Chessmaster, a series of chess programs developed and released by Ubisoft. It is the best-selling chess franchise in history, with more than five million units sold as of 2002. Due to its sophisticated GUI, graphics and animations, adjustable playing strength and countless features, Chessmaster is dedicated to the mass market, and due to the strong engine with configurable "personalities", integrated database support, annotated games, and chess lessons and tutorials, also interesting for advanced users.

Chessmaster XI, released in 2007, is the most recent version. Dedicated for chess beginners and casual chess fans, Chessmaster Challenge differs from Chessmaster 10th Edition in its simplified interface, and scaled-down tutorials. It’s a non-retail product available for trial and purchase through download only.

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Chessmaster 10th

Chessmaster Challenge

 

Chessmaster XI

 

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Chess Engines

 

MyChess II

Chessmaster was first released as Chessmaster 2000 in 1986 by Software Toolworks, Inc., a software and computer game publisher located in Los Angeles, co-developed by its founder Walt Bilofsky and Michael E. Duffy, with a chess engine by David Kittinger, loosely based on MyChess II published by the same vendor since 1984. CM 2000 was released for various 8- and 16-bit home computer platforms based on 6502, Z80, 68000 and 8086 processors, such as Amiga, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Macintosh, and DOS PCs. The PC version was a rewrite in C based on the 6502 assembly version, which also went into Novag's dedicated Constellation some years before, as mentioned by Larry Kaufman in the USOCCC 1986 tournament report:

 Novag's programmer Dave Kittinger also was the programmer of the three PC software entries under the name "Chessmaster". As they employ a version of the rather dated "Constellation" program they were not expected to be competitive with the dedicated units, except for "Chessmaster 2000 Apple" which employed extensive technology to run at high speed.

Sargon 3

After a deal with Fidelity Electronics in 1988, Software Toolworks continued the Chessmaster series for Apple computers with a Sargon III based program by Kathe and Dan Spracklen, market as Fidelity Chessmaster 2100. PC versions of CM 2100 were based on a Kittinger program.

Chessmaster 3000

The Chessmaster 3000 was released in 1991 for MS-DOS and Windows 3.x PCs, as well for Apple Macintosh, based on a Kittinger program as confirmed by John Merlino, and mentioned in CCR 5.1:

 Kittinger's first program for personal computers was incorporated into the popular program Chessmaster 2000 developed by Software Toolworks. Kittinger's program was then modified and used in some of the versions of Chessmaster 2100 and Chessmaster 3000.

The King

With the release of Chessmaster 4000 Turbo in 1993, The King by Johan de Koning became the CM engine until the present, with annual, biennial and triennial releases for major Windows versions until Chessmaster XI in 2007, incorporating the The King 3.50 with a parallel search able to support multiple processors. The King Version 3.12 has become a WinBoard engine within the ChessMaster 8000 and newer versions.
Some versions were also made available for Mac OS computers, and the Xbox Live Arcade.

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