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(More customer reviews)I am writing my first review for Amazon for two reasons: I have benefitted greatly from others who did so without my replying in kind; secondly, the chess-playing world is in need of an insanely cheap and capable chess program, which this is.
First, don't be fooled by the cartoonish retail packaging for this product. This is very serious chess software from a very serious chess publisher (Chessbase out of Germany) for everyone from beginner to very serious chess players. Chessbase does a great job of marketing their products to different strata of users, and it does this, primarily, by re-releasing its chess engines (named, in serial fashion, "Fritz") in less-expensive formats. Grandmaster Challenge III employs the engine Fritz 8; Grandmaster Challenge II used Fritz 7, etc. The current cutting-edge retail (non-professional) Chessbase offering is Fritz 11. (I wouldn't have gone beyond Fritz 7 but was curious what graphical enhancements this program had. These are, alone, worth the few dollars that this program costs and are included in the 3D boards and the annotation function.)
Many reviewers dislike the Chessbase Fritz series because the interface is, allegedly, complicated, unexplained, too arcane for beginning to intermediate players, whatever. I can tell you that I have, by and large, no business being near a chessboard, unless it is to clean it. I can also tell you that this program is NOT too difficult to learn to use and is exquisitely designed to usher the user into the pleasure of a mature chess experience without a bunch of nonsense, like ethereal background music or eerily moving pieces, obtainable from other publishers . The "online" help included on the CD is enough to instruct anyone on the nuances of the program. But NOTE: the game does not possess an intuitive way of switching sides, like clicking "switch sides". Rather, one must click on the "Game" menu, then "Infinite Analysis"; next, under "View", select "Flip Board", then make your move. (There is no option for "Flip Board Off", which is what one may like to do at this point.)
For the lay user of chess software, Chessbase introduced, in the days of yore, a program of some distinction called Extreme Chess, distributed by Simon Schuster. (It must have been something like Fritz the First.) It had, by the standards then, a lovely little 3D chess board of pleasingly contrasting pieces in gray and butterscotch, the hues of which were continued in the first Grandmaster Challenge program. (From that program I was able to carry over the hue and saturation configuration settings to this program's "old 3D board", a menu option under the View selection in the menu bar. The old 3d board has survived into this iteration because it was fetching and good. Moreover, Chessbase thought so, too. If anyone would like to see these settings I could bother to post them here if anyone asks. I have submitted board views of this game, featured beneath the product image.)
Okay, so for $8.00 new, who can complain about what this program delivers? It gives the purchaser nearly a million games in the database; an openings book that is just about endless; professional-grade notation and annotation options (including animated displays: arrows and whatnot which play out on 2D and 3D boards); beautiful, clean (esp. on the 2D "metal" setting), and deeply customizable 2D and 3D boards; exquisite 3D board adjustment capabilities (esp. on the glass board--fantastic); the ability to load different resident chess engines (or import others); the option to run game analyses on any game--yours or others; training and sparring modes; differing analytical perspectives; the ability to play against a computer opponent of almost any strength or style--and more.
And, w/ Fritz configured optimally and playing at full strength, it plays somewhere around an ELO of 2700, or better. Who besides GK can beat this thing? Let's face it: there are few, if any, people purchasing chess programs from Amazon who have the slightest prayer of beating Fritz in tournament mode w/o take-backs, transparent analysis, and other assorted methods of technical chicanery offered by the program itself. This could be your first and last chess program, provided you are not seduced by any future eye candy offered by this company.
A couple of final words: do not be dissuaded by the professional interface. Chessbase is merely respecting your intelligence by offering game features and controls that any reasonably sober individual can learn quite easily, given the slightest motivation to do so. As the program generates its game face and works through its thought processes, one gets quite used to the goings on and becomes comfortable with them--indeed, can't live w/o them. If one desires more explanation than that offered in the help guide then just wiki "chess notation" or some such thing. (And no one is taking much of a flyer w/ such a modest exploration of chess parlance. Help w/ program features and content can also be found here: http://www.chessbase.com/support/index.asp) Once one acclimates himself to this program, one will be most unlikely to return to, or experiment w/, the rather silly contrivances of other software.
There is one thing that did bother me, a very, very occasional and notional player (who can drop a game at a whim and leave for great intervals of time--like months or years): the opening bitmap was kind of creepy so I renamed the file (located in the bitmap folder) and substituted a much more lively one of my own. Now the game opens in a more encouraging manner instead of the weird image of the automaton--or whatever that thing is.
If anyone would like to get a leg up on chess without spending much money (hardly any, really, in relation to other programs) while embarking on a truly serious--yet fun and challenging--gaming journey, then, by all means, buy this program.
Finally, I have no affiliation, whatsoever, w/ the publisher or retailer of this software. (They wouldn't want anything to do w/ me, anyway.)
Thanks so much for reading.
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Fritz Chess - Grandmaster Challenge III
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