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0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 excalibur 747k grand master chess set Oct 24, 2009
I haven't play chess since 72', so level 1 is still beating me. Not a game for someone who doesn't like to lose all the time. But, excalibur is great product. I will be the next Bobby Fischer someday(In my dreams). :) Also, it trains you to become a better chess player, and forces you to move and capture pieces the grandmaster why of playing chess.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Great Chess computer Apr 15, 2009
The GM is in my opinion a very nice chess computer. We will be having many battles for years to come. I was presented with the error message everyone spoke of and to be honest every time it happened it was because I had made an illegal or just plain wrong move. The fit and finish seem fine and everyone I showed it to is impressed by it, especially it's size. It's not made out of solid gold, but you don't get that for $130. I also like the weight of the pieces and the fact it is auto-sensory. I would of preffered a matte finish over the gloss plastic, it seems like it's going to scratch up easily, as I barely used it and already there are some scratches on it.
The thing I really disliked was the packaging. It was very tightly packed with various pieces of styrofoam. It was very hard to get out of the box and was packed so tight that the board had a pretty good bow in it(it has mostly flexed back into shape but I was none to happy about it). If you want to store it or send it for repair I can't picture anyone getting it back into the box it came in.
Things I would of payed extra for:
1 Packaging I could have reused.
2 A plastic back instead of the cardboard
3 A nice matte black box that said Grandmaster on it in gold on it to hold my pieces.
In closing, In my opinion the Grandmaster is a very nice chess partner and makes playing chess against a computer very enjoyable. I had a Phantom-force chess set and have played more games in 3 days on the GM master than I did on the Phantom-force in a month.
All in All a Good buy.
Eric
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
features Dec 28, 2008
I bought my husband, an avid chess player, Excaliber for Christmas. Overall it has been more than challenging for him on even the lowest settings. There are a few glitches off and on probably because of the sensitivity of the machine, and he has had to restart it more than once. It sometimes reads error although the space it is called on has not been in play or has no chess piece for awhile. My husband does not have good eyesight and we find the digital display quite small for older folks. There are several ways according to the enclosed pamphlet to reset, takeback moves, etc but once it says error it usually pretty much sticks to it until you restart the game. We would much prefer lit LED squares to show the moves rather than the grid method, but he still enjoys his Excaliber because of the challenge and regulation size.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
First Impressions Dec 17, 2008
An Excalibur Grandmaster 747K was delivered to me today, and because I am writing this a little over a week before Christmas, I will post my first impressions just in case they might be of some help to someone who is considering purchasing the 747K for a Christmas gift.
I think that when prices are included in reviews here at Amazon they are removed, so I will just say that I got the 747K for the lowest price on the web with free shipping and no sales tax. For what I paid, I am quite happy and I trust I'll remain happy with my purchase as long as the unit doesn't start to malfunction.
Nevertheless, as other reviewers have noted, this chess computer could be more durable and of better quality than it is. For example, the A and H file squares on the unit I received are rectangular. The vinyl board was obviously not set in place with as much care as possible during production. That Excalibur does not include an AC adapter with this chess computer is disappointing, and it is also disappointing that Excalibur does not anywhere on the web or 747K manual supply consumers with a toll-free number. I emailed them over 24 hours ago to inquire about purchasing an AC adapter for the Grand Master from them and I have yet to receive a reply, and that doesn't speak well for their customer service.
But taking all that into account, I think this is a dang nice chess computer for what I paid. The only other chess computer I've used of the kind that has actual chess pieces that one moves on a board (i.e., as opposed to Fritz and Chessmaster, etc.), is a Radio Shack chess computer model 1650 that I picked up on sale in the late 90's. I still have it and it works fine, but I never liked that one must press fairly hard to register moves, I have never liked that the first press of a piece to a square doesn't always register a move, and for my large hands the pieces and board are uncomfortably small.
The Grand Master requires no pressure at all to register moves. In the short amount of time I've used it I have had to move pieces twice a few times in order to get the moves to register, but moving the pieces when playing against the 747K (and making its moves for it) is no different than moving pieces on a regular, non-computerized chess board (the one exception being that you cannot slide pieces with the 747K but must lift them in order for moves to register). This "auto sensory" feature, combined with the large size of the board and pieces, makes for a very nice chess playing experience. The pieces themselves are quite good in quality. They have weight and heft and the felt on the bottoms are neatly attached, with no gaps showing between the felt and the bottom of the pieces and no glue residue in sight around the edges.
Game play with the Grand Master is simple and I was able to start playing a game after inserting batteries without consulting the manual. The beeps that tell you that your moves are being registered are unobtrusive, and the "threat" message that appears on the LCD displays doesn't bother me. (I've seen reviews of the Grand Masters that included complaints about the beeps and threat messages.)
There are features of this unit that I have yet to try but as I say I wanted to write something ASAP in time for anyone who might be considering the 747K for a Christmas present. As long as you can find a good deal (the price today here at Amazon is good), I would recommend this unit.
Google the phrase "citrine and grandmaster slug-out" to access a link to a short article about a comparison between the Novag Citrine chess computer and the Excalibur 747K. The article concludes, "The winner is the Excalibur Grandmaster."
Google "Excalibur Grandmaster Chess Computer Review" and the 2nd hit (today at least) links to a "frank" review of the Grandmaster at the Chess House blog (Chess House is a top notch retailer of chess products). (I did not have to use quotation marks around the phrases for either Google search in order to come up with the links in question.)
Excalibur says on the box that the 747K comes in that it it has an estimated rating of 2200. Someone on the Chess Exchange forum says that it is "rated at an Elo of 1700 or 1800 at most," but offers nothing to support this claim. Whether the 747K is 1700, 1800, or 2200 certainly matters for relatively strong chess players, but for patzers such as myself, a chess computer that can seriously challenge me for at least a few years will do. (In case you are no more familiar with the term "patzer" than I was when I first began to encounter it when reading about chess, it is from the German for "to bungle" and is slang for a poor or amateurish chess player.)
I will update this review in the future should I have any problems with my Grandmaster.
Update 1/23/10 - After letting the unit sit in a closet unused for a couple of months, I took it out to play a few games. I forgot whether I'd put batteries in it, and when I tried it without an AC adapter it didn't turn on, so I figured I hadn't put (or left) batteries in it. After playing a few games with the unit powered by the adapter, I decided to check the battery compartment. This requires removing two Phillips head screws on the bottom of the unit. I freaked when I saw that I had left batteries in the unit - four AA Duracell alkaline batteries with 2013 "use by" dates on them - and they had begun to leak and corrode! I freaked because I recently had an old but otherwise perfectly good portable CD player destroyed by leaking batteries. Thank goodness the batteries in the Grandmaster hadn't leaked beyond the battery compartment, and there the leakage was fairly minimal. Lesson learned: NEVER leave batteries in the Grandmaster when it is not being used regularly (e.g., daily or at least a few times a week). (One of the things we can learn from playing chess is the importance of thinking ahead. Boy do I feel dumb for not thinking ahead on this battery thing!)
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Awesome Jul 29, 2008
The auto-sensory board works fine and rarely messes up once you've played five or so games. The GM Excalibur is also tournament-sized which gives it a nice look and feel. It is really easy to set-up, user-friendly, and comes with detailed instructions for its features.
In regards to regular play, it allows you to set its levels from 1-6 (6 being easiest, 1 being the hardest). This thing is still a pain on level 6, though, and may give you a headache. Luckily, it has support if you want: A hint button which can recommend where to move to if you're stuck, and a warning about pieces that are under attack without defense. There are other handicaps you can place on the computer as well, such as not allowing it to move a certain piece.
Another nifty feature of the board is to analyze the game and give you a score, which allows you to see how far ahead or behind you are. This is useful to see how well you're progressing. Additionally, you can take back up to 12 moves, force the computer to move a certain way, and turn off the game and start where you left off at a later time.
You can play as either black or white.
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