Product Details
 | Fritz Chess Twelfth Edition |
| List Price: | $39.99 |
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Product Description
All of the most important chess playing tools are at your fingertips instantly with the new and completely redesigned ergonomic interface. Even faster with the best chess playing functions and features in the world! Enjoy amazing 3D graphics, chess rooms and virtual opponents. A vast host of exciting fearutes and functions await players of all skill levels including world class coaching. Hours of exciting video instruction featuring famous world champions that will show you step by step how to win! Play the game of kings as the king of the game!Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #325 in Software
- Brand: Viva Media
- Model: 603
- Released on: 2010-05-04
- ESRB Rating: Everyone
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Format: DVD-ROM
- Original language: English
Features
- Chess-playing game designed for players of all skill levels
- Ergonomic interface puts chess-playing tools at your fingertips
- Enjoy amazing 3D graphics, chess rooms, and virtual opponents
- World-class coaching with step-by-step instructions on how to win
- Powerful chess engine; historical database of over 1,000,000 games
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
All of the most important chess playing
tools are at your fingertips instantly with the new and completely
redesigned ergonomic interface. Enjoy amazing 3D graphics, chess rooms
and virtual opponents. A vast host of exciting features and functions
await players of all skill levels including world class coaching. Hours
of exciting video instruction featuring famous world champions that will
show you step by step how to win! Play the game of kings as the king of
the game!
Get into the
game even faster with the best chess playing functions and features in
the world! All the most important chess playing tools are at your
fingertips instantly with the new and completely redesigned ergonomic
interface. Enjoy amazing 3D graphics, chess rooms and virtual opponents.
A vast host of exciting features and functions await players of all
skill levels including world class coaching.
Learn from
the World's Finest
Hours of exciting video instruction
featuring famous world champions that will show you step by step how to
win!
Loads of New Features
 All of the
most important chess playing tools at your fingertips.Click to enlarge. |
 Enjoy amazing
3D graphics, chess rooms and virtual opponents. Click to enlarge. |
 Live
display of plans and thinking process on the chessboard. Click to
enlarge. |
- Updated and fully searchable database of over 1 million games spanning 4 centuries of chess!
- Dynamic graphic tips for attack and defense
- Live display of plans and thinking process on the chessboard
- More efficient position analysis software
- Human-like Al for the most enjoyable chess challenge ever!
- And much much more!
- New Fritz Engine: even stronger
- Completely redesigned interface for instant access to all functions and features
- Ultra fast new 3D graphics include the new "English Room" and a stunning new 3D opponent "Suzie"
- Further improved Coach, help and learning functions
- "Hotness" gauge shows how "sharp" your position is. Find out about the "Mate-O-Meter"
- 12 hours of tutorial chess videos featuring international chess trainers and world class players like chess legend Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, Alexei Shirov, Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
- New Opening book by Alex Kure
- Rated games with a precise, real-world rating system.
- Games grouped together under headings (tournaments or time controls), making it easier to find the ones you want.
- Fast search in the players list
- Friends and titled players displayed with desktop alerts.
- Multi-watch with many new functions, e.g. time difference display.
- Separate formulas for humans and computers.
- A series of games against the same opponent is displayed as a match in the chat window.
- The games list display includes number of moves (for games and broadcasts).
- Evaluation profile available in the machine room while playing and watching.
Customer Reviews
Good upgrade from previous versions
Fritz is arguably the most
commercially-successful and popular chess package available. I started
using Fritz at version 6 and have purchased most of the upgrades, up to
version 10. With each successive version the whole package has gotten
better and better though some of the upgrades were more worthwhile than
others (one reason I never purchased version 11). Version 12 is a
quantum leap forward, though it is still not perfect.
Installation
from the DVD was painless and uneventful. However, there is one issue
with the installation that bothered me - the installer never installed a
desktop icon or a program group, so I needed to navigate to the
installation directory, from which I made a shortcut to the application
binary on the desktop. After this step, everything has worked smoothly
and I can launch the application without issue.
The interface has
gotten a huge facelift - this is not a color scheme change or
rearrangement of the menus and toolbars, but rather it is a complete
overhaul with Windows ribbon controls serving up the components.
Normally, I would be wary of such a large change to the overall
interface, but ChessBase has done an excellent job of designing the
interface and it is very well-organized. There is a learning curve,
though, for people who have grown very accustomed to the older ChessBase
interface, as some things are a little difficult to find unless you
have familiarity... Given a couple of hours of exploration, the
interface becomes second nature and finding things becomes easy again.
The
Fritz engine itself is a strong one, able to crush practically any
human player (including seasoned grandmasters) with ease when used at
full playing strength and it holds its own against other top-drawer
engines. It is not the strongest engine available, but for the vast
majority of players it doesn't need to be the strongest. When using an
engine this strong, playing against it is not the most useful activity;
where engines of this strength are most useful is in the analysis of
games.
Fritz includes several analysis modes, my favorite being
full analysis for post-mortem scrutiny of games. The full analysis
function works backward through a game and adds move suggestions as well
as canned commentary as the selected chess engine evaluates each
position. Though the English commentary is not always especially
informative (for example, comments like "This is a futile try to save
the game" are common), the comments do add a more "personal" touch to
the analysis which would otherwise be simply a dump of suggested moves.
When the engine finds an especially good move, the commentary is usually
a little more helpful.
I found an annoying glitch with the Full
Analysis mode. After fully analyzing a game, the interface simply
chopped the last quarter of the game from the report, even though I
could still iterate through all of the moves. I never could get the rest
of the analysis on the screen.
Another very helpful analysis
mode is "Infinite Analysis" which takes a single position and
continuously analyzes it until the engine is interrupted or the position
is changed. This is especially helpful for taking a deep look at a
position and trying several what-if scenarios.
Deep position
analysis is another mode, as is Monte Carlo, though I have used these so
little that I cannot really comment on them.
The last analysis
mode I will talk about is "Engine Shootout" which takes a position and
feeds it to two or more engines for analysis. These engines evaluate the
position and play through, with the intent of determining how the game
would proceed and the outcome as a result. Though it's a feature I
really don't need, it is something I use occasionally to look at games I
have played when the game was unfinished but the outcome wasn't clear.
Different engines arrive at different conclusions which makes this even
more intriguing.
The Fritz package includes a large database of
games, which can be used to explore and analyze. Where I find this
database to be most useful is in researching specific styles of play.
For example, it is easy to track down all of Tal's games and follow his
playing style with the database search functions.
Also included
on the DVD is a set of training videos. To be honest I have never found
these to be especially helpful but others may very well benefit from
them.
The UCI interface continues to improve, so adding in UCI
engines is easy and reliable. I have found several weaker engines
against which I can play so I have them bound into the interface for
playing. I use the Fritz 12 engine for analysis after the fact.
Central
to the Fritz interface is access to the ChessBase chess server. Through
the interface, players can log into the server, play games, read
chess-related news, watch seminars, and observe important matches with
live coverage.
There are a couple of different versions to this
package. The version sold by ChessBase and its resellers sports a green
box whereas the version sold through Viva Media comes in a black box. I
noticed an appreciable price difference and I investigated that
difference. The software appears to be the same; the real difference is
in the access given to the chess server. The more expensive package
offers a 1-year premium membership which gives access to all content on
the server such as seminars, elite tournament coverage and other
content. The less expensive package also offers a 1-year membership but
the access is more limited and excludes much of the premium content.
Both offer guest access which allows anyone to log in and play games
without hindrance, but as a guest so there is no tracking of progress.
Which kind of access you desire should be considered when choosing which
package you need.
Fritz 12 is a big step forward and is a
worthwhile upgrade from previous versions. The engine is stronger and
the interface is vastly superior. It is not without its glitches but the
problems seem to be few in number.
I
Resign!
As a very casual chess
player, I decided to give Fritz 12 a try. The program is smart enough to
obliterate just about anyone, but you can play the game at several
different difficulty levels. It even has a friend mode where the
computer determines how strong a chess player you are and plays at close
to your level. This is one tough opponent - even in the friend mode.
There are also several "personalities" you can play against. Each
personality has preprogrammed strengths and weaknesses (including how
badly it blunders). You can also change several of their attributes to
make them a stronger or weaker player.
Fritz 12 is packed with
training tools. You can set the game up so it suggests opening moves;
warns you if a square you are about to move to is under attack; give you
hints or suggested moves; tell you what your opponent is planning to
do; and much more.
The free beginner training videos are good.
There are also several sample videos for other topics included, in hopes
you decide to purchase additional training videos.
Even at full
price this is a terrific training tool and should certainly help you
improve your game, even though you may get a bit frustrated if you like
to win.
Great Game, but needs
improvement
This game is the best chess
program out there that I know of. It plays excellent chess and the
pieces look nice. However, when you move the ELO slide to the minimum,
it plays really hard, about 1100 ELO rating. I played it at this level
using Online Chess Kingdom and Chess master (PSP games) at the highest
level vs. fritz set to the min level, and so they lost to fritz. It was
easy to tell Fritz wasn't playing at 1100 ELO, but closer to 2000. The
PS3 version of Fritz doesn't have this shortcoming, you feel drastic
changes at different ELO ratings, but this computer version you don't
feel much ELO change. Another shortcoming is that the game freezes if
you choose the "render light" option, it slows down significantly if you
improve all the graphics in the option menu, and the game flashes once
in a while. Some windows don't close despite they have the "x". The
clicking sound can be deactivated, but it takes some googling time to
find out how. On the positive site, the sense of humor is a unique
touch, since playing chess can get really quiet. This game could use
more chess sets and picture wall papers like in Chess Master. Everything
else, I wouldn't change.
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