Chessmaster biggest load of crap ever

What a scam

Anyway, I ain't paid for anything yet. I suppose if I was to subscribe I would get an even worse deal.....

Relevance to 5 month old topic at hand???

he doesn't think because if you look into his programming, he depth is 1 move ahead, but his stregth is 100. well it takes 0.00000001 seconds to see one move ahead for a computer. i played him again and again until i could beat hin in 1 second: i designed a way of checkmate in 29 moves against him

Chess is a very frustrating game. I usually don't play against a computer but do play live and sometimes my opponent makes stupid moves and still wins! Once  Grandmaster Aron Nimzovich got so frustrated at a chess tournament that he jumped up on a table and shouted, "Why must I lose to this idiot!" 

I recommend using the program Lucas Chess or Dasher which are free and play against thier personalities. 

Dasher is the reason the quality of ICC has declined since 2005. It's pretty, but does not function as smoothly as Blitzen. Maybe someone ought to develop a GUI with the best of both and call it Donner.

I had Chessmaster and hated it. It would make brilliant moves and then a really stupid one followed by more brilliant moves. I got Shredder 12 , and to me it's like playing a real player more than a computer. 

While I think Chessmaster has some really good attributes, it is frustrating to have to play nearly flawlessly against a sub 1500 player on there in some tournament games.

I cannot understand how I win six games in a row and then lose six games in a row: is it all a put up job? Or am I paranoid?

Maybe you're schizophrenic. Or dual personalities.

I have just lost game after game after game after winning ten games in a row. Crap craap crap.

Please be relevant, helpful & nice!

Is it the time of day i play?

There are some things that I like about the Chessmaster interface, but like you, I enjoy playing engines like Delfi, Hiarcs, and Shredder instead of the Chessmaster personalities. So I rolled up my sleeves and imported one of those engines into Chessmaster using a polyglot adapter. Now I have the best of both worlds.

Interesting. Care to share how one goes about doing that? Or point us to a tutorial on how to do this?

Sorry for the delay in response - I was away from computers for a few days.

There are a few tutorials around for setting up a UCI engine into Winboard, so you'd have to modify it for setting up into Chessmaster. Also, the tutorials may be a bit out of date. But here are a few:

http://adamsccpages.blogspot.com/p/computer-chess-utility-programs.html#j

http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:winboard:uci_setup_guide

http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?t=49621

The basic idea is that you're using a software adapter (named polyglot, or also sometimes called a UCI2WB adapter) to be used as an interface between the GUI program, which only speaks Winboard commands, and the UCI engine, which only speaks UCI commands. For example, when the GUI issues Winboard commands to the engine, the polyglot adapter intercepts the commands, translates them to UCI commands, then sends the translated commands to the UCI engine. Conversely, when the engine sends UCI data to the GUI, the polyglot adapter intercepts the data, translates the data to Winboard data, then passes the data to the GUI.

The polyglot adapter actually consists of two files: an executable "polyglot.exe" file, and a "polyglot.ini" file. The polyglot.exe file really acts as a Winboard engine; When you install the engine into the GUI, you actually tell the GUI that the polyglot.exe file IS the engine.

Now, the hardest part of the installation is the creation of the polyglot.ini file. That's because YOU have to create the polyglot.ini file. The polyglot.ini file contains the commands specific to the engine you're installing. Normally, creating this file is an arduous task, but there is an easier way - Download Alex Guerrero's "Polyglot GUI" utility program. This little program is a standalone executable program that needs no installation. Just double-click on the "Polyglot_GUI.exe" file and point it at the UCI engine that you're wanting to install. It will then display all of the UCI settings associated with the UCI engine. Then all you have to do is decide what those settings should be, then click the "Save" button. The "Polyglot GUI" program then creates the appropriate "polyglot.ini" file. (This polyglot.ini file is created in the same folder as the Polyglot_GUI.exe file, so you'll have to manually transfer the polyglot.ini file to the folder containing the UCI engine.)

So, your engine folder must contain at least three files: the UCI engine, the polyglot.exe file, and the polyglot.ini file. As an example, for my "Shredder 12 UCI elo 1200" engine, I put the "EngineShredder12UCI.exe", "polyglot.exe", and the "Polyglot.ini" files into the following folder on my PC:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Chessmaster 10th Edition\Data\Engines\Shredder 12 UCI elo 1200\

For information, here's what my Polyglot.ini contained:

[Polyglot]

EngineName=Shredder 12 UCI
EngineDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Chessmaster 10th Edition\Data\Engines\Shredder 12 UCI elo 1200
EngineCommand=EngineShredder12UCI
Book=false
BookFile=C:\Standalone executable programs\Polyglot GUI (Guerrero)\Polyglot_GUI\Engines\Book.bin
Log=false
LogFile=Shredder12UCI.log
Resign=false
ResignMoves=3
UCIVersion=1
ShowPonder=false
CanPonder=false
SyncStop=false
PromoteWorkAround=false
KibitzMove=false
KibitzPV=false
KibitzCommand=tellall
KibitzDelay=5

[Engine]
Hash=64
NalimovPath=C:\egtb
NalimovCache=8
OwnBook=false
Ponder=false
MultiPV=1
UCI_EngineAbout=Shredder 12 UCI by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, www.shredderchess.com
UCI_Chess960=false
UCI_AnalyseMode=true
UCI_ShowCurrLine=true
UCI_ShowRefutations=true
UCI_LimitStrength=true
UCI_Elo=1200
UCI_SetPositionValue=
UCI_ShredderbasesPath=C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\ShredderChess\Shredderbases\bases.ini
Keep Hash Tables=true
Position Learning=false
Use Opening Advice=true
Use Shredderbases=Never
Use Tablebases=Never
Queen Extra=0
Rook Extra=0
Bishop Extra=0
Knight Extra=0
Pawn Extra=0
Queen Extra (Computer)=0
Rook Extra (Computer)=0
Bishop Extra (Computer)=0
Knight Extra (Computer)=0
Pawn Extra (Computer)=0
Contempt=0
King Safety Percent=100
Center Control Percent=100
Pawn Structure Percent=100
Passed Pawns Percent=100
Bishop Pair Extra=0
Time Buffer (sec)=1
Time Usage Percent=100

Now, you have to open the Chessmaster program. (I just go into the "Play - Training" mode.) To install the UCI engine, you'll have to "Import Winboard engine..." from the Game menu. Notice that you have to pick the polyglot.exe file as the Winboard engine, and you have to specify the Polyglot.ini file as the command line parameter. Here's a screen shot of the import box for my engine:

Download links:

Polyglot 1.4w29 files:  http://www.geenvis.net/pg.html

Polyglot GUI program:  http://chessprograms.260mb.com/

I hope that's enough info to get you started.

The point is...Computers are really bad at "playing like a weak human" and their fake mistakes seems forced and ridiculous, then as you said they revert to GM strength. Playing online is better, computers should only be used for analysis of your games.

True for most engines, but not all. Unfortunately, the three most natural engines are not free. My two favorites are HIARCS and Delfi Trainer. Shredder is my third choice. (It makes more silly moves than the other two.) It's just utterly spooky how natural HIARCS' and Delfi's moves are.

I have the slightly older HIARCS 13.2 engine. My only criticism of HIARCS is that its lowest strength setting of 750 elo plays more like a 1200 elo setting. If you can live with this one flaw, you'll find that HIARCS is a wonderful engine to play against.

EscherehcsE that is one great tutorial. Thank you. I'm sure other's will end up using it also. Thanks again for the nice step by step. Much respect.