The Best Electronic Chess Game.

This electronic chess game earned the Hammacher Schlemmer Institute's "best" rating for its quality of instruction and accuracy of level of play. The game was play-tested by an International Master with a 2, 367 FIDE rating and found to be superior to other models because of the quality of its instructional mode, which uses an autoplay function that allows beginning to advanced players to watch the computer play itself--a key learning tool for assembling an array of opening moves. This game had the highest Elo rating (2, 330) of all models tested, an opening book of 24, 000 half-moves, and was the only one considered by a panel of 20 novice, moderate, and experienced players to be suitable for challenging play. Panelists commented that after the lesser models' limited opening books were exhausted, their intrinsic flaws were easily exposed and exploited, reducing them to amusing novelties. This unit's eight levels and 64 time controls were found to be best-suited for beginners and equally challenging for tournament-level players. Panelists also found this model to be the easiest to use and the one with the most features. The game's wooden chessboard uses walnut for its dark squares and maple for its white squares, and each are 1 1/2" sq., making them the closest to tournament standard size of the competing models. Magnetic sensors detect each of the hand-carved walnut and maple Staunton pieces, and each square has four LEDs that illuminate to indicate the computer's next move. It has a detachable chess clock and an easy-to-read display that shows chess notation for moves. Plugs into AC with the included adapter. Chessboard 11 3/4" sq. (2 lbs.)