I Hate Chess Titans (the Windows chess game)

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So, I'm not an experienced chess player or anything---I'm no grandmaster in the making, believe me---but I do have a semi-casual interest in it, holding over from when I started chess club in High School. I used to play the old Chessmaster games on my Windows 9x machines, and they were fun, so I was pretty excited to find out that Windows Vista and Windows 7 have their own chess game built in, Chess Titans.

These days, that excitement is more along the lines of "this chess engine CHEATS".

I sincerely think that whoever programmed Chess Titans has one hell of a mean streak---on the SECOND DIFFICULTY (the one right above easy), I can barely win a game without using the "undo move" function, which basically defeats the purpose of chess. I've managed to win fairly on the lowest difficulty, but anything above, and I end up closing the game via Task Manager so it doesn't count as a loss.

Seriously, I HATE Chess Titans.

I don't get it. Why do people play games that they hate? Most if not all games I've played have moments of frustration or annoyance, but that doesn't mean I hate them.

Duke's not saying he hates chess, just that the game program he's using is driving him nuts.

I've been having the same experience with a freeware program called 'Arena Chess,' except that I can't find any control to let me adjust it to an easier level and it destroys me every time. In three moves, I'm suddenly on the defensive and don't even get a chance to deploy my pieces before it kicks my ass. Doh!

I know I'm a less than mediocre player, though I do enjoy the challenge of the game - but damn, give me a fighting chance, for gods' sakes! Let me at least believe that I might win one once in a while, it takes all the fun out of trying when you're facing a Kobayashi Maru and you know you can't win no matter what you do. No wonder Kirk cheated.

I once defeated a computer at a chess game by getting mad and giving it my queen. It was stunned. Not programmed for sacrifice of queen. It paused a long time. Then it made a row of exclamation marks. Then it began moving at random, so I went on to check-mate!

The Windows XP version of Chess Titans is easy to beat, as long as I focus on the moves I'm making. Guess they made it more difficult.

I am doing about 97% at level 5 and probably should move up a level. My problem with it is that it doesn't record games.

I can't even beat it at the easiest difficulty. I'm not great at chess or anything, but you'd think I could pull off a win once in a while on easy.

Apparently there is a set series of moves you HAVE to make to beat the computer on Chess Titans. I've played it a few times, but I've never done well at it.