Author: Christopher R. Dorr
Date: 05:53:18 12/23/98
Go up one level in this thread
Hi KK, No apology necessary....you made some interesting points, and it was an interesting discussion altogether. You made me think about how I use my programs, and this is one of the purposes of CCC. And you certainly made me think about what features I consider important in a chess program. Thanks, too, for the review...I always look forward to one of your excellent reviews! Happy Holidays! Chris Dorr On December 23, 1998 at 04:47:09, Komputer Korner wrote: >It seems that I was wrong in calling CM6000 a toy program. The reason is that it >is possible to become a chess master (up to 2300 rating) without going over >one's played games in player player mode (with or without a computer)and without >using an opening book editor. The fact that CM6000 doesn't have these features >should in no way preclude those who aspire to be a chess master from buying it. >In fact see my revised article below after the 2nd patch. It wins Gold Medal >awards all around. However the consensus from FIDE masters and IMs seems to be >that even though you can reach master level chess by not studying your own >games, if you want to reach higher than that you must start to study your own >played games. So Mr. Dorr I truly apologize to you and the other masters I >slighted and it seems all the chess schools that advocate studying one's games >were really talking to masters that want to reach the IM and GM levels. We have >all learned something here and again I hope you accept my apology. >-- >Komputer Korner >the now humble inkompetent komputer > > > >ChessMaster 6000 Patched version No. 2 > > The 7th version of the world’s top selling chess software for Windows 95/98 is >now out and finally it has an editable database. In fact there already is a >patch on the ChessMaster web site. The way that you can tell that your store >bought version is the patched version or not is the date on the CM6000.exe file. >The date of the patch version is Sept. 28, 1998. There is a new look to the >interface with the dark brown being replaced by a greyish blue background and >this is much more pleasing to the eye. There are new tutorials and annotated >instructive games and the coach window has a statistics function showing the >opening score %’s. You now can play rated games against the program and it >keeps track of each user’s rating in a separate rating information database. You >can play rated games against each of the ready made personality opponents or >even create your own and play rated games against these opponents. There is a >new 440,000 game database which allows you to import games that are in PGN >files. You open up a tbg file which is ChessMaster’s dB format ( the same one as >TascBase) and then you click on the import games feature and select the PGN file >with the games you want to import. You can also choose to convert these pgn >games into cmg (chessmaster) format if there is more than 1 game in the pgn >file. The database screen is divided into 3 areas. The top area shows you a >small board that you can move the pieces on with the move list to the right of >it. Click anywhere on the move list and the new board position will show. Below >that is the list of dB game headers. You simply double click on a game and the >top part of the screen will reflect the game. You can choose to return to the >main screen with the game you clicked on with the board position. At the bottom >of the database screen is the ECO-like screen showing the opening book moves >which you can navigate through via on screen control buttons. You can click on >the keys stats menu which will tell you a) number of subkeys b) number of sub >games c) average ELO for each colour in the subkey d) results (wins, >losses,draws) e) ECO code f) opening name. If you save a game in either CM6000 >cmg or pgn format the program will automatically delete illegal characters in >your named file. You can create a new tbg format dB or use the 440,000 game dB >that comes with the program. If you want to add or delete games from the 440,000 >game base you will have to copy it from the CDROM to your hard drive. You then >take off the read only property by right mouse clicking the file in Explorer and >clicking on properties. After deleting games, you can then optimize your dB >which will then physically delete the marked for deletion games and at the same >time all the header and opening key indices are adjusted. You can now search >these databases on a 5 by 3 field header matrix search with “or” parameters. >You can adjust the sizes of the game headers in the games list and you can >choose to add or delete which game headers you want. Fischer time controls of >up to 999 second increments are possible. > There is a new 3D board and the boards now present turn lights to tell the user >whose turn it is to move. > IM Josh Waitzkin has added some more of his deeply annotated games and I can’t >say enough about how good these are. They are simply the best tutoring available >outside of a real life personal tutor. Another great improvement is that the >chess tutor has been completely revamped. The tutor now has 14 sections each >explaining a different part of the game. Almost all of the tutorials now have >complete PV moving piece board analysis with complete audio, ghosted pieces and >arrows explaining the key piece trajectories. Ghosted pieces are key pieces that >are temporarily faded so as to point out key concepts in the tutorial >explanation. The tutorials are presented in a beginner to novice logical order >and the final section on John Nunn’s brain teasers will tax the minds of even >masters. There is a workaround to the missing Tasc Smartboard submenu. Change >the CM.ini file for the Smartboard value from 0 to 1. > Direct access to Chessmaster Live is incorporated and the web site is now up >and running. This is based on the Mplayer software that allows you to talk >directly to your opponent through your computer’s microphone. >A newly updated chess engine the King 2.61 is incorporated and it is indeed one >of the strongest engines versus human opponents especially on longer time >controls. The previous version CM5500 is presently winning the KK Kup 2. The >Walter Pilz settings as modified by Harald Fabar are now no longer the >strongest and the suggested best settings is still a matter of controversy but >one suggested setting by a user on rgcc is the following: >Opening Book: Mentor.OBK >Style: >Attacker/Defender -15 >Strength of Play 100 >Randomness of play 0 >Book Depth 100 >Selective Search 10 >Contempt for Draw 0.0 >Transposition Table and Deep thinking should never be off > >Positional: >Material/Position 20 >Control of Center 90 >Mobility 115 >King Safety 160 >Passed Pawns 105 >Pawns Weakness 125 > >Material: >(each value is for both) >Queen: 10.0 >Rook:5.5 >Bishop: 3.5 >Knight: 3.3 >Pawn: 1.1 > >As with all software here is a list of the faults. >The opening book editor is unchanged and is basically a joke . Among it’s many >faults is you don’t get a board position while editing. It is a separate program >that comes for free with CM6000 and is not even mentioned in the manual. >Chessmaster could have easily done an excellent editor by linking it with the >opening keys screen and making that editable but they did not. One can only hope >that CM7000 will do this. There is no way to get the thinking window (PV’s and >score evaluation) to work if you are in player player mode. The program is a >bit unstable in that the tutorials sometimes quit halfway through and exiting by >the x box in the top right hand corner will sometimes cause a crash, but this is >also because of my unstable WIN 95 setup. However it should be noted that I have >other Win 95 chess programs that never crash. There is no way to simply drag the >board window to make a larger size. You have to set it in the Environment menu. >When you change the board size to maximum size in the above menu, the piece >sizes do not adjust to reflect the new size. >The seconds per move limit is still a measly 999 seconds. >There is a semi intelligent mouse in that if only one piece can move to a square >then the piece will move if you click on the “to” square, but if 2 pieces can >move there, this feature will not work. Some other chess programs have a truly >intelligent mouse whereby the program makes the decision on which piece will >move if you click only on the ‘to’ square. >The setup position has no consecutive entry of same piece with left mouse. There >is no right mouse clicking for opposite piece colour in setup position. >The quick entry feature doesn’t seem to work fully. This is the feature that >allows the user to click on the “from” square or “to” square for moving the >piece. Clicking on the “to” square works but not the “from” square, contrary to >the manual. There are no take back or move forward buttons. The user has to >either press CTRL-T or go to one of the top menus. There is no info voice in the >database screen nor in the brain teasers tutorial. There is no word index in the >paper manual. There seems to be a useless column in the database headers that >contain a small 4x4 chessboard icon for each game. > You can’t save a game directly to a tbg database within CM6000. You have to >save your games to pgn files and then import those games into the database. >Since CM6000’s interpretation of PGN will save variations, but will not let you >play through them on the board, saving them is useless for using them within >CM6000. You can’t convert a cmg file to a pgn file even though you can convert >the other way. However since only cmg files can contain alternate lines and >evaluations, it is not possible to store annotated games in your CM databases. >PGN rules allow alternate lines but since cmg files cannot be imported into your >CM6000 databases, you cannot get your annotated games into them. When you import >the PGN games into a CM6000 (tbg) database, the alternate lines show up only on >the small database board but you can’t play through those variations. If you >import a pgn game into the dB, you cannot play through the variations except for >the main line. Importing a huge number of pgn games into a database is too >slow. Exported PGN games can’t be read by external programs until they have >been renamed so that all the punctuation is gone except for the .pgn extension. > The game move lists do not recognize transpositions nor do they recognize >that a duplicate move has been made as an alternative at any move. I must admit >that no chess program that allows alternatives in the move list has solved this >but Fritz 5/Junior 5 supplies a tree view that catches all transpositions. >However CM6000 doesn’t have an editable tree. There is no Replace game feature >and thus once a game is in a dB you have no way of changing the game header info >unless you save the game under a new heading and import this new pgn saved game >and then delete the old game. > The pgn dialog box showing the game headers for games that you are importing >isn’t large enough. It should expand to fit the full screen. There is no >option in the Auto Annotate feature to do only analysis for 1 side. > Interestingly, some of the opening commentary of certain openings has been >deleted from CM5500. Ex: some of the Moderrn Defence commentary has been cut >out. The replay of the Auto annotate alternate PVs is too fast. > The login registered user’s name should always be presented in a drop down pick >list for the name of either colour’s opponent. Sometimes it is necessary to >type one’s own login’s name inthe game details. > If you save a game to an existing pgn file, CM6000 will overwite the whole >file. You can’t save game details like round number and player ELO. > EPD files are not supported even though text files and FEN are. > The coach part of the manual hasn’t been updated to reflect the stats feature >mentioned above. There is no drag and drop capability of adding databases to one >another and no pick list of previously opened databases. > None of the tutorials allow you to skip some of the materiel. You have to go >through each tutorial in the sequence supplied. However you can go right to each >example in each tutorial by clicking on the + sign in the main tutorial list. > The practice openings should be much more in depth with the lines. Too many of >them are 1 movers. You are forced to keep pressing continue each time a page is >finished in the tutorials. This is a pain because most of the tutorials are laid >out such that only 1 line appears on a page and sometimes only one move on a >page! > If the sliding pieces on screen are on slow mode, they are often too slow for >the audio analysis in the replay of Auto Annotation. If you have taken back >moves and have changed the side to move and then woke up CM6000 and if there is >no time on the clock, CM6000 will blunder it’s moves sometimes. The tutorials >should not have buttons to mouse click the move alternatives. The user should >always be able to make the move choice by moving the piece on the board. This >isn’t always the case in CM 6000. The dragging and dropping of pieces is a bit >too cumbersome. Changing notation only changes it in the move list window. The >think lines always stays in coordinate notation. There is no search by material >nor theme nor negatives nor combination of header and position. Searches can >only be done on last names. There is no symbol pick list for annotating a game >yourself. > Some alternatives are not played out on the board in the tutorials. > You can’t delete variations in the move list. Does not run in WIN NT 4. >CM6000 won’t resign. > The non standard windows interface doesn’t allow the font size of the menus to >be changed. The maximum move number is 513 ply. > The tutorial written commentary should be in figurine notation and should be in >a larger font. The program will crash on page 27 and page 56 of the brain >teasers tutorial if the user tries to move the pieces on the board. In fact in >the page 56 brain teaser, the program will allow a wrong 1st move 1.f5. > Too many times the hint commentary is just a repeat of the actual move >commentary that shows on the next page. Force move often doesn’t work. The >patch version doesn’t show the patch number in the About menu. The >Attacker/Defender setting is misnamed. The actual function of this setting is to >set the willingness to exchange pieces with positive numbers meaning that the >program will avoid exchanges. There is no endgame tablebase support > The King engine doesn’t know the procedure to checkmate with bishop and knight. >When down to king vs king, the program gives no indication that the game is >drawn. Some personalities will not allow truly random moves even if user has >specfied that feature in creating them. > >The list of exact mistakes is now down to 4 in the tutorials. > >In the Strategy tutorial >Pg 67- There is a mistake in the suggested alternative commentary on page 68. >1.Rh1 only delays the win. After 1.Rh1Kg7 white would have to play 2.Rc1(d1) >anyway in order to get to b8. > >195- The rest of the pieces should be on the squares because white has >alternatives otherwise. > >In the Seirawan tutorial >Pages 208-240 The black pawn on f7 should be on f6. > >In the Brain Teasers tutorial >Pg 26- The commentary should read “If white plays 1.Bc4 Black replies with >1....b3 > >However this program despite the above flaws is simply the best value for money >to non tournament chess players. Even for non masters who don’t need an opening >book editor and don’t go over their moves in their tournament games , CM6000 >fulfills their needs. Chessmaster has now matured as a computer chess software >and CM6000 with it’s low discount price is tremendous value for money. For this >reason, CM6000 is awarded a Komputer Korner Gold Medal for its value in features >to non tournament players and for it’s engine strength . >For OTB masters or correspondence players the lack of thinking in player-player >mode and it’s poor opening book editor are serious handicaps. For those users >who simply want to play a tremendously strong program for a very cheap price, >CM6000 is the best deal on the market. CM6000 now is awarded 3 more Gold Medals >for the teaching categories.
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