Chessmaster 10th Edition: Josh Waitzkin's Lessons and Features

The product

Chessmaster 10th Edition is a computer chess program released by Ubisoft in 2004 for Windows, with an Xbox version titled simply Chessmaster. It was developed by Ubisoft Bucharest. The Windows edition was announced on 22 June 2004 and reached North America on 10 August 2004 and Europe on 21 October of the same year. The Xbox version was announced on 2 August 2004 and followed in North America on 1 November 2004.

The program belongs to a long series. Its chess engine, The King, was written by Johan de Koning and first appeared in Chessmaster 4000 Turbo. The series was published over the years by The Software Toolworks, Mindscape, Mattel Interactive and then Ubisoft, and the original developers named in its history include David Kittinger, Kathe Spracklen, Dan Spracklen and de Koning.

For the tenth edition the engine received a new version, the number of computer opponents with distinct styles, called personalities, grew to 200, and the game database was expanded by 50,000 games. One characteristic stayed unchanged: the program does not resign, so a lost game must be played to the end or abandoned by the user.

Who teaches

The tutorials and game commentary were recorded by Josh Waitzkin and Larry Christiansen. Waitzkin was born on 4 December 1976 in New York City, won the US Junior Championship in 1993 and 1994 and became an International Master at the age of sixteen. His early life was the subject of Fred Waitzkin’s 1988 book and the 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer, and he later wrote The Art of Learning, published in 2008. He served as a spokesperson for the Chessmaster series, appearing in the game to give advice and analysis. Larry Christiansen is a grandmaster who appears alongside him in the teaching material.

A review published by WorthPlaying in September 2004 described Waitzkin’s voice-overs as excellent and noted that he drew on real-life examples of how the lessons helped him win his own championships. According to that review the lessons begin with piece movement and the basic tactics, forks, skewers and pins, and continue with openings and endgames. The reviewer praised the stress on opening strategy over memorisation, and said that about half of each lesson is interactive.

Sets, 3D and online play

The edition ships with 35 chess sets, of which some must be unlocked by winning a set number of ranked games. The WorthPlaying reviewer listed standard, medieval, abstract and animated designs and said he mostly used the Staunton set. The Windows version supports stereoscopic 3D, and the box included 3D glasses.

Beyond solo play, the program supports network multiplayer over the internet or a local network. Internet play, called Chessmaster Live, ran through ubi.com on Windows and through Xbox Live on the console. The WorthPlaying review notes that games are hosted on ubi.com and that only some modes are ranked. A related note deals with Chessmaster online sound effects.

How it was received

Review scores were solid. Metacritic’s aggregate stood at 81 percent for the PC version and 79 percent for the Xbox version. IGN gave the PC version 8.4 out of 10 and the Xbox version 8.5. GameSpot gave the PC version 7.8 and the Xbox version 8.1, and WorthPlaying scored it 8.0. The WorthPlaying reviewer said that of the engine’s upgrade only a grandmaster would likely notice the improvement. IGN named the game runner-up for game of the month in August 2004.

A later title in the line, Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition from 2007, credits Waitzkin and Christiansen with its tutorials too, so the teaching format outlived this edition.

For readers comparing it with other programs, the computer chess hub collects the engine and software articles, and the chess history section follows how programs became teaching tools.

Questions