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A must for a serious chess player of any skill level

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 107 / 113
Date: March 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Though I prefer human players, like most people, I went hunting for a computer chess game because my skills had degraded playing less skilled human opponents. Maybe you arrived at this page with the same motivation or additional ones.

Without hesitation, I turned to Amazon, because it beats the price and selection of any retailer of my knowledge. I really dig Amazon's reviews, *especially* negative reviews (I LIKE a merchant that gives me reasons NOT to buy something...then I usually buy something else anyway). Yes, I even like to see negative reviews that I disagree with. I probably marked any neg. reviews for Fritz as "Helpful," prior to buying it.

I compared Chessmaster to Fritz, really the only major players I am aware of. I did not see that Chessmaster really distinguishes itself, other than notoriously incompatible copy protection, though it is true Fritz has copy protection as well. I have bought versions of Chessmaster in the past (the last was 3000), and it is roughly equivalent to Fritz in play, so if a sizable price difference arises, you might keep that in mind. If you hunger for really funky sets, Chessmaster might be your choice as well. I favor the Stanton wooden 3D design myself.

Things I really like about Fritz: strong, very fast game. Unless you are very, very good (a Master), Fritz can beat you with only 5 minutes/game, assuming you have an average PC. Very good graphics. This is also true of many other chess programs, but I get the impression Fritz is among the stronger programs because of its frequent mention by chessmasters in Chess Life, where there is often an aside that "so-and-so checked his end game play against Fritz and discovered that..." This impressed on me that Fritz had developed a reputation among world-class players that Chessmaster had not. What the reasons for this may be, I am not sure.

Two novelties deserve comment. First, let me mention that Fritz makes witty, rude comments in a variety of European accents. You can turn this feature off if it annoys, but I found it rather amusing, relieving the tedium of playing a pulseless computer, giving game-play more of a human touch. The second novelty is The Coach, a cigar-chomping bald old man who pops up when you mess up, giving the option of taking your move back. You can ask for a Subtle Hint or a Broad Hint. I often choose the Subtle. And sometimes require Fritz to prove it to me.

One minor peeve about Fritz is the mouse pointer is jumpier than normal. But I quickly became accustomed to this and am not bothered by it anymore. The massive calculations Fritz performs in the background is, no doubt, responsible for the sluggish mouse response.

I have not even begun to plumb the depths of Fritz's other features, but it is clearly feature-rich. I do feel as though I got my money's worth and that this will be the LAST computer chess game I buy (please may computers remain backwards-compatible!)

The best money can buy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 47 / 50
Date: January 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is simply unbeatable quality in every respect - This is like driving the best, fastest, & easy to handle car ever built plus all amenities - think Maybach, (best of the best.) The rest of the chess software games out there don't even compare. And none of the others have the free playchess.com membership. Viva also has a live help line, I don't know of any other company that has a toll free number to call for help that has a real person on the end of the line. This is a deal; the price is a bargain when you figure what you get for your money.

Horrible interface, smart chess engine

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 32 / 35
Date: May 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This software literally has the worst interface I've seen on any software in the last 5 years (atleast). Using it feels like you're piloting a 747 running on Windows 95. Sadly, this is an improvement from earlier versions.

You may notice that many reviews mention the "chatter" as an actual feature. That people are highlighting a set of 40 unfunny prerecorded looping sound clips should tell you something about the rest of Fritz's features. Imagine playing chess with an autistic fan of Monty Python that kept throwing gems like "I strike at thee!" at you. Cute for a day, but you'd be crushing Ritalin in his orange juice soon thereafter.

The hardcore chess community has latched onto this product due to a combination of three things.
First and most importantly: near-flawless play. Fritz will destroy you.
Less critical but still influential: high ranked namedropping and the more mainstream competitor's (Chessmaster) recent foray into obnoxious copy protection.

If you're at competition level with chess, Fritz is the choice for you.. but you probably already know that. If you're anything less, go with the much more pleasant, visually impressive, feature-rich and still respectable playing Chessmaster.

confusing and confounding

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 24
Date: September 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

TERRIBLE! I think most of the gushing reviews for this product were written by those with a degree in computer science and a level of grandmaster in chess. Or maybe they work for Viva Media. I bought this product because it is supposed to have a complete beginner's course. That way I could improve my very basic level of play and still have a top chess engine to play against when my skills improved. Let me quote the "manual" (actually a 20 booklet) under the heading "Beginner's Course."
"Menu:'File' - 'Open' - 'Database' in the databease window will get a file selector where you can browse for the database you want. Please insert the Fritz 8 Multimedia CD in your CD-ROM drive. In the direcrory 'database' you will get the 'Beginner's Course". Double click to open 'Beginner's Course.'"
It's bad enough that one has to insert the CD-ROM and be online to get to the beginner's course. Those directions are confusing too. You get two CDs in this package. One is for playing against the computer and the other is for multimedia and on-line.Each has its own menu, screens, etc. From the instructions quoted above, is it clear which one to use? It seems to imply using both (neither worked -- I've tried and tried.) What's worse is that you WON'T GET THERE with these instructions! THERE IS NO BEGINNER'S COURSE IN THE DIRECTORY 'DATABASE'! I have also contacted the customer service e-mail site for Viva Media (the distributor) requesting help and I'm still waiting for a reply. I tried to contact Chessbase (the maker) at their service site and their contact e-mail site is no longer working! They're all in Germany anyway, so I'm not sure how much they'd help with a question from America. Some of the text in this course is in German too. Very disappointing overall. I used to have the Chess Mentor course but that somehow got "lost" when I added memory to my computer. I wanted to try something more hi-tech and up-to-date but I regret the choice I made with Fritz 8.

Excellent Features. Powerful Program. Difficult to Use.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 21
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

SUMMARY:
Excellent features in an extremely powerful program, although a bit difficult to use. As I improve, I'll appreciate the program more and more.

DETAIL:
I've spent the past bunch of years with Chessmaster, starting with my C64, I think, through a 386, and now onto a P3 (and a P4, too). In all fairness to the people at Ubi - and this was maybe (12-15) years ago, they upgraded my Chessmaster program for five bucks so I could use it on a new computer. Pretty classy. Now, though, they've become so paranoid of the chess community that they've screwed us over with unbearable copy protection. It's an insult, so I bought Fritz 8 instead of upgrading CM6000.

Onto Fritz 8 Deluxe: The great features are the analysis tools, the coach, and the soft levels (handicap, friend mode, etc) that take some of the pain out of computer play. The Spy-on-Fritz option is fantastic (Fritz will show you what he's thinking so you can consider a counterstroke). Understanding your opponent is a challenging climb in learning chess, and this option puts it in the front of your mind. And, Viva throws in a year membership to Chessbase. Excellent stuff.

A few other posts hinted at the poor features: It can be difficult to use the advanced functions due to program design and mediocre documentation. And, for some reason, the natural language advice doesn't work on my machine (P3 and P4). Chessmaster never gave me any problems there. Also, Chessmaster's Josh Waitzen (sp?) tutorials are brilliant. The Gary Kasparov stuff (Viva threw in a few demo chapters with Fritz) doesn't come close. Gary's just too good for us hacks; Josh talks to you.

The best software I have ever bought

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: February 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I received Fritz three weeks ago and I must say that this program is awesome. What I really like is the Rated Game mode, where you can adjust the strength of the machine all the way down to 1600. The program downplays its strength beautifully and the blunders it makes (1600 rated people make lots of blunders, usually every game) almost always remind me of human blunders I've seen or done before. There are NO silly moves like hanging a queen for no purpose, etc. (unless you have it in a mating net, at which point hanging a queen may not be worse than any other idea anyway) and beating Fritz takes effort and care - it will punish you for a stupid move, and by no means do you have an automatically won game if you get a pawn ahead.

The display is neat and clean, no overdoing on graphics, but still a very good looking board (both 2D and 3D). The databases are extremely well thought out and organized so that you never have to waste time manually saving games etc. The analyzis functions are cooler than hell; especially BlunderCheck. And if you have ever wanted to study openings, well, here you go. A monstrous 500,000+ games database, plus a sophisticated openings book and a program that actually claims to learn from experience (I haven't figured that out in action though) give the aspiring Grandmaster all the tools he needs.

I have already improved a lot tactically from only three weeks of using this program. If you're serious about improving your game, go for it. I can not imagine how one could be disappointed.

Absolutely fabulous

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: April 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This program is a HUGE IMPROVEMENT of the original release of Fritz 8 as far as playing strength goes. It is much much stronger. It is right up there with the newest version of Shredder 9 which has been the top computer program for years as far as playing strength goes. Wonderful tactically but the positional play improvements with this program are scary good. Whether you're a beginner or master, this is the first computer program you must have. Almost all GMs have Fritz for an analysis tool and quote them often with their annotations. On a 600 Mhz computer or higher, unless you're an International Master or Grandmaster, you will not beat this program when you don't limit its playing strength. You'll be lucky to draw. It's a wonderful teaching tool as well. Nice-sized database of high quality games without having to purchase Chessbase 9.0. I could go on and on and give a tutorial about the many neat features in this program with the diagrams, graphic coloration of weak squares, files, combinational motifs, etc. You won't be disappointed. If you're new to computer chess programs, the manual helps A LOT and there are a lot of bells and whistles. The 3D boards are marvelous and it's really fun rotating them all around from bird's eye view to table level. It's a great program, bar none. Enjoy it. Grandmaster player that can beat the world's best for under $40. Can't beat that.

Works well, if somewhat difficult to use.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: July 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I must agree with other reviewers when I say that the interface is simply awful. It's much harder to navigate than it should be. The 3D graphics, if you opt to use them, are herky-jerky and poorly programmed but nicely rendered when not moving. Chessbase should really release a patch for that, but I suspect they won't. Fritz's talk feature is neat for a few minutes, but quickly drags - that goodness you can turn it off. I do not enjoy having my computer mock me while it beats me to a pulp on the chessboard.
And another thing. When the chess coach (which, being relatively new to the game, I leave on) tells me that "This move will lose the game for you, Nick" or "This move will spell your downfall.", I would absolutely love it for him to elaborate and (being a coach) maybe tell me WHY. But he won't. I can slap the two hint buttons all day long and he says nothing. Sure, I can hit the suggestion button, but I would much rather figure it out on my own with a hint and learn something than be told what to do and wonder. I realize it's my own dumb fault for putting myself in situations where Coach would tell me that, but still, I'd like explaination so I learn from it.
That said, there are many helpful functions to be had, once you've found them. The openings training is nice because it will automatically set up an opening for you and allow you to play from there, giving you a feel for how each one works. Endgame training is harder, but welcome. A whole bunch of openings and a few variations are included. The beginners course is pretty good for newer players like myself, and includes a few exercizes. It's relatively easy to set up chess puzzles on the virtual board, too. Another neat feature is a seperate, smaller window with a board for analysis while you're playing.

I ended up liking this program once I figured out how to do what I wanted to do with it, and playing against such a difficult engine has made me think about what I'm doing noticeably more after just a few days of playing against it. Recommended, though I have no experience with Chessmaster software to compare this to.

Not for beginners

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: September 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Fritz 8 Deluxe is a great training tool for average rated players who wants to become stronger, strong amateurs, and even grandmasters to analyse their games. In my experience, Fritz 8 wasn't as complex but just takes a bit of extra work to access certain functions and bothersome to insert CD for some functions. It might take time to adjust to using all of Fritz's functions. It would be easier if they'd just put all functions and data library into the hard drive listed with the Custom installation type all at once.

The one thing I hated most was the Beginner's Course. There is no forward button for you to continue through the lists of the course. You'd have click on the task bar window each time to go to the next lesson. Each lessons and exercises are very brief. Often new Fritz 8 users using Beginner's course couldn't tell if the lesson already ended. The only training course that is worth learning in Fritz 8 Deluxe is the Opening training.

The computer's chatter feature is nice. Preset playing styles such as Drunk, Desperado, Assassin, and Unleashed are good but could use pictures of people with bio of age, personality, style of play, and habits like Chessmaster 9000 has to support the chattering feature.

Pretty good deal

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: October 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Fritz 8 delux has lived up to my expectations so far. My daughter has played on it at a beginner level and found it exciting as she was able to win some games. I had read in some reviews that it is impossible to beat so this came as a pleasant surprise that the lower levels do decrease the level of play. I am yet to try out the higher levels but will be wont be too upset if I dont win too often.

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