Chessmaster 3000
Ranked 3 of 5 chess engines by recommenders
Remembered fondly as a chess tutor with audio-visual lessons; people who learned from it as kids still recommend it, though it's hard to run on modern machines.
Remembered fondly as a chess tutor with audio-visual lessons; people who learned from it as kids still recommend it, though it's hard to run on modern machines.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fondly remembered audio-visual chess program
“that was a wonderful program, never quite understood why they stopped developing”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Can a person's chess mind outlive them? An attempt with 41 masters” “that wonderful audio-visual program, like Encarta but chess related”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Stockfish 19” “that wonderful audio-visual program”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Stockfish 19”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to run on modern machines
“they're notoriously irritating to run on modern machines unless you go through the trouble of setting up a Win9x VM”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Can a person's chess mind outlive them? An attempt with 41 masters”
Other chess engines people recommend
The four most recommended other chess engines, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stockfish | 47 | 8 | 85% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Sameshi chess engine | 10 | 3 | 77% | 1 | — | — |
| Chessmaster 3000This page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Leela Chess Zero | 5 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Regex Chess | 5 | 4 | 56% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“that wonderful audio-visual program”
“that wonderful audio-visual program, like Encarta but chess related”
“they're notoriously irritating to run on modern machines unless you go through the trouble of setting up a Win9x VM”
“that was a wonderful program, never quite understood why they stopped developing”
“I taught myself with the Chessmaster 3000 CD-ROMs as a kid”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.