Fritz Chess Playing Program: A Grandmaster at Your Fingertips

Derek Odom
Chessbase is a company that puts out a ton of chess-related software, but none as popular as the Fritz chess program. Fritz has been around for years, and has grown exponentially stronger with each new version release. Fritz has always been a very strong chess program, but it really made its mark with the release of Fritz 8, which was substantially stronger than any other chess program on the market by far.

Since that time, Chessbase has been hard at work improving Fritz and adding engines that simply crush the competition. Some of these packages come with engines such as Shredder, Hiarcs , and even the world champion Rybka engine.

Besides strong engines, the Fritz chess program comes with a great updatable database of games. I personally own Fritz 10 with the Shredder 11 package, and it comes with a 1.2 million game database! These databases are easily filtered and referenced to find exactly what you are looking for, and literally contain more games than a person could look at in a lifetime.

Fritz chess program also comes with training exercises and the ability to hold tournaments between engines! For instance, if someone was wondering how Gandalf stacked up against Deep Fritz 8, they could simply name a time control and assign a number of games and watch as the engines duke it out.

Another wonderful thing about the Fritz chess programs is their strong analysis ability. With the click of a button any position in the world can be analyzed and an opinion given by the engine. This is especially handy for the club or tournament player looking to improve on opening lines or tactical play.

The Fritz chess program can also be played against by the user for practice. The playing level can be set anywhere from decent to Oh my, are you serious? The newest engines are surpassing the 3,000 ELO rating level, so there is no shortage of strong moves provided by the program.

Importing games is a snap, too. Play a game on your favorite Internet chess playing site, copy the moves and paste them into the move window inside the Fritz chess program, and the game instantly appears. No longer is there a need to input the moves one by one, all the while hoping nothing got entered wrong.

There are a ton of other options as well, but since this article is meant to be a quick overview of the Fritz chess program, I will leave you with this thought: if you are looking to improve your chess and train at all, Fritz is the way to go. Aftermarket support such as training videos and upgrades are also available, so there is no way to go wrong! Break down and spend the money today - you will not regret it.

Published by Derek Odom

Derek is a freelance writer and author living in Southern California. He does work for a number of places and people. He has an AA in Administration of Justice and is continuing his education in English / Cr...  View profile

5 Comments

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  • Melanie Marten1/14/2009

    My father uses Fritz. He loves it.

  • Thomas H Forthe1/13/2009

    Great article Derek!

  • Genesis1/13/2009

    Great article I just might have to check that out in my free time :D

  • Angel Sharum1/13/2009

    Sounds like you really like this place.

  • Lindsay Maddox1/13/2009

    Sounds pretty sweet!

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