She's been playing chess for two years, and her playing strength is probably typical for a seven year old: right around 400. Here's some details: We're getting the Nintendo DS for my seven-year-old daughter for the holidays, and I'd like to get her a chess program to go along with it. I'm more interested in what is a better choice for a child. It seems like all the reviews about chess programs for the nintendo DS platform are written from the pespective of an experienced adult player.
I just joined today just to ask this question. And I would definitely recommend this to anyone with an interest in Chess, especially those who need a challenge when commuting or travelling (the ELO, as stated previously, is around the 2300 mark!). Instead you're just given 2000 games to flick through at your leisure- which seems quite redundant as you can look at these games on most chess websites anyway.Īll in all I'm very happy with my €16 purchase. I thought that the Fritz engine, as it does with the practice mode, would point out things or show threats, etc. It is literally just 2000 games without any sort of notation. During the practice section, you do get some banter from Fritz, which is quite entertaining.Īnother downside, for me, is the "historical matches" option. There is a "take back" option too, just in case you change your mind.These options are only availbile in practice and set up position games, not rated/classic. I use this to go through openings I'm unfamiliar with. It also has a "best moves" button, pressing this shows, in Fritz's opinion, your best move. You can set it up so that it shows legal moves, potential threats with the help of Fritz (by changing the colour of the square of a piece, the square will go amber for a medium threat and red to highlight an undefended piece that is being attacked). (Obviously, the latter could be caused by my DS screen - if anyone else has problems similar to this please comment.) My larger grumble is that the touch screen can go slightly mental at times, leading to me resigning positions because I've lost a heavy piece purely because the screen thought that I removed the pointer, meaning that the DS moved the piece to some random position. Chessmaster offers the chance to play white, black or random, and I prefer this. The slight grumble is that, when picking which side to play, there is no random option.
You can also play classic chess with traditional 1hr for 40 moves time controls, or without the clock altogether. There aren't any tournaments, though, you just keep playing against Fritz.You can set the draw/resign options for Fritz by going to the options section. In this section you play Fritz at whatever strength you like, without any help from Fritz, unlike the practice section (see below).
There is also an option to gain time with each move you play. you can play blitz at 15mins, 1hr 15 mins, or 2 hr 15mins). I assumed that you would be able to play at 5 minute increments for blitz, but it's a 1 hour increment (i.e.
The rated-classic chess is the meat and potatoes of the game, though the time options are quite limited. I've already used it to play through some old games of mine for pointers. But the puzzle section is very good (with beginner, medium and hard settings), and the set up position option is really useful, unlike Chessmaster DS, where you can choose which side to play once the pieces are on the board. I've not tried 960, or giveaway chess, so I can't comment on them. Though this could have more to do with the fact that I'm not used to playing blitz chess. Merely playing Fritz at sub 1000 rating is a real challenge for me ( rating around the 1250 mark). Update: I've had it for about a week now, and I have to say that it's tough!