Author: Alan Grotier
Date: 14:00:58 04/05/04
Purchased on E-Bay ($115.75 us)and received last Friday Excalibur GM. It lacks a lot of the bells and whistles others have.Eg no access to book lines.No play styles.No fullwidth or selective play etc. Pressing first the "monitor" button you make the moves you want untill you get the desired position.Press monitor again and start playing. This lack of options is felt because most chess engines to-day have many. But it does have a tournament size vinyl board which is auto-sensory which works extremely well.(squares do not have piece recognition) The pieces are tournament size in black and white plastic but are weighted and feel good to handle. The book seems to be varied but hard to tell because of the lack of access. There are one 100 levels of play of which level 6 a one ply search is the weakest. It is just great to sit in front a full size auto-sensory board with nice weighted peices and play a game of chess. Fritz 8 & GM9K rate me at 1300-1400 so this electronic chess unit is great for me.Excalibur claims a rating of 2200 which I doubt. I like to play the sicilian opening (although I am not that good at tactics) and the machine punishes me every time. Alan This was a great buy.For the money this unit cannot be beaten.
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