Author: Tony Schleizer
Date: 05:47:41 11/05/98
Go up one level in this thread
I bought CM6000 last weekend and am also very disappointed in certain aspects of it. First, let me say what I like. The ability to create a player (which has been around since CM3000) is nice. I have been playing around with various settings to see how the thing will play. Lots of fun. I also like the additional player personalities that they have added. The ratings range from around 250 to 2600. So, no matter what your level, you can find a personality which you can play an even game against and not get mauled tactically. The ratings seem to be suspect though b/c I have been able to play even against the 2200-2300 player personalities, and I am only rated 1750 USCF. However, the ratings were taken from computer-computer games so they are only ball park figures anyway. I also really like the Josh Waitzkin tutorials. Now, what I don't like. First, the "Practice and Opening" feature is less than worthless. The CM5000 went overboard with this feature b/c there were too many variations given within each opening. Thus, if I just wanted to practice the QGD, main line, I had to choose among a whole host of sub-variations of the main line. The CM6000 has gone the other way in that there are no lines. For example, I wanted to practice the Caro-Kann. I played e4 c6, d4 d5 and got a msg like "You have successfully completed the Caro-Kann Defense." Gee, that's helpful. I knew that much after playing chess for a week. To make it worse, the openings to choose from are odd stuff that you'll almost never encounter. I think that the Dunst Opening (1. Nc3) and a bunch of other strange things are among your choices, but the QGD is not. The second complaint that I have is with it's opening book. When you create a player, you have a choice of opening books to choose from, e.g. Kasparov will play with the Kasparov.obk. The problem is that you don't know what lines are in the opening books and the books don't seem to really fit the players personalities, and they seem to be fairly shallow. For example, I was playing White against the Lasker personality and the game went: e4 e5, f4 exf4, Nf3. At this point the Lasker personality went into a long think. So, it seems that Lasker was out of book at move 3 of the KGA? Finally, my third gripe. In the CM5500 I really liked the tutorials b/c they were informative and I could pick a specfic topic to review, e.g. isolated pawns. In the CM6000, I don't know if I like the tutorials b/c I cannot get to the information which I might find useful, b/c you cannot pick a specfic topic. You have to go thru all the tutorial or nothing and at the beginning of the tutorials there is a lot that I am not willing to sit thru. Tony
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