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Fritz

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 23 / 26
Date: July 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Professional Chess Program for the serious club player. Supports DGT board (wood electronic board with piece and move recognition - hooks up to your PC - search for DGT chess to find sellers). Supports Win 2K while CM9K does not. Extremely stable - supports engine vs engine matches and engine tournaments. Supports UCI engines and most winboard engines via the wb2uci adapter. Many UCI and Winboard engines are free. There is also method to import the Chessmaster engine, but that is rather tricky for the beginners. Instructions for doing that are not documented but can be found on the web. Database capability as well.

Extremely strong program

For anybody past beginner level

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 100 / 102
Date: July 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you haven't heard of Fritz, search the web. This is serious chess software.

For a beginner, ChessMaster has a nice interface, and its tutorials are useful. For anybody else, ChessMaster lacks features.

Fritz is great for lots of things...

* Analysis: Whereas ChessMaster shows only the current line, Fritz can show as many lines as you want. It can even show a small chessboard in an analysis window.
* Annotation/Training: If you enter one of your games into Fritz (and you can save them all in a database) Fritz can automatically annotate it, and it can even come up with training questions for you at tactically critical positions.
* Sparring: This is a feature unique to Fritz. It will attempt to play at your level by ocassional giving you some free material, and then mercilessly regaining it. It keeps track of your level over several games.
* Friend mode: Fritz will play its usual game (with whatever personality and level you choose) but it will sometimes make a tactical error. The depth of the combination will be appropriate to your own level of play. In case you miss it, Fritz will flash a little red light at you optionally to tell you to look for something.

Other features:
+ A very nice, useful database. You can search for games from amongst millions by game, player, position, opening, etc.
+ An opening book. I like the way that ChessMaster names the opening as you play it. Fritz does that almost as well. What it adds is a full opening tree, which you can view while you play. It tells you the possible responses and their win percentages in high level play. (This is not really useful unless you are a very good player, but it is still interesting.)
+ Can play Shuffle Chess (piece positions swapped randomly) although it cannot strictly play Fischerandom.
+ Lots of timing modes, including Fischer time (bonus seconds per move).
+ Several personalities and playing styles. I prefer ChessMaster here for the weaker personalities, but Fritz does have a wide variety of settings.
+ Extremely strong and fast chess engine. (ChessMaster has this too. Most programs are well above master level these days, since computers have become so powerful.)
+ Nice user interface. I think ChessMaster is better to look at. The Fritz 3D board is playable, but not really necessary. Its 2D board is attractive enough. Its the GUI that's easy-to-use in Fritz. (Other programs with nice GUIs include ChessGenius, ChessPartner, and ChessAssistant.)
+ And there are plenty of features which are just too complicated to explain.

If you're a beginner, stick with ChessMaster. If you want more, try this. Great bargain. This software used to sell at a much higher price.

Currently the Best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 89 / 93
Date: August 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I had heard about Fritz beating many of he worlds best players but did not buy this program for a long time. At first it was too expensive. After buying this program I am ashamed to admit I ever owned Chessmaster and Battle Chess. The review on this page by "oblivion95" gives a good run down of the main features. I would just like to add a couple notes:
1. The current version comes with access to their game server (playchess.com) and it is the best internet chess playing interface I have ever used! I have used many to include USCF, ICC,Kasprovchess,yahoo, and many more.
2. It is easy for the average player to buy a program that can beat them time after time. Yes, most programs have adjustable levels but that is where the teaching stops. This program has many more teaching options.
3. The game analysis is awsome. Try this: Have chessmaster and Fritz analyze the same position from one of your games and compare the results. Better yet just save your time and money and buy Fritz.

It will kick my butt, but only if I upgrade

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 19
Date: October 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Obviously we are dealing with a serious program here; I mean this was Kasparov's sparring partner for Deeper Blue, so where do I come off thinking I will ever beat it at full strength. My other point is that the Amazon write-up states that it is compatible with Win95. The box that the program comes in says Win98 up to WinXP. Well, both of my computers run Win95, and the program would not install. So, I'm saving the program for my eventual computer upgrade, and then I can lose to Fritz8!
Final note- the upgrade and the thrashing did take place. For fun I put it in "desperado" mode. I will have to quit my job, so I can finally get good!

Stronger than Deep Blue, and friendlier too!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 88 / 90
Date: October 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The Fritz program has been setting the standard for computer chess for over a decade now. It is, simply put, the greatest chess program ever written. World Champion Gary Kasparov himself admitts to using Fritz extensively for analysis. And why not? At an elo rating of, conservatively, 2720+, Fritz is the strongest grandmaster you're likely to meet and is in an elite club of chessplayers with only about twenty flesh-and-bones grandmasters in the world. In addition to its bona fides as perhaps the greatest silicon chessplayer in history, Fritz can teach you to improve your game. Fritz's fantastic "friend" mode determines the strength of your play and plays to your strengths and weaknesses gradually increasing the difficulty of play as you get stronger. Fritz's coach can watch you play and make suggestions, Fritz can rate your play, analyze your games or those of top grandmasters, and you can use Fritz to connect to chessbase's online playchess server and play with human opponents of all skill levels any time of day or night throughout the world! Imagine having a top chess grandmaster at your beck and call for lessons, friendly games, or game analysis all for a *one time* cost of under fifty dollars. Strong enough to take on the world's greatest *with success* (Fritz recently tied current world champion Vladimir Kramnik in an eight game match) yet patient enough to play with and teach your ten year old daughter when she comes home from school. Need I say more?

Required

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Most know this program well, that being said if you wish to improve your chess and need an outstanding sparring partner and access to online play this is the program to own. It is the rolls royce of chess programs.

Excellent online interface

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: November 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I am a rookie chess player. I bought this game primarily to get the one-year membership at playchess.com. Boy was I disappointed! The serial number printed on my CD case was invalid! It took WEEKS of pestering the people at playchess.com before I got an answer. The answer was that I needed to deal with Amazon.com to get it fixed. So I have a replacement on the way. I just hope it does not have the same misprint problem.

This is the best online interface of all that I have tried. None of the others come close to the flexibility. You can change the board size, color, go to 3d, move windows, filter chat, and a lot more. I really enjoy the ability to change the layout to match my taste.

I bought Chessmaster before I bought Fritz. With Chessmaster I was disappointed to see that zero people were online. I checked several times, on several days. Unless I am doing something wrong, UBI (Chessmaster) online is a ghost town. Chessmaster I think has a slightly better interface and some nice tutorials, but if you want to play online, then Fritz is the way to go!

Great chess, great service!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I, like the reviewer before me, had a problem with my serial number. I called the publisher of this product, Viva Media, and they gave me a new serial number. They were very helpful, and the new number worked right away. I play online all of the time.

I don't think I could say anything else about the game that hasn't been said in another review. It is by far the best chess program I have ever used. I can't wait for a Fritz 9!

A must if you want to increase your playing level

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 23 / 23
Date: November 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The most impressive feature of this game is the friend mode. After you play a few games it automatically adjusts to your playing strength. As you improve, Fritz increases the playing strength so that it's always challenging but not overwhelmingly so. In addition, the friend mode is able to adjust to your level in a human-like manner. The mistakes that the program makes are similar to what you would expect from an actual human player. This is crucial, since it is probably the most frustrating problem with other programs...

Other modes are also very useful, including the sparring mode, where the program makes intentional mistakes that provide strong tactical opportunities. If you miss them, the program warns you accordingly...

Highly recommended without any reservations whatsoever

Best Chess Program

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 32 / 34
Date: November 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have rececntly started playing chess with a club and got this program as a training tool. I couldnt find my old copy of Chessmaster 6000, so needed to get something new and will compare it to Chessmaster.

The MOST AMAZING thing about Fritz 8 is the "sparring" mode. This actually feels like playing a real person! Despite all the window dressing and the player bios, Chessmaster was never really able to accomplish this feat. Of course if you play in normal mode, Fritz will devastate you.

Another great feature is the visual opening book which lets you drill on the openings. It makes it very easy to run through the differnt variations of an opening and commit them to visual memory.

The database and analysis tools are top notch and I prefer their interface to the Chessmaster's. The various lines are color coded with statistics which makes it easy to review and make choices based upon the play of better players. Very instructive.

Frits 8 also has free 1-year of online playing which I have not yet tried. Frits will save your internet games to a private log, so you will have records of all your play!

This is a serious chess program and provides all the tools you need.

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