anyone around (or north) or Toronto that can tell me where to get Fritz? I've tried Best Buy, Future shop, Eb games - none of the carry it, nor can order it. Apparently its been discontinued!! Because I'm in CAnada I can't order if from Amazon.com., they won't ship software across the boarder, and Amazon.ca doesn't carry it.. !! I've googled until my eye's are googled!. and I can't find it available from somewhere in Canada online, nor in major stores
MIODude

Originally posted by MIODude
anyone around (or north) or Toronto that can tell me where to get Fritz? I've tried Best Buy, Future shop, Eb games - none of the carry it, nor can order it. Apparently its been discontinued!! Because I'm in CAnada I can't order if fro ...[text shortened]... able from somewhere in Canada online, nor in major stores
MIODude

Looks like its orderable from there,. but.. I can't tell the real costs.. it says 5.50$ shipping.. I'm pretty sure it will cost more shipping from Europe.. When its all said and done, I think its going to cost me 120$ Canadian.. eek.
so.. I see that Chessmaster 8000 and up does have a DB in it.. so.. I check into buying that, but thats not Win2k compatible.. UBi Soft position is that win2k isn't a gaming operating system.. hmmmm.. I might have to get a hand held game!!
so.. what else is there besides Chessmaster, or Fritz that others might recommend?

I got Fritz 8 and a friend got Chessmaster 10, and after fooling around with Fritz and hearing what my friend said about Chessmaster, I decided to buy Chessmaster too. Since then I have I almost exclusively used Chessmaster, and I would recommend it much more highly than Fritz. The teaching tools are much more extensive on Chessmaster, and higher quality, and the computer opponents seem much more varied and interesting. The game analysis features seem comparable in the two, with Chessmaster making more comments, but I felt like Fritz's were a little better. In Fritz you can play through variations in the annotations and in Chessmaster you can't. Chessmaster has nice comments on opening lines, Fritz generally makes no comments at all until you're out of an opening book. Both came with 1 year subscriptions to their websites, and if you are interested in that, Fritz's has a much better community and interface. The chessmaster site is difficult to use and very sparsely populated (generally fewer than 25 people on it worldwide at any given time). Fritz's engine is supposed to be slightly better than Chessmaster's, but for me, they both kick my butt at way below maximum strength, so what matters more is how well they scale back that strength, and I've enjoyed playing Chessmaster's opponents much more. Anyway, I hope this helps you out.
-Mike
(P.S. I agree that it totally sucks that you can't play chessmaster on Win2000, luckily I got a new machine around the time I was looking)

Try eBay?

I didn't want to have to change my operating system just to play chessmaster, when I'm on the fence on which to buy anyways.. I did try ebay, and at the time looking, there were no fritz 8 postings available to ship to Canada.
I have since found a place to order it.. Chesscentral sells it, and ships to Canada.. eta .. 3-4 weeks...
Thanks for everyone's help

Originally posted by mikebind
I got Fritz 8 and a friend got Chessmaster 10, and after fooling around with Fritz and hearing what my friend said about Chessmaster, I decided to buy Chessmaster too. Since then I have I almost exclusively used Chessmaster, and I would recommend it much more highly than Fritz. The teaching tools are much more extensive on Chessmaster, and higher quality, ...[text shortened]... u can't play chessmaster on Win2000, luckily I got a new machine around the time I was looking)