Chessmaster Live

Chessmaster Live is based on the 2003 Chessmaster game for the PlayStation 2. The game replaces Josh Waitzkin's tutorials with a generic scaled down practice mode. Also the library of historic games and classic opening moves have been cut compared to the PC games. The single player features over 100 AI "personalities."

New to the game is the message chess system where players swap moves via the in-game message service, similar to a play-by-mail game. The game features puzzle modes like "find the fork" or "mate in one." Four multiplayer modes return from The Art of Learning: "dark chess", "losing chess", "progressive chess", and "extinction chess". Multiplayer can be played either locally or on Xbox Live.

Chessmaster Live received generally positive reviews from critics. GamesRadar+ said: "Chessmaster Live doesn't look like much. But it delivers exactly what it promises, and there's not really much to complain about because of it." Eurogamer concluded: "[...]

this is about as solid a Chess package as one could hope for on the service." IGN said "[...] the feature set doesn't quite live up to the rest of the series". com said the game has "[...]