recommend both of thes products. ChessMaster for the Palm is the worst "Palm" software I ever purchased - including non chess programs and also many freeware programs. I have given up trying to play with it , although I did purchase it. Here's my list of complaints about Chessmaster for the Palm - none of them deal with strength - although I can tell this is not the latest engine and is about 300+ points weaker than Chess Tiger. #1 Non Standard Palm GUI - the normal Palm buttons and commands do NOT work as they should. It looks like they decided to the the Palm concept about "user-friendly" and "ease of use" the stand Palm commands andthrew them out the window. This includes the "up/down" key (it cyles through the board sizes as opposed to through the move list) and with an annoying "are you sure you want to exit" button when you switch to another app. I don't need my Palm checking my intentions. One reason why it does that of course and when you do - you lose the current game. Tiger and Genius keep the game in memory and you don't lose it when you switch. #2 No PGN import or export of chess games to your PC. This not very convenient if you want to check your game against your desktop Tiger program. #3. It's buggy. You never know when you might do soemthing and end up with 3/4's of your chessboard not visible. One does that happen, your' re done. I rarely have to use the Palm reset button, unless of course I'm running CHessmaster. By the way, when I ran it on the Palm emulator on the PC, there were so many non standard Palm things coded - the emulator choked. All in all, I thought it was an execellent concept that was executed poorly. After owning both Ipaq and the Palm for about two years - I have decided to keep the Ipaq and sell the Palm. The Ipaq syncs up better with my desktop at work for contacts and appointments and that is important to me. Thus, I am selling my "used" Palm Vx with Tiger, Chess Genius and Chessmaster with Car adapter, travel kit and cradle on eBay - the auction ends in two days. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2554&item=3107820045&rd=1 I will ship overseas - about $45 to UK and $35 to the rest of Europe - please confirm shipping before bidding if you're overseas. Michael Byrne
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