The Master of Them All

by Glenn Budzinski

Chessmaster 7000 1999 Mindscape $39.99

Today's trend in chess software is towards integration. One
doesn't need a very large crystal ball to foresee that, in the not too
distant future, most chess software will consist of an integrated
package of a competitive playing application, tutorials, a database
with publishing capabilities and web site access enabling users to
play against "live" opponents, if they so choose. Long-gone will be
the time when a separate application was required for each
function. 

The future, however, may be already here. In fact, one of the first
(if not THE first) software to combine a strong playing program
with other features was Chessmaster, albeit several versions and
years ago. The current edition of Chessmaster is 7000, which
continues with its tradition of offering, arguably, the "most bang
for the buck" in the chess software marketplace. 

That CM7000 is full-featured, is beyond dispute. With a choice of
seven separate playing rooms, each of which contains its own
playing environment, it was apparent that the 115+ page user
manual was going to get a workout.

But, the initial task is to install the software. The review copy
came on two CD-ROMs. My generic IBM compatible PC met the
system requirements as provided in the manual and I proceeded
with the installation phase. (System Requirements: Pentium 150
(or higher) IBM PC or compatible running Windows 95/98; 24
MB RAM; 4x CD-ROM drive; 20 MB of hard disk space;
compatible sound card; pointing device (i.e., a mouse); SVGA
video; modem and internet access)

Upon loading CD #1, I was soon confronted with an unexpected
surprise: a choice of four types of setups were offered, but only
three were addressed in the manual. My eyebrows were also raised
by the hard disk space requirements given in the installation
process, which did not appear to coincide with the manual: the
"typical" setup needs 43 MB (not 20 MB) while installation of the
database will take up another 120 MB. Given the multi-gigabyte
hard drives available on most of today's PCs, the additional space
should not be a concern to most users. But, since my antiquated,
three year old PC contains merely a 2 gigabyte hard drive, 120 MB
represents a big investment of space. The necessity for installing
the database is not altogether clear, considering that one is never
far from the program CD, which either has to remain continuously
in the drive when CM7000 is in use, or be reinserted every 14 days
or 28 playing sessions.

Although it is not stressed in the manual, familiarity with the
Windows multi-tasking environment will prove helpful, since the
user will probably find it necessary to open, close and resize
windows on a regular basis.

After completion of a successful installation and re-start of the
program, one is brought to the opening screen containing a login
puzzle (which can be easily skipped). The user is then given the
choice of selecting one of seven rooms: Library, Classroom,
Tournament Room, Game Room, Database, Kids Room and CM
Live.

The Library, as the name implies, is primarily a reference area. It
contains 700 games identified as "classics" played from the time of
Philidor to 1999 grandmaster contests. Also included is a
comprehensive openings encyclopedia, with theory presented in
tree fashion. 

The Classroom offers tutoring based on three levels of play:
beginning, intermediate and advanced, and includes drills,
openings practice and Josh Waitzkin games. Beginning and
intermediate tutorials appear to be appropriate for those levels of
play, with discussions of planning, strategy, tactics, exercises by
Chess Caf‚ columnist and noted teacher Bruce Pandolfini, etc. The
advanced lessons, however, leave something to be desired. It's
unclear how much a player of "advanced" skills will learn from
mate in twos that consist solely of collections of pieces against a
lone king.

In the Tournament Room, one can play a Chessmaster-rated game
against the CM7000 application (which carries nearly a 2600
rating on my system configuration) or against one of dozens of
"personalities" based on real people. Interesting is the tournament
feature, enables the user to setup and play a tournament against
different "personalities".

A database "of over 500,000 chess games played throughout
history" can be found in the Database room. Similar to other
databases, searches can be performed by position or header
information. A few questions can be raised about the
comprehensiveness of the data, however. While 500,000 initially
seem like a huge amount of games, by today's standards it is only a
modest number. Most databases consist of over a million,
including a healthy dose of correspondence games. CM7000's
database, on the other hand, appears to contain mostly over-the-
board games with few, if any, correspondence contests included in
its ranks. 

Performing a search of the data by plugging in the event name
"Linares" to obtain all games from the tournament named for this
Spanish city (usually an annual gathering of a majority of the
world's top ten players), produced games from a Linares, Mexico
tournament only. Revising the search to "Ciudad de Linares"
(found by searching for Kasparov games and reviewing how
CM7000 named the Linares tournaments), still only produced a
total of 56 games from what appeared to be a single event; hardly
the anticipated several hundred important games from the past
decade that one would expect to find in a database of even a
modest size.

The heart and soul of CM7000 for the experienced player will be
the Game Room. Although a game can be played against the
computer in any room except the Library and the Database, it is
only in the Game Room where CM7000's analysis, annotation and
publishing functions are consolidated. Game analysis can be saved
to a file for subsequent editing or reformatting by a word
processor. When coupled with the diagram copy and paste
function, CM7000 can be used as a chess publishing tool. 

Despite its many other features, CM7000 may be, arguably, best
known as a playing program. Given that perception, it is important
to make a stab at assessing playing strength. Although the user can
select one of numerous "personalities" each with a different rating
and, presumably, corresponding playing ability, the setting that
delivers the maximum playing performance would appear to be
Chessmaster 7000. That it will defeat the vast majority of players
the vast majority of the time, is hardly surprising. Whether it is
actually 2600 playing strength, or is rated slightly more or less
than its software competitors, does not seem particularly
significant. In my opinion, all of the major playing software in the
marketplace today plays at or near U.S. Chess Federation Senior
Master strength (2400+ rating); CM7000 falls into that category.
Suffice it to say that if it's a strong opponent you're seeking, you
will not be disappointed.

Another playing area is the Kids Room, intended for young
children learning the game. A number of Game Room features are
not available here. As expected, drills are very basic, suitable for
novice-level players. Perhaps because I'm not a child, I found the
selection of chess sets to be lacking. None appeared to be
conducive to good vision of the board.

One of the more unique features of CM7000 is the "CM Live"
playing area, which lets the user connect with an internet web site
and challenge "live" opponents in real-time play. To do this
requires installation of the "MPlayer" software, included on the
CD-ROM. Page 87 of the manual offers the following installation
instructions from the Windows environment: "Start/ Programs/
Chessmaster 7000/Install MPlayer", respectively. However, upon
reaching the final instruction, a problem became immediately
evident: there is no "Install MPlayer" option available. Other
choices did not install the software. Consequently, although I was
able to login to the web site, I was unable to play a "live" game.

Similar to all chess software, CM7000 contains certain quirks that
may require some practice before becoming comfortable with
them. For instance, I tend to use chess software as a training
partner to assist in the analysis of games I've played, which means
that the capability of overriding the software's move choice to look
at other moves and variations is often necessary. This particular
process can be cumbersome with CM7000 in that "Game Setup"
mode must be entered each time and the software must be either
selected or deselected as a playing partner. A common feature
found in most other playing software is the ability for the user to
force a move. 

Potential users of CM7000 should also understand that the
software is clearly a Windows application and the more familiar
one is with Windows, the better use one will get from CM7000. 

There are so many reasons to purchase CM7000 that its few quirks
are incidental. Not only does one get a strong playing program but,
as a bonus, one also gets a database, tutorials, a reference library
and the ability to play "live" games and, lo and behold, a helpful,
user manual (a rarity in itself), all for under $40 retail. (As if that
weren't incentive enough, even that price can often be found
significantly discounted.) So, just how good of a deal is this? Bear
in mind that most comparably strong playing programs routinely
sell for more than twice CM7000's retail price -- without all of
CM7000's other features. Regardless of your playing ability, if
you're remotely interested in chess and want to buy only one piece
of chess software, this should be it. In fact, even if you own
numerous other chess software, CM7000 is still too attractively
priced to pass up.