Chess Reviews

First, all the characters are captured perfectly. Secondly I love how all the characters are placed, the Puss in Boots makes a perfect knight, as does Prince Charming. Perfectly arranged, but I do have a small problem with the 3 little pigs being the pawns, maybe it should have been Pinocchio or the Gingerbread Man. Other than that its a fun chess board to own I Love it very much. My brothers and sisters love playing with this board game it so much fun. I recomend this chess board to anyone, great chess set to own.

I will admit it's been years since I've played chess, but I could not resist the allure of a set based on the Shrek characters. I am a HUGE fan of the first film and can't wait to see Shrek 2. Puss N Boots makes me smile every time I see him and seeing as he is part of this set that sealed the deal. The pieces are beautifully detailed but I must say that when you open the box, let them air out as there is a bit of a chemical smell. Perhaps a rinse with some water might help as well.
Beyond that the board is as you see it in the item detail except they do not tell you it is folded into four sections to fit in the package and one half of the board is not fully attached to the other side. Logistics. Anyways, it's a minor quibble but it would have been nice to have a more substantial playing surface.
Bottom line, even if you don't play chess, the characters alone are worth the price and it might inspire you to learn the game. I think kids who couldn't give a hoot about chess before would certainly be anxious to play using Shrek characters as part of the game.

The Saitek Travel Chess Computer has many of the virtues of its more powerful cousins at a fraction of the cost. It has a multi-move "take back" feature, 64 playing levels, teaching modes, and a rudimentary stock of openings. It can be slow and, like just about all computers, will make the same tactical blunders repeatedly. Its playing strength is strictly for beginners but at the highest level it can be challenging to the beginner who will soon move into the intermediate ranks. The Saitek is a useful, entertaining teaching tool for the child who knows the moves to the game. It can be a boon companion on a long car trip or flight (it can beat the woeful on-board chess programs) without all the beep-beep and toot-toot of those mindless hand-held computer video games. The manufacturer's suggested age range of eight years and up is too cautious; this game can be both entertaining and beneficial to the child of four who knows how the pieces move. It is not overly daunting. It will build confidence.

I'm not an excessively strong chess player (at my best I'm in the 1500s). If you're around 1200 or 1300 and patient this will be a fine game to carry when you travel; but it's too slow and even on the highest level surprisingly beatable even by me.

However, if you're even worse than that, if you just need practice avoiding blunders, the levels are fine. You can move up as you improve; at the highest level you'll need a little positional understanding as well as tactical discipline to beat it consistently. So it's a decent trainer for beginners.

Past that, it needs to be faster and smarter; I suspect there are cell phones that can beat it. I'm not an expert though. Shop around before you buy this one, at any rate.

One final note: the pieces are very small, they are not magnetic and they do not settle very securely into their places on the board. That is, they fall out and get lost too easily.

I bought this set as a replacement for a travel set I owned. The electronic handheld is good for people on the go. The docking station/board is not really that portable. It is als not very sensitive. The square has to be pushed a bit to get it to register a move when playing against the computer. Over all I would reccomend it for novices. I am not sure how goos it would be for experts but it does have many levels.I enjoy my set. It is just what I needed. Another set to look into might be the chess portfolio. It looks good to me but I have not bought one yet.

I recently brought the Chess Station and I really like it. I have played chess on and off, more off for many years. It is hard finding another person to play with, especially in my house. I can pick up the Chess Station any time I want and play a few moves, or a whole game. I can play it with the whole board of just use the hand held game. Heck, sometimes I win and that feels good. I can switch sides, and if I get desperate I can ask for help. The game has a lot of features that I am still learning about, like changing levels, or playing great games, things like that. The game is easy to see, even when I use my cheap reading glasses. If you like the game of chess and do not get to play that much because of time or not having a person to play with, get this game. One of the best things is when you are playing against the computer no one will laugh at you for a dumb move.

Can the chess program be set to allow a novice to win some games against the computer? Or will the computer always win? My rating of 3 in all categories is bogus. This is the only way I could register a question about the product. There was insufficient information provided about the product. I don't know whether to buy it or not. Thanks.

I got mine from the store. And I REALLY like it. I dislike plastic chess sets immensly and I'm not thrilled with wooden ones either, unless they have some weight to them. I'm constantly accidentally knocking the pieces over and, yes, they make a very loud clatter. For a while I was afraid I'd break the things, but only one is chipped and it came that way. But for the life of me - which side is white and which is black?

chess overall is a 5 star game but i don't like this set someone bought it for me for chritmas and you know its the thought that counts but I think glass sets look tacky I'd rather have wood one and the pieces that are supposed to be black make my fingers feel all weird so I really hate them i'd tell anybody to buy a wooden game

Chess is one of those rare games that you can play thousands of times over and never have the same game twice!! It's a game that is well over a thousand years old, but is as much fun now as it was 200 or 400 years ago.

Chess sets are usually wooden or plastic, and generally, if you've seen one, you've seen them all-- most folk don't openly display their plastic pieces on the board at all times as a decoration. Fancier pieces, carved in the shapes of warring armies, for example, are usually profoundly expensive.

This glass chess set combines function and form in an aesthetically beautiful set of clear and frosted glass on a standard 8x8 chessboard. While buyers should note that the pieces are NOT competition Stauntion size, they are quite beautiful and perfectly functional at a verrrry reasonable price (I've seen boards like this in gaming stores selling for $100 and over!).

To the best of my knowledge, neither the board nor the pieces are made of tempered or safety glass, so if the board breaks, it will likely be into sharp, jagged pieces. However, glass is actually much more resilient than it looks, and as long as you're not overtly mishandling the board or pieces, you shouldn't have to worry about breakage.

It's a beautiful set for the beginner or grandmaster (though obviously best left out of the reach of small children!), and you certainly can't beat the price!! Highly recommended for those looking for a good-looking, displayable board that is more eye-catching than your standard wooden or plastic pieces.

I searched high and low to find this game, it's one of a kind. A must for anyone who wants to learn to play!

My kids love this game and play it over and over. I have four children and it makes me feel great when this is their choice.

Chess is one of those very rare games that takes minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master. It's never played the same way twice, even among grandmasters and close friends. It requires (and encourages!!) the ability to think ahead and plan carefully, and is enjoyed by people as young as 5 and as old as 125. It's a complicated game where you have to mange and plan the moves of your own 16 pieces while keeping a sharp lookout on your opponent's 16 pieces.

Learning the moves is usually the first difficult step that beginners take. All the different pieces move in different ways and have different rules to their movement, so this set has pieces with large bases with the most pertinent information stamped on it. The piece's name, how many spaces it can move at one time and the directions of movement are stamped on the base. As another reviewer noted, the numbers do NOT correspond to a piece's inherent point value in the game, so a player will have to think before setting up for a capture: is it worth risking a rook for a knight?? Maybe not.

Strategies like this are also missing from the instruction booklet that is amazingly thin and poorly written for what is supposed to be an educator chess set. I would recommend getting another book on introductory chess altogether if there are two beginners coming to the board. I've found this board to be the MOST helpful when an experienced player is teaching a beginner the rules and movements of the pieces. That way, the experienced player can point out difficulties or poor moves ("uh, you don't want to move there because you'll open yourself up to check"), while the beginner can get a better feel for the pieces and their movements.

A strategy that is rarely (if ever!) suggested outside of children's chess clubs and that is also missing here in the instruction book is to begin slowly. When I teach chess, especially with children, I begin with only a few pieces on the board, like rooks and bishops and the king, so the learner can get an idea how the pieces move and to better understand the GOAL of the game, which is checkmate (checkmate confuses a lot of children who think the goal of the game is to CAPTURE the king, not make it impossible for the king to make a legal move). As the learner gets better, I substitute or add additional pieces to the game until eventually we have the standard board setup. It's at this stage, especially, that an educator set is helpful--LOTS of stuff is on that board and it's pretty cluttered by midgame. By knowing how your OWN pieces move (and how far they can move), you can understand how your opponent's pieces move.

I had a set like this when I was a child and the pieces were much more stylized back then-the knight didn't look so much like a horse as a weird, squished mask-like thing. I'm pleased to see that the manufacturer has revamped the design of the pieces themselves, and would encourage them to revamp their instructions as well.

Without having a lot of experience with either 'real life' chess or chess programs,I still can say that this is a great choice for anyone interested in getting started and learning the game - even if you've never played chess in your life.

The beginner tutorials walk you through everything you need to know about the basics, and it's worth noting that they have a very good kid's program as part of the package.

Especially helpful is the ability to choose what kind of 'personality' you are playing against. This lets you build up your skills and confidence without getting crushed by a grandmaster every time - the first personality I played against was a beginner too. But it's a good program for the seasoned player as well: my dad, a real pro, was well challenged by the high-rated personalities.

The only drawback are some of the other features like the library, as it's hard to figure out how to view classic games. But for basic learning this program is a winner.

I've owned and used all the Chessmaster programs beginning with Chessmaster 2100 including Chessmaster 3000 for the Mac. The program has gradually become stronger and stronger, from perhaps something like a clueless class D player to something like a grandmaster. The engine in this program on today's fast machines can play five-minute chess as well as all but the top grandmasters, and at whatever time limit as well as an international master. However the ratings given for the various personalities need to be taken with a grain of salt and some understanding. I'll get to that in a bit.

First there are still in the program some annoying bugs and some plainly bad programming practices. Most annoying to me is the fact that the games are not automatically saved; worse yet, you are not even asked if you want to save the current game. This is contrary to standard practice in virtually all applications that I am familiar with, and I wish that Chessmaster would do something about it. Next, when you do save a game under a name you choose, should you need to save it again after some further moves, you are given as the default not the name you chose and are using, but the regular CM default (players and date). If you play two games on the same date with the same players and same colors, CM will suggest the name of the first game when you try to save the second game. If you don't intervene, you will overwrite the first game. Not good!

The database is not as well constructed as it might be. You can only view the games directly in the database mode from the White side on a small board. Also there is a bug that sometimes skips a move when you hit the "forward a move" button. Nonetheless, a database of almost half a million games (with some repetitions) is an invaluable resource. By the way, I have played over many of the games and so far have found only a couple of obvious errors. There are others I'm missing of course. Some of the Fischer games that were adjourned I noticed are scored as not completed when in fact one of the players (usually not Fischer!) resigned without resuming play.

The rated games format allows one to adjourn a game and then later delete that game and thereby "cheat." If you are clearly lost in a rated game, you can adjourn it and then never call the game up again and avoid the rating point loss. You can even delete the file. (Just a tip to those who like to cheat at solitaire, and a warning to take anyone's rating against Chessmaster with a grain of salt.) The rated game feature might be better if no adjourned games were allowed, or if allowed, require that they be finished by some date (as in the old real world of chess) or rated as lost.

A nice improvement from earlier editions is that the Think Lines window shows the moves in figurine notation and they are numbered so it is much easier to read them. A further readability improvement would be to put commas in the number of positions that Chessmaster has considered.

The personalities (one of CM7000's best features) are still a work in progress. The ratings are derived from play against the machine and not against human players, which is why they are a little weird. Still, just because the personality makes weak moves on occasion, moves so bad logically and positionally that even a "C" player would never make them, doesn't mean that the personality isn't stronger than a "C" player or even an "A" player. This is because even though it makes silly moves it more than compensates by seldom making any tactically blunders. In fact, the "strangeness" of the personalities stems from the fact that CM has not really worked out how to weaken the personalities in a humanoid way. Most human players tend to overlook a two-move tactical point from time to time. (Less than expert players probably do it on average at least once a game.) And few human players below the master level go through a game without making a tactical error somewhere along the way that loses at least the equivalent of a pawn. What the CM program needs to do is program their personalities to make human-like tactical errors and fewer positional monstrosities.

I also think that CM ought to allow a personality or even itself to resign when it is clearly beaten. Chess programs typically do not resign, of course, no matter how bleak the outlook. Why? I'm not sure, but I think one reason is that it's impossible for the program to know when the situation really is hopeless. Since humans are always prone to error (even grandmasters have allowed mates in winning positions) and since the program never gets tired, why resign? But "resigns" is a gentlemanly way to end a game. Note that in games against grandmasters, the programmers resign for the program when it is hopeless.

One way to incorporate "resigns" into the CM's vocabulary would be to allow the user to set a criterium of futility, say two and a half pawns. (Complexity of position could also be considered.) Or CM could take into account the rating or previous play of the player and make an assessment.

Despite these suggestions for improvement, the bottom line as far as I am concerned is that CM7000 is a great application, a source of entertainment, competition and instruction that chess players just a few years ago could only dream about.

I thoroughly enjoy playing chess but am not what the User manual astutely terms a CHESS PLAYER. Reviews by apparent chess players are intimidating(and helpful)as The CHESSMASTER 7000 is fun and formidible. THE GAME ROOM is where the fun is. The CLASSROOM; KID's ROOM; LIBRARY and DATAbase ROOM are just some of the formidible learning tools this two disc application provides. CHESSMASTER has a battle-array of learning drills from definitions and practice in basic moves and stratagy; to explication of classic gambits and Grand Masters who perfected them. A player is allowed to "characterize" opponents he'll play as well as speed of play. You can also "cheat" by taking-back absurd moves and getting "quick hints" from CM data base. I've only had CHESSMASTER 7000 a few months; I bought it to replace another program which "cheated" (bogus Castling function and en passant move). I play at STRONG INTERMEDIATE level with fast speed. I have not beaten it yet.But I have won "in the world" and more importantly, drawn tough games against several rated-players who usually "blew me off the boards".

I'm familiar with The Learning Companies ADVANTAGE programs for Middle and High School subjects. Because of their proven strength...along with DORLING KINDERSLEY graphics...I was confident CHESSMASTER would incorporate(under its MINDSCAPE Co.)similar, relevant components making it more than just a toy. It does.I highly recommend CHESSMASTER to anyone who wants to develop skills and mind-sets that will transform you from a person who plays chess,to a confident--opponent to be reckoned with--CHESS PLAYER...

The 10th edition of the Chessmaster series looks to be the best yet. Sporting an entirely new (and much easier to use) interface, it should be easier than ever to get a game going against any computer or human opponent. The new edition will also be including a completely redesigned online module, which is supposedly more stable than the one that shipped with CM9000. If the online support is as good as Ubi Soft claims it will be, the CM community should develop into an excellent place to play chess games.

In addition to the usual Chessmaster offerings, the new edition will be featuring a new "Chess Academy" where Josh Waitzkin will review various chess concepts, while Larry Christiansen will review attacking concepts. The newer 3-D chess sets look many, many times more realistic than the old 9000 counterparts. And finally, of course, the King Engine (the brains behind CM) have been updated and improved as well.

Overall, this looks to be an excellent addition to the Chessmaster series and I am looking forward to it.

Virtual Chess is a fun filled game. It has very good graphics. Compared to other Chess games I have played this is definently the bast one! You will be playing this game for hours and never want to stop. Virtual Chess is a game you would like for a long time. You don't get bored of it after a few days of playing it like some games!

First off, the Lord of the Rings "chess" set is not a really usable chess set, but rather a toy or a piece of furniture, depending on how you treat it. A true chess set (most typically the STAUNTON design) has clearly identifiable bishops, rooks, etc. If a pawn is not INSTANTLY recognizable as a pawn for instance, it is useless as a chess set for any serious player. If you tried to use it in a USCF (United States Chess Federation) official tournament for example, the odds are overwhelming that your opponent would refuse to play on such a set.
Second: the distinction between children and adults in discussing this or any type of chess set is artificial and pointless since there are thousands of elementary school children who could easily beat 99% of all adults who only know how to move the pieces: Any adult OR child who starts to become at all serious about chess would never play on these gimmicky sets.
Third, talk of "educational value" is unclear at best: chess per se probably has some educational value (thought this is not as obvious as many believe)If however, the set stimulates your interest in the "Lord of the Rings" that is educational IF you consider studying that series to have educational value.
Bottom line: there is nothing wrong with these kinds of sets so long as you view them as pieces of good-looking furniture rather than as usable chess sets. One of the better places to buy quality chess sets (including the gimmicky kind) is the US Chess Federation, though several equally good sites are listed in CHESS LIFE magazine

This chess set is a lot o fun if u like chess. You might be thinking, "How can i play this when i don't know which thing is which piece" Don't think that, they put the chess piece symbols on the base of the pieces. Thsi doesn't really help your educational skills only u become more logical. GET IT!

...this is a great chess set for children and adults alike. If you're looking for an expensive, outsatnding, fragile flashy wooden thing with gold trim, then this is not the board for you.

But if you're looking for a fun and entertaining every-day chess set that is affordable, kid-friendly, and just plain cool, then this is the chess set for you. Some of the reviewers are being a little harsh: for 20+ bucks you're obviously not going to get something encrusted with diamonds, for crying out loud.

My wife and I love it: two thumbs up!

There is a lot to like about this handheld chess game. But, do not waste your money unless you plan on using it only in well lit places. The LCD is almost impossible to read (so much do that I've had to look for a different handheld chess unit). In this day and age, I don't think its asking too much to expect a better display. My recommendation is to wait for a better product. But its your decision.

This is not a bad little chess computer, it is just the interface that is its downfall. Everytime I wanted to quit a game a start a new one the game would cut off. The start and off areas are above each other. In addition, the manual is almost non-existant. The Saitek cosmic, even though a little more expensive is much better, although both models suffer from lack of a back light. The Saitek model uses a touch screen, but also uses menu keys and a message area at the bottom of the screen to make a much better package. It also uses standard chess notation when giving hints etc. The excalibur model just flashes pieces.

This is a great little chess toy. It is exactly what it says, and the screen is bigger than looks in the picture. I would highly recommend this. it has 73 levels of play, you can watch famous games, play against a human also, and you can easily recognize the pieces. If your just starting out in chess, thats alright because Touch Chess will teach you just fine. The contrast button is very helpful also. This was definitely worth my $40 bucks. I strongly recommend this to anyone who wants to play chess immediately or is on the go. It works perefectly. You can also make it so the noise level is "off" if someone doesnt want to hear it. It's an awesome toy with great stuff. Definetely worth my $40 bucks. I'm actually surprised it isnt worth more:) But, you must be very careful if you touch the screen. (even comes with a case) Whoever doesnt like this must be very picky! and im serious!! Its P-E-R-F-E-C-T