computer chess games

     Does anyone have a suggestion for a good learning, but challanging, computer chess game for my nephew? Reasonaly priced. He's really starting to get into the game.

  I have Chessmaster(CM) 10, that is pretty good for a beginning program, and I also have Fritz 12, which is more advanced. CM is pretty cheap at about $15 or $20. The newer version, Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition, is pretty much the same thing just updated for Vista/7. It's a good learning tool and it should work well for him. Check Amazon for it or even the Chess.com store 

   -Mark

Try the chess.com download store, maybe not the best but mostly free...

      Thanks for the info, Mark; by the way have you seen any snow lately? I hear it"s been getting pretty damn deep back east. Hope ya' make it through, only three more months 'till April.

  Yeah we got about 24-25 inches in some parts of NJ. It's pretty bad here. White as far as the eye can see. Some areas got 30+ inches. Missed a White Christmas by one day. Shoveling was absolutely back breaking yesterday and it's definitely not going to be the last one of the year. Hope everything worked well there! 

   -Mark

      Well doesn't really cover it. More like luckier than a Megabucks winner. The Twin Cities got 15" of snow, Kenosha, WI (about 40 miles south of Milwaukee) also got 15", but we only have about a half inch on the ground, and today it's going to be in the upper thirties then 44* tomorrow, so even the snow in the shadows should be melted. Hopefully that weather will come your way soon. I think the last time Milw. had over 2 feet of snow was around the time Japan surrendered! (I know that was in August, but you get the point) It was well before my time, anyway. When my dad was just a kid, he says, "they got so much snow here that the drifts completly covered their garage, you could walk out of a second story window without harm, and your grandpa made us tunnel our way to school that morning."

      I'm thinking of something with multi levels of play as he progresses; maybe move suggestions while he's playing; maybe puzzles (if he gets frustrated losing games to the computer). But software for a PC (Windows XP). So what do you think?

i also suggest chessmaster for beginners. it's got some nice courses/lessons on it (well, the grandmasters edition does at least). you can change the level of the computer opponent so weaker players can play against a lower rated opponent, but i've found that at a certain rating, the computer does have problems playing like a weak player. for example, the computer will make a series of very good moves and then suddenly hang a piece. it's not consistent at it's weak level.

still, it's probably one of the best beginner chess software programs out there.