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THE BEST CHESS PROGRAM

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: July 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Fritz is, no doubt, one of the strongest chess program in the market. This program is plened for the tournament player on one who is more than a newcomer in chess. But, that dosen't mean that a beginer can play wit it, you can decrese the strength of the program, to makeit more weaker, and a perfect partner for the amateur.
But the real force of this program is at his higer level, the one who evaluates your strngth and give you a rating. In this level, there are no help, it's you against this monster.
The lever are very good, in some you can be helped for the machine, who give you an advice, and in some cases tell you the move you make is a blunder and explainit, given the oportuniti to takeit back. But at the end hé's gona crush you.
I played chess for about 20 years now and this is the best program i ever seen.
The opening book is huge, the force at higer levels excelent.
As I tell you before, this is not for beginers, because to play with it, you have to know the elemts of the game (how the pices move, one or two openings, and principles like the center, the doble atack, etc.).
If you don't know how to play chess, don't expect to last very long, fritz is gona crush you, and, belive me, sometimes is very frustaiting to loose in that way.
I allready lose some games that way, and it feel bad to be outplayed in that way.
But you can decrese the strenght of the program and even you can analice your game with the help of fritz. You can put the moves of your last game and saw the evaluation fritz is doing in a given position. Fritz is gona give you some variations and plans of a given position and you can study your own games whit the help of a realy strong player. Is almost if you have your one teacher in your house.
In all, this is the best program available, and you can do too many things with it. It can help you to increse your strength and prepare for future tournamets.
Enjoy.

Fritz 8 is nice.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: January 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I guess Fritz 8 is stronger than chessmaster 8000 (GOOD). I have almost the whole family of chessmaster xxxx (from 2000 to 8000). Fritz 8 human interface is not very friendly or intuitive, maybe I spent too much time with the chessmaster series. I could not find the self-play mode in Fritz. The analysis of Fritz is very professional, it even uses the international symbols to grade the position. However I'd like to see another mode to give numeric values at each position like chessmaster, the symbol =/+ , +/=, etc. are not specific enough (at least to a detail player like me.) The user manual is hard to follow.
OK, 4 1/2 stars.

Worst User Interface Ever Designed!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 29
Date: October 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This program has a lot of features, however, it's pretty close to impossible to figure out how to get the features to work. I've never in my life seen a program with such a non-discoverable, non-intuitive, obscure interface. What is truly amazing about this program, is you can read the manual and still not figure out how to use the features! I've just spent 2 hours (including studying the manual) trying to figure out how to load a PGN file of some games that I've played to use the analysis features of the program and I still have no clue how to do it. Unbelievable. I've used several other chess programs and never had to even open the manual. I've used 100's of windows programs and this is clearly the worst interface I've ever seen.

Many Features combined with easy gameplay!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 24
Date: June 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I don't know why someone would complain about bugs in this game because I have yet to find one! My guess is that the person complaing about them is using a pirated version of the software and thus his problems were created.

Anyhow, the game is definitly loaded with features (most of which are already explained by other reviews) but the one thing I wanted to emphasize is that this game actually helped better my game play tremendously!

Un buen juego de Ajedrez

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 46
Date: May 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

La verdad, resulta sorprendente lo facil que resulta jugar.
Saludos Cordiales!
España

This Beast is Best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 42 / 44
Date: April 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have most of the top commercial chess programs in the world (Shredder, Fritz, Junior, Hiarcs, Chess Tiger, Deep Sjeng, Ruffian 2, Rebel and Chessmaster), and Fritz is my favorite program. I don't even use Chessmaster anymore. Fritz is a Chessbase product, so it is state-of-the art in all respects. I can't imagine why some of the other reviewers had some problems with it. Myself and my chess-playing friends have had none.

For those who are saavy about chess programs, yes, I admit that Fritz is the second-strongest program ... Shredder 8 (also a Chessbase product) is definitely stronger than Fritz, but if you aren't Gary Kasparov, who knows the difference? Besides, in my view Shredder suffers from several defects ... its principal variation (PV) in analysis can be complete rubbish (ie: hanging a queen for no compensation), although it's first move of the PV is always first-rate. Also, Shredder's playing style is "dryer" and more technical (e.g. boring) than Fritz. If you want a tip-top program that plays like a boring machine, grinding out wins, then get Shredder. If you want a program that will come at you like a doberman, then get Junior, Hiarcs or Chess Tiger. But if you want the best of both of these worlds, then get Fritz!

Hey, let's face it ... unless you are a Grandmaster, any of the top programs I named, on their top level, will tear you to tiny little pieces every time, especially when you're playing blitz. However, Fritz has many modes (like Friend, Sparring and "personalities") that can lead it to playing like you! There are dozens of ways to change or "dummy down" Fritz's play, and you can have fun with all of them. You can also use Fritz's GUI to play the many FREE winboard or UCI engines freely available on the Internet (I have about 3 dozen, but many more are available). So, it's like having a whole chess club at your disposal, and you can even have the various engines and personalities play each other in matches or tournaments, or help you play against Fritz. (I don't know about you, but I need help against the silicon beasts.)

One observation ... which program does Gary Kasparov (and other top players like Anand, Kramnik, Leko, etc) use and analyze with? Fritz. Did Chessmaster get a match with Gary Kasparov or Vladimir Kramnik? Nope ... only Fritz and Junior did. If Kasparov says Fritz analyzes the best, that's good enough for me!

Fritz's database is also very useful and it's GUI and many features are top-notch. Also, if you are a serious chess player and want to get the top chess database program, Chessbase, then Fritz will fit in seamlessly. How can you go wrong, especially at this discounted price? (Don't hold your breath looking for a discount at Chessbase...ha, ha.)

So the bottom line? Fritz is #1. Get it from Amazon! I did, and don't regret it a bit.

Best chess software period!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 16
Date: March 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have played chess all my life and am a fairly strong non-professional. Every feature of Fritz (Engine, UI, online games, database) is excellent! I cannot say enough!

Full of bugs

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: February 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The above reviewer who noted that Fritz 8 was full of bugs sure wasn't kidding. The chess play is all right, but if you want to do something simple like saving a game or a position, well, forget it. I've just spent two hours trying to save a few positions, and I've been directed all over the place, but I still haven't been able to save just 3 games. In the future I'll have to replay each game each time to get to an established position. The directions are unclear, incomplete, or just don't work. A simple process such as saving and retreiving games should be, well, simple and user-friendly. Either my copy is defective or you have to be a grandmaster in software to figure out how the $%@*^%* thing works.

This is the best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 56 / 58
Date: February 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought Fritz 8 a while ago and have to say this is the greatest chess software I have ever used. I have CM 9000 and 8000, Majestic Chess and even wasted my money on Kasparov Chessmate.

Fritz 8 is superior in almost all of the aspects chess software can provide.

- Installation is simple and no patches are needed. I run it on a Compaq notebook and a Dell at home. Both are XP and I have never had any trouble. CM 9000 crashed both my computers a couple of times and is still not running properly with the secoond patch they provided.

- Fritz is stronger than all of its competitors and it is by far! But don't worry, you can adjust the playing strengths infinitely or you can play in Friend Mode and Fritz 8 will automatically adjust to your own playing strengths and increase (or decrease) accordingly. This is a feature none of the competitors offer and it is great no matter how strong you play.

- The analysis functions are legendary. Gary Kasparov (who called Fritz "My iron Friend" in his latest book My Great Predecessors) and many other top players use only Fritz for their game analysis. I wonder why Gary Kasparov gave his name for the poorest chess software available (Kasparov Chessmate) instead of giving it for Fritz, the software he is using himself.

- The training functions are good for every level of player. There is no big bla bla but all advise comes straight to the point. There is opening, middle and endgame training available. The program teaches you verbally and in on screen text. The only product that has better training courses for beginners and medium players is Learn to Play Chess with Fritz and Chesster, which also uses the Fritz engine.

- The 3D boards are awesome because you can really play on them. CM 9000 offer a lot more boards in 3D but you cannot change the angle and therefore you don't have the necessary overview over the board and your position. Fritz 8 allows you to change and adjust everything. You can zoom, tilt, reverse the board, and adjust the angle to whatever degree you feel comfortable with. If you have played on the Fritz 8 true 3D board once you never want to play on any other board again.

- Fritz 8 comes with a 500,000+ game database going back to games that were played in the middle ages. The nice thing is that you can select any game from your database and with one click load it into the true 3D game interface and have Fritz re-play the game for you. You can also change the game at any stage and see how you would have done.

- For playing online Fritz 8 is the only choice because you always find a couple of thousand people playing on www.playchess.com. On CM 9000 www.ubi.com you may find up to 5 people but mostly you find 0. The interface and online training courses on www.playchess.com are great and you will always find someone of your playing level or a nice game of chess. With your purchase of Fritz 8 you get a one-year full membership free of charge (the extension for additional 12 months is $24.99). You can even see on a world map and find out where in the world people are playing online.

I bought Fritz 8 for $35.00 on Amazon and I am happy that I have spent 5 bucks more than I spent for CM 9000 and Majestic Chess for a program that is worth I would say at least double.

Good for playing and analysing, nothing else

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 19 / 31
Date: January 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you want to buy a strong chess program to play against and get some analysis then Fritz 8 is the thing.

However if you want a traing program which gives you awsome training options (Fritz 8 does have these options but they are CRAP) and great game analysing with a lot of comments and explanations (Fritz 8 only tells you the obvious things) then go for Chessmaster 9000.

Fritz 8 for playing against and analysing with not so good comments.

Chessmaster 9000 for anything else. Chessmaster is much better.

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