what realy is the difference in programs?

All Things Chess
1

I have been away from OTB chess for quite awhile, after struggling up to
about 1400. I played a bit with chessmaster, but it seems everyone talks
about fritz. I would really like somebody to explain the difference between
fritz and shredder, and is CM just for beginners? thank you!

part 2
OK! thank you so far! True I do not much hope to beat CM, although I did
manage a perpetual against it once. I do like its “rated opponents” albeit
the “1400 player” always drops a piece in the opening, as if that is his style.
Yes, to clarify my question, I am interested in analysis and CM gives me…
“with this line you win a bishop and a pawn for a knight and a pawn…”
The very best it can muster is “slightly better is a3”. So? should I be
completely unconcerned about my now double isolated c pawns or WHY?
If this is all fritz does, then it would not help me much more than CM. Sure,
I have a lot of books I am working on but I just wonder if another program
would be worth the money, and why the same company produces both
Fritz and Shredder…is one better or are they just different? Somebody
at the club told me shredder is better at endgames. well, thanks!

2

The question is, what do you want the program to do for you?

If all you want is a nearly unbeatable opponent (given your rating), most of the programs will do just fine at ‘tournament’ time controls and quite possibly at speed chess time controls as well.

Are you looking for a post-mortem analysis tool, for a way to book up against certain openings, etc?

3

.

Good question; maybe not the best approach to get an answer.
Instead of asking humans what the difference is, let the computer chess engines show you themselves, in concrete and detailed terms.

[S1] Buy Fritz_11. If money is no big issue, also buy Shredder_11. Then browse the web for some free chess engines (Toga is one, and see PlayWithArena.com).

[S2] Load a grandmaster game from the Fritz 1_million games DVD that comes with Fritz.

[S3] Menu to Tools > Analysis > CompareAnalysis. Load Fritz and one or two other engines.
Then tell the UI to do a FixedDepth analysis (start with 10).
(First, you should also menu Tools > Analysis > BlunderCheck and set the Threshold to 0.)

[S4] Several minutes later after the analyses are done, compare the Evals and the Recommended Moves from each engine: they will often be different from each other. There is the answer to your question.

Fritz will give Evals that are much further from 0.0 than will Toga. Shredder and Fritz do not always agree on the Eval or best move.
These differences will eliminate any dubious ideas that this or that chess engine plays perfect chess: at least they cannot all be perfect while disagreeing with each other.
.

4

I would say the difference between say… Fritz 11 and Chessmaster XI… for a human player… both programs would handily give even a top 10 grandmaster a run for his money.

But, what Fritz and Chessmaster are now selling is the additional stuff on the programs. (lessons, training material, ect.).

Chessmaster has a lot of stuff going for it. Lessons for beginners to more advance stuff.

Fritz 11 has a lot of stuff going for it. (think 14 hours of video lessons, tons of other stuff)

Both programs can help to improve your chess. But the database on both Fritz and Chessmaster is very limited in search functions. Not like Chessbase 9, ChessDB (freeware).

For additional training, there are all sorts of stuff out there, both free web based, or if you want to buy stuff. (and some freeware programs even).

If your really looking for a top rated analysis engine(s). Fritz 11 is definately considered better than Chessmaster XI. But if you feel the need to get the best… (basically chess engines only, nothing extra)

*Rybka 2.3.1 and Zappa Mexico are the top dogs.

…Rybka 2.3.1 is top for single processor. (can also get multiprossor version).
…Zappa Mexico is top for multiprocessor.

Other programs of note: Shredder and Junior are both incredibly strong programs, and are very close in strength to Rybka 2.3.1 and Zappa Mexico.

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/rating.htm

[for your information… “THE KING 3.5” engine is the engine for Chessmaster XI is rated ~2765. For comparison… Rybka 2.3.1 running on 4cpu processor is 3083, or a solid 300 points higher.

Fruit is free UCI engine thats comparable to earlier versions of Rybka.
Earlier versions of Rybka are available for download (free).

5

This depends. In several tournaments using Rybka 2.3.2a mp vs (the newer) Zappa Mexico II, it seems that they are almost equal now. Zappa did beat Rybka in a high profile tourney. But it wasn’t a level playing field. (Zappa apparently had an opening book that was tuned specifically for Rybka. Zappa got it’s pants whipped when the same opening book was used.) This is using an extremely fast set of multi-core processors (2 Xeon 5365).

In the latest head-to-head tourney, Mar 21, the results was Rybka 51.5/100 and Zappa 48.5/100. superchessengine.com/

But in a smaller number of games, oh say less than 10, the results are a toss up. And this 100 game tourney shows how closely they are tied.

Rybka 3.0 is expected soon, but how soon, I dunno.

Fritz/Shredder and others like these two use a pretty standard GUI and allows you to use any available engine. There are many engines that are free and range from simply horrible to GM strength.

If, however, you were looking specifically for game and/or position analysis, I would recommend the COW. bookup.com/ And once again, you can use pretty much any chess engine you want.

Overall, if you want to stay on top of what is really happening and where to find the latest greatest chess engines, superchessengine.com/ , is the place to go.

P.S. By the way, you can also get a free GUI, such as Arena, and plug in a free GM strength engine and voila.

6

Ahh, didn’t notice the newer version for Rybka.
It looks like Zappa Mexico II is included in Zappa Mexico package.

In any event, its common for companies to make openening books targeted specifically against other programs and or human players.

I think its good if different programs use different opening books. Not nessasarily opening books targeted specifically against a single program/player, but at least a different general opening books.

7

Well there are several “generic” opening books that are available for free. That gives a person a chance to try out differing books in Fritz or Shredder or similar GUIs.

One thing I’ve done is to make opening books that were opening specific, i.e., Sicilian Dragon. Then set up a tournament with various engines using that specific opening.

I’ve been using the Paradigm opening book because it is such an extensive book. But I just looked and it seems that the new Sheebar book is over twice as extensive. Well … I’ll download it and see how it works.

8

From what I’ve read about various chess programs… most seem to have best play with a limited opening book. (although still quite large compared to human players).

Testing of various engines with super large opening books seems to actually hurt the play of chess programs. (from what I’ve deduced from reading about engine vs engine tournaments).

9

All these programs are so friggin strong, that it doesnt matter to me personally how strong they are. I choose the one which is easiest to use, whose interface i like the best. I have Rybka and Fritz. I like Fritz better, i find it easier to use and less buggy. It just seems intuitive to me, while I struggle finding the Rybka features i want. Just my opinion. I used Chessmaster, but that was awhile ago. I also liked its interface…
If you’re looking for a program to improve your chess, I think only 1 is necessary (I have 2 because Rybka was a birthday present!)

10

Just to let you know, Fritz 12 is out. :smiley:
The Multiprocessor Version is 119.95.
That’s double the price on a normal Fritz. I am used to Fritz being only 59.99

11

Stockfish is exceptionally strong. It’s free and it does well against Rybka head-to-head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish_(chess)

I’ve just started using FireBird during Anand-Topalov, which may be significantly stronger than Rybka. There have been accusations about FireBird’s provenance, unsupported AFAIK.

Both Stockfish and FireBird are free. The Arena interface is a good choice, I’m told, though I’m using the ChessBase GUI.

Fritz 12 is not a bad choice: it’s not as strong as Rybka 3, but it’s user-friendly and well over 3000 Elo.

12

Right now, Rybka and Stockfish are both at the top of the rating lists. (~3200 elo).

Rybka is a commercial program
Stockfish is an open source/freeware engine.

Of course, you’ll need to have a shell to run the engine. There are free shells out there (maybe winboard, but not sure), but generally you’ll get more out a chess engine if you have a regular shell, like Fritz, or Rybka. (Not sure if Stockfish will run on Chessmaster: Grandmaster).

In any event, if you get stockfish, make sure you get the correct version. You’ll need the 32 bit version if your using a 32 bit Window’s OS. (Like Windows XP, or Vista 32 bit).

I made the mistake of installing the wrong version, and it didn’t work. Not a huge deal, only took me a few more minutes to google the correct version.

13

With the original poster’s rating, I don’t think ANY of these engines can seriously improve your results.

Attitude, as well as tactical and strategical approach, must be developed. Engines cannot do that. You might spice up you opening TNs, but what happens when your opponent responds with something the engine did not explain to you?

If you want to spend time to seriously improve your chess, better to befriend a player 400-600 points higher than you. Ask a local expert or master if they would look over your games and show his. Offer a few bucks, and see if you can set up a weekly meeting. Offer to transport him to tournaments. The lessons don’t mean much if you are not testing your ability frequently.

You are still a human, and need to start developing a human approach to the game that is more refined in tactical and strategic applications.

All the best, Joe

14

Joe is wise.