Chessmaster

• 1986: The Chessmaster series began in 1986 with the version of The Chessmaster 2000 developed by The Software Toolworks . It has been released on Amiga , Apple II , Atari 8-bit , Atari ST , Commodore 64 , Amstrad CPC , MSX , Macintosh , ZX Spectrum, and DOS platforms . The game used a chess engine written by David Kittinger, and the manufacturer rated the strength of the program at 2,000 points according to the rating of the US Chess Federation Elo . In reality, she played at the level of 1550-1600 Elo (1750-1800 Elo of the US Chess Federation ). In July of that year, it became the first commercial program capable of winning the personal computer class at the second US Open Computer Chess Competition ( USOCCC ) in Mobile (Alabama) .
• 1988: The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 released for Apple IIGS .
• 1989: The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 released for DOS .
• 1990: The Chessmaster released for NES and Game Boy .
• 1990: The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 released for Amiga .
• 1991: The Chessmaster released for SNES .
• 1991: The Chessmaster released for Game Gear .
• 1991: Chessmaster 3000 released for DOS and Windows 3.x.
• 1993: Chessmaster 4000 Turbo released for Windows 3.x.
• 1993: Chessmaster 3000 released for Macintosh .
• 1995: Chessmaster 4000 released for Windows 95 .
• 1995: Chessmaster 3D for the PlayStation based on the Chessmaster 4000 engine.
• 1996: Chessmaster 4000 released for Macintosh .
• 1996: Chessmaster 5000 released for Windows 95 .
• 1997: Chessmaster 5500 released for Windows 95 .
• 1998: Chessmaster 6000 is released for Windows 95 , Windows 98, and Macintosh .
• 1999: Chessmaster 7000 released for Windows 98 and Chessmaster II released for PlayStation .
• 2000: Chessmaster 8000 released for Windows 98 .
• 2002: Chessmaster 9000 released for Windows 98 / ME / XP .
• 2004: Chessmaster X Edition released for Windows XP .
• 2004: Chessmaster 9000 released for Mac OS X by Feral Interactive .
• October 30, 2007: The current version of Chessmaster XI was released for PC (name Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition ) and Nintendo DS (name Chessmaster: The Art of Learning ) and February 12, 2008 for PlayStation Portable (the same name is Chessmaster: The Art of Learning ). Contains numerous tutorials compiled by international master Joshua Vaytskin for players with any skill level. It also contains mini-games Fork my fruit (develops the skill of installing forks ), Minesweeper (develops the safety of pieces) and Tail (where the player selects a distant chess piece, and then tries to build a long tail using captured pieces, and avoiding enemy pieces to capture main figure or parts of the tail). The Russian version was released in 2008.

The Chessmaster 2000 worked on an engine written by David Kittinger, which was a rewritten and improved version of its MyChess II engine. After a deal with Fidelity Electronics Inc in 1988, The Software Toolworks continues the series of The Chessmaster for Apple computers with a Sargon- based engine written by Kathe and Dan Spracklen, this version was named The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100. But the same version for PC The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 released on the updated engine of David Kittinger (David Kittinger). The Chessmaster 3000 , as confirmed by John Merlino, still came out on the David Kittinger engine, as mentioned in the computer chess report, CCR 5.1. ^[one]

The Chessmaster's main engine, called The King, was written by programmer Johan de Koning from the Netherlands . It began to be used starting with the Chessmaster 4000 Turbo version.

In accordance with the September 2009 ratings of the Swedish Chess Computer Association (SSDF), the Chessmaster 9000 received a rating of 2718 Elo rating , running on a PC based on Athlon- 1200. If you remove duplicate chess engines from this list, then Chessmaster 9000 takes 14th position among all tested engines. As of May 2008, the Chessmaster 9000 remains the latest SSDF release. But in another rating, CCRL , Chessmaster XI takes 24th place, as of December 2009.

The King engine allows users to create new styles of the game, also called “personalities”, by setting several dozen different parameters, such as King’s Security, Weakness of Pawns, Accidents, Mobility and others. It is also possible to individually adjust the assessment of the figures. Chessmaster 9000 , for example, features more than 150 personalities, from the international grandmaster to Stanley and the “chimpanzee,” which in most situations makes random moves.

The presence of such a feature as “personalities” inspired many computer chess fans to try to find the most optimal “personalities”. In Chessmaster X Edition, personalization has been made easier than in previous versions.

Outstanding Games

• Larry Christiansen vs. Chessmaster 9000 (September 2002), annotated on GameKnot: Game 1 , Game 2 , Game 3 , Game 4

Chessmaster 9000 defeated international grandmaster US champion Larry Christiansen in a four-game match in September 2002. Chessmaster won the match with a score of 2.5-1.5. Chessmaster was managed by John Merlino, who was the Chessmaster project manager during the match. Four personalities were involved in this match, three of whom were based on well-known international grandmasters: Alexander Alekhine , Bobby Fisher and Mikhail Botvinnik . The last match was held with the default personal settings. Kristiansen won in the first game, lost in the second and third and fourth game tied .

To date, many different versions of Chessmaster have been published on Amiga, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, DOS, PC , Macintosh, Nintendo Entertainment System , Super Nintendo Entertainment System , Game Boy , Game Boy Color , Game Boy Advance , Nintendo DS , Sega Genesis (as an exclusive Sega Channel ), Sega Game Gear , PlayStation, PlayStation 2 , Xbox , and mobile phones ^[2] . Early versions of the Chessmaster 3000 and 4000 for the Macintosh were developed by Sebastian Rapport and Troy Heere, who used the engines developed by Kittinger and Köning. The porting of later Macintosh versions was done by Feral Interactive, and the last Macintosh port was the Chessmaster 9000 . Ubisoft also offers a downloadable version of the Chessmaster Challenge , in which there were some differences from the Chessmaster X Edition , they were expressed in a more simplified interface and reduced training materials.

Later editions of Chessmaster contained both designs: 2D and 3D, and a large number of different designs of boards and figures. The developers changed the approach to the interface from the version of Chessmaster X Edition : sets of 3D animations were added, in which the figures walked between the fields and imitated fights when taking enemy pieces, borrowing ideas from Battle Chess or Magic Chess from Harry Potter . Chessmaster X Edition was bundled with red and blue glasses in order to be able to taste the “advanced 3D” mode.

Xbox Live Arcade

The version for the Xbox Live Arcade section with Xbox Live multiplayer support and the added webcam support for the Xbox 360 platform was called Chessmaster Live and was introduced on January 30, 2008, but is currently unavailable. This version of Chessmaster contained a bug that allowed the player playing the white pieces to delay the match indefinitely until the opponent surrendered or left the game. Ultimately, to fix this flaw, a patch was released that did not change the Elo players if they left the game before the first move.

• Computer chess