I am confused what is the best computer. I have ChessMaster X, but from what I see, Rybka and Fritz are better. When I looked up Rybka 3, however, it said it used “Fritz 11 user interface.” Does that mean that it is powered by Fritz anyway, or it uses Fritz’s features? Also, what is the difference between regular and “deep” Fritz or Rybka? Does that mean it analyzes deeper than the regular program?
I know these may seem like common knowledge, but right now, I am clueless, never been to a chess club in my life (they’re all to far away), and, as far as I know, miles away from anyone who would know this stuff, so this is the only place I can find out.
The interface is the program that communicates between the user and the playing engine. The interface has things like the chess board, pieces, time clocks, game start and end controls and much more.
The playing engine only decides what moves are to be made, basically. The engine is the program that does the thinking about the chess position and/or game.
So the Fritz interface is used for the Fritz, Junior and Rybka playing engines. You can also use these engines by using ChessBase as the interface.
The Deep versions of these playing engines use multiple processors. Therefore they are only more effective on computers that have 2 or more processors that it uses.
Rybka 3 is currently the strongest chess engine available. It won both computer olimpiad and recent world championship. Read all about it at rybkachess.com.
Initally Rybka used to run only as UCI engine. That means it could work under any GUI interface supporting UCI engines. Developer of Rybka decide to leave GUI developement to others. Fritz interface is one of popular interfaces that support UCI engines. However you do NOT need Fritz to run Rybka. You can use Arena interface which is Free.
Those days both Chessbase and ChessOK who are competitors distribute stand-alone Rybka 3.
I believe it is Chessbase that advertise thier version as Fritz 11 interface. ChessOK version is called Rybka Aquarium and has some minor enhancements over chessbase version. Aquarium is as bit cheaper.
If you need more information or if you need program itself (chessbase rybka or rybka aquarium) send me a note to mkoganov@netscape.net(nospam)
Both Aquarium and Fritz11 can be the front end for other engines as well as for Rybka and Fritz, respectively. (As can Arena.) The point is, whatever engine you select through the front end interface to run will determine the moves.* It’s just confusing in Fritz’ case since the Fritz name describes both the Fritz interface and the Fritz family of analysis engines. (Not to mention the concept that you can run the Rybka engine from within the Fritz interface, and AFAIK you can run the Fritz engine from within the Aquarium interface…)
One other thing you might consider (without knowing your rating or your goals for a chess engine…) there are also free alternatives out there. As strong as Rybka 3? No. But quite good, for all that. (I believe Rybka 2.2 is freeware - though I’d appreciate being corrected on that if I’m wrong.) So you might want to ask yourself if you need the strongest program, or if you equate “strongest” with “best” - not everyone does.
(*) Note that the UCI specification - the communication protocol between engine and interface - apparently can allow for the interface to determine the opening book moves played, activating the engine only when the interface goes out of its book. (“Apparently” because I just learned that from reading the Wikipedia article.) But that’s the sort of thing that probably only chess technogeeks care about - like me.
