Terrible. The graphics are pretty, but who needs dozens of chess piece skins? The space hogging intro movie gets annoying because after the first time you watch it, you just want to play. The AI is competent enough but tends to forget some basic rules. The AI has moved pawns as if they were queens, move any piece though others as if they had the leaping ability of knights, and sometimes just move nothing from one space to another. (recording that, 'nothing' moved g5-a7 in the game history window) Besides usually freezing after something like this, the game won't start about 1/4 of the time the first time it's clicked. It complains about a corrupt MCI file or something like that.
Much better programs are out this.
This bombed.

This was the first program I ever downloaded from this site...and it will be the last. I just got around to playing my first game with the program. When I tried to resign, it locked up so badly I had to shut down my computer. Nuts!

Yes is very good

It's a chess game made by someone who doesn't really know the game nor loves it.

Lots of pomp and circumstance but when all said and done it sucks.
See comments 35 as well as 123.
In short: bloated, badly programmed and clearly without knowledge of the conventions in chess notation and an underdeveloped chess engine.

It may have been in the wrong place but I'm certainly glad I downloaded it. It is an awesome game.

Downloading this game in a dial up connection is not worth the pain. You will get far better games both in terms of graphics and quality for far less. Try shredder online or the demo version. shredder is far better.

I am one more unfortunate person who missed the finish line by a few minutes after two failed attempts trying to download in Opera, but succeeded in Mozila Firefox. Now I am left with useless setup file which doesn't allow me even to the trial version.

Does anybody know how to access the trial version, so atleast I will be emotionally satisfied for getting rewarded for the pains I took for download such a huge beast on dial-up connection.

Thanking u in anticipation. Regards Claudio Ferns - Goa

P.S. I would suggest GAOTD to give grace period of atleast 40% of the download size which will go a long way in helping people with dial-up connection. Thanks

I would like to say on behalf of myself and other people who are unable to get broadband, who have to use dialup. It takes about five minutes per Megabyte to download a program.. so Grand Master Chess at 175Mb would take about 15 hours. I started downloading about 14:30pm
estimating a finish time of 05:30am.
Unfortunately the download speed was slower than usual and I was unable to finish until 10:00am.
Having invested the time and effort, I feel so disappointed to be unsuccessful getting this desirable program, only to be left with
175Mb of debris to dispose of.
I was quite bemused that you you were still offering to proceed to
the download page just 30 mins before the offer is closed.
Perhaps one of the GAOTD team could find an inspired improvement.

Couldn't even try it... attempted to install it repeatedly with over 30 minutes time to spare before expiration, but repeatedly received the expiration of offer notice... not cool GOTD!

Great thing. I will definitely feature the software in my games section of my learnings blog.

Some of you missed this announcement:

" To compensate for temporary stuff shortage, we decided to switch to single site mode for those few weeks, that means that Game site will be offline and we will post games on our main site on weekends and software during business days. Once vacation season is over, the Game site will be back."

Marius

I downloaded and installed this program, it runs nice on Windows Vista Home Basic. I do have a gripe about the 3d interface though. The default angle is not raised up high enough. The viewing angle its at kind of makes it hard to move around the board until you get used to it. Not a terrible program, but it needs to have a zoom in function besides the 2d view.

Any of the Chessmaster series is vastly superior to this title. Having a 70MB intro movie is simply insanely retarded. For one thing, what idiot needs an intro movie for a chess game of all things? Second, hasn't Merscom ever heard of compression codecs? There are many free ones that don't require licenses, meaning no royalties or anything...

#8, Arjan from NL
I agree with you in today's game being superior to GreenChess. But this, I'm sorry to say, is not a great achievement. As you seemingly know, the benchmark of computer chess user software is set by the German development Fritz. Merscom have a lot to catch up in comparison, not the least in terms of playing ability.

GrandMaster Chess 3 has the upside of a playing level which is challenging for the casual, not too advanced chess player, of a bunch of skins and a mediocre valuable game database.
The graphics, although very well-done as a whole, should be optimized in 2D view, in the size of the 3D view (much too small as by now) and of course by adding the feature of automatic game replay (doing that manually by clicking the right arrow feels clumsy pretty soon).
The intonation of the human voice is funny at best. Honestly, if a real life referee would speak that pretentiously and snobbish in a professional chess tournament I make a bet after a while some East European Grandmaster would stand up and curl a rook 5 centimeters off the referee earlobe. :)
Moreover, the game moves are counted one by one each side, arrg! This, frankly spoken, is a killer! It's just unprofessional and makes you doubt the quality of chess consultants at Merscom. They OUGHT to know that the internationally standardized notation goes 1 move = 2 semi moves by both White and Black. I wouldn't mind seeing it in a child/beginner level but I do feel taken for a ride seeing that on the GM level. Bobby F., where the heck are you?!! Come home finally after all these years and teach your fellow Americans how to play chess!!!

Commenting about chess software without saying anything in detail about a game played would be like the announcement of a wedding without stating the bride's name. I don't have the intention of showing off in any kind but I want to yield evidence for what's the main problem this software is stuck in.
After I'd easily reached a winning position on hard playing Black (the game crashed though shortly before the end) I was curious to face the AI opponent at its peak performance, so I tried the GM level. After 52 moves it was over. Not quite a few of you setting up this game might guess wrong who's me, who's going to win having reached move 35 or even 41 already.
1. Nf3 Nc6, 2. c4 e5, 3. Qc2 Bc5, 4. e3 Nf6, 5. a3 d5, 6. cxd5 Qxd5, 7. Bc4 Qd6, 8. Nc3 O-O, 9. Ng5 h6, 10. Nge4 Bf5, 11. Bd3 Nxe4, 12. Bxe4 Bg6, 13. Nb5 Bxe4, 14. Qxe4 Qd7, 15. O-O Na5, 16. Qa4 a6, 17. Qxa5 axb5, 18. Qc3 Qd5, 19. e4 Qd6, 20. Rb1 b4, 21. axb4 Bxb4, 22. Qg3 c6, 23. d4 exd4, 24. e5 Qe6, 25. Bf4 Rfd8, 26. Qd3 Ra2, 27. h3 c5, 28. Rfc1 Kf8, 29. g4 g5, 30. Bg3 b6, 31. f4 Qc6, 32. f5 Qd5, 33. f6 Kg8, 34. h4 gxh4, 35. g5 hxg3, 36. Qxg3 hxg5, 37. Rc2 Bc3, 38. Qxg5+(Check) Kf8, 39. Rh2 Ke8, 40. Qg4 Qe6, 41. Qxe6+ fxe6, 42. Rf1 Rxb2, 43. Rh8+ Kf7, 44. Rxd8 Bd2, 45. Rd7+ Kf8, 46. Kh1 Rc2, 47. Rf2 Rc1+, 48. Kh2 Be3, 49. Ra2 Bf4+ 50. Kg2 Rc2+, 51. Rxc2 Bd2, 52. Rxd2 Res.

Fun game. I couldn't play it because of my vision though

I tried using this over the network, and it hangs with a command line that says 'select sockets'. it doesn't allow input and just sits there. Am I missing something?

This game's graphics look nice, and it may be quite well suited for an amateur or an occasional player.
As a chess professional, however, if you are looking for real playing strenght, the best free chess interface/engine's are Winboard, http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard.html and Arena, http://www.playwitharena.com/ . If you want to improve your chess, you may also want to use the free Chessbase Light, http://www.chessbase.com/download/cblight2007/index.asp
The strongest commercial programs are Rybka, Fritz, Junior, Shredder, and some others. Some of them pack great graphics too, but are somewhat pricey and pro-oriented. They can usually beat the world's top players.
Thanks to GAOTD for this download!

Yaaaaaaaaaaa i am also exited this is a really cool game

Khai(#109): The good news is the test and license are totally cost-free. The bad news is you're clearly too ignorant to even bother trying. Have a Smurfy day!

Installed. One move and it froze. Brand new Dell dualcore 5000. 1st program that hasn't worked.

Pretty good program...
but the hint function seems annoying to me. I like that game because it has from a very low level to very high, which is remarkable. As I used to play with some other chess program before, I almost had no chance against them, their "easy level" is really difficult to me. But this one is different... enjoy it. However, sometime it crash with Vista... and I can't play with the "problem built". Now I try to redownload it. You can also burn this game onto the CD to play it in your office... but plz close the door.
Enjoy guys

great program....well game :P i had bought this a long time ago, and lost my cd, however i can once again play it!, thanks!

#93 My calendar says the first day of the week is monday.
Saturday and sunday are the weekend.

I don´t know about this game. It wastes a lot of space. Perhaps someone should tell the game company about data compression...
Recently i compressed a game executable of another game that was over 50MB to 1.75MB with UPX executable packer.
What makes the game that big? Are all the shapes and textures made of bitmap graphics? Oo

Installed fine...activated fine...played it for about 5-6 moves and it locked up.....uninstalled it and now I will wait for something else to come along worth trying.

Excellent! I think I will enjoy this, been years, and I was never any good, mabey I will learn? Thanks

@#24 I too have been having problems with the game freezing up. I am running WinXP Pro, Intel P4 2.8 Ghz proccessor and 1Gig of Ram. I play white against the computer and after a few moves the game freezes up and I have to use the task monitor to end task. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I would like to keep this game installed. If it can not be resolved then I will have no other choice other than to uninstall it. THANK YOU GAOTD FOR ALL THE FREE SOFTWARE YOU PROVIDE TO US FOR OUR USE AND EVALUATION.

Played on stock settings. The AI seems to be solid enough at that level although it looks like it falls for exchange traps (but not unexpected at that level). The AI did beat me, since I was playing impatiently.

Some things I noticed:
- The AI, at the stock difficulty level, passed up what appeared to be an advantagous exchange (e.g. it could have won a Rook for a bishop). Instead, it tried perserving the bishop and lost some other pieces in return.
- Some of the buttons feel unresponsive, although this could be attributed to my mouse or background applications.
- In the Games Archive, there's the Next/Prev buttons - which don't seem to behave as immediatly expected.
- A quick check didn't show support for playing against other chess programs (e.g. through the WinBoard engine).

Overall, it appears to be suitable chess game but could still be improved.

#95 - "Secondly, people who clog up their machine with useless junk just because they have the space are not responsible computer owners."

I'm sorry.. I missed the requirement to take a Computer Exam and get my Computer License.

Could you direct me to the CLAO (Computer Licensing Authority Offices) so I can correct this sad state of affairs and tell me how much the test and license will cost?

Hi Guys:
I downloaded the game but couldn't find the readme. Its been ages since I played Chess. 50 years. I need to review the moves etc.is there a good website to refresh my memory

Signed:

A 70 year old Computer Geek

6 attempts at play and 6 lockups after very few moves. 1.5GB of ddr 333, 2.0 ghz Athlon 64, WinXPPro ,ati Radeon Xpress 200M graphics(maybe the trouble), and 100GB Seagate ST910021A 7.2k spindle I do not think my laptop is too slow for this.

I really don't like how the game board itself is so small on the screen, at least on my widescreen 22" monitor. Also, the control seems to really lag... it's not snappy at all (and no, it's not my computer, nothing else is like that on it, and I'm not a n00b, thanks). Anyway, nice effort, but I won't use it again.

And ++ to the suggestion for Battle Chess (or Archon)!! :)

I have high speed internet, it was downloaded in less then a minute and installed in 5minutes

Nice Program!

9/10 (cus i hate chess :))

#68 Matt, and others who were wondering:

I searched the web to find out what FISCHER STYLE RULES meant. I found out on this page:

http://www.chessvariants.com/diffsetup.dir/fischer.html

It's a different way of setting up the pieces at the start of a game. Some of them are placed somewhat randomly. Bobby Fischer suggested this as a way of bringing some variety to the game openings, which have been studied so much that they have become boring to professional players.

I see this software will set up games this way if you select that as an option.

I'm fairly new on this list but... I don't get all the complaints. This is free software - what is there to complain about? GOTD is doing us a favor.

Thanks to those making this happen.

gave it a try, installed smoothly, started a game (me versus computer)

i could do the first draw, then computer did it's first draw and programm freezes. Computer draw does not finish, programm stays in "thinking" until you kill it, "thinking time" for Computer is not counted.

OS: W2k System: IBM , so it's a thumbs down for me. -> uninstalled

175 Mb for an application... hahahaaaaaa that is a lot.

Thanks for the really cool Chess game! I have played several games
with it and really like it. Easy interface and good multiple choices
with so many variation. This looks really like a bargain at the
intended price that you say you will be selling it at.
I did find a typo on the Highlights. Available in what
you have as " All Avaible Moves ".
Couple things I do wish you could add to this program would be volume
sliders to adjust the sounds. Also, there is no way to minimize the
screen which would be so handy when us puter freaks are having to
multitask or check on other things when we are playing chess. Would
be nice to be able to jump on and right back in easily.
I am a long time chess player and have used a lot of computerized
games, both PC and board. I give your program a 10 and would
highly recommend it. Kudos to your combined staff that all played part
in making this kick butt program.

Download doesn't work - tried a few times, error when unzipping. Looks like a very nice game. Anyone?

Horrible. The 3D view is useless as anyone would prefer the 2D view. Wish I can rate this game fairly but vs. the computer as soon as your turn is over the game gets hung even after I reboot.

Downloaded ok (15 minutes) - installed/activated ok.
I noticed install size was 475MB...almost half a gig! Could be a whole OS!

Through Sound FX I was able to choose an mp3 directory, but was not able to figure out how to actually play the music in that diretory.

Skins kept cycling through the same few over and over, thus creating an appearance of having a lot of skins while only having a few.

I too had the lock-up problems twice. That was enough for me.

Uninstalled.

I'll hold out for a playable version of Battle Chess.

Regardless of how much space anyone has on their hard drive, bloat is bloat. And bloat is a hallmark of Merscom LLC. A chess game with more than 100 skins? An mp3 player?
First, if you want that extra crap with your game, you're not a serious chess player to begin with. There are games for the beginner or casual player that have none of this clutter. Secondly, people who clog up their machine with useless junk just because they have the space are not responsible computer owners.
Having said that, if you're dimwitted enough to think this is what a chess game is about, at least the price is reasonable.
Chess is a game for thinking people. Thinking people will realize that their are many computer chess games around without the needless bells and whistles.

finally! i good chess game. i love chess.

Sorry, but Sunday is the first day of the week and not part of the weekend. Check your calendar.

Quit compaining about the fact that its a game. Would you rather have a friggin screen saver?

Great game - thanks GAOTD! I especially like that you can choose so many different skill levels. I hope this helps to improve my game!

Oh, man. I haven't played chess in a long time, and this looked like a great program.

Big program. But that's ok. Long download, long extraction, long installation. Patience is a virtue.

The interface and visual aspects are very nice. Didn't listen to the music, and didn't want to, so no comment on it. Many options, skins, etc. My initial reaction was quite positive.

I tried playing my first game and everything completely froze after 14 moves. Froze again on the next game. I'm not going to bother with it again at the moment; I may try later this evening. My expectations aren't high about it not freezing again, though. Which is a shame because I was quite psyched for a really nice chess game, this one did look so promising.

umm that should be KB/s

DL speed around 450 kbps from mirror link. not bad.

I have to say I always wanted a really good chess game to learn on. This one is really great. Thanks.

Very nice overall and with great graphics. Can also be run windowed! I did however run into problems so I uninstalled it. Played a game and noticed the cpu fan running annoyingly high, then checked CPU usage in the task manager. Cpu usage went up to 90% at times. So I turned off the "think when idle" option in the game to see what happens. Started a new game and played just 1 move when the game froze and I had to kill it with the task manager. Tried again, same thing.