Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1334 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Excalibur
• Released on: 2009-10-30
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM

Manufacturer's Description
Fritz is the world’s most popular chess program, developed by ChessBase, “the world's leading chess software company” (Washington Post).

Fritz continues to fascinate the chess world. It has beaten a reigning World Champion in the battle of man vs. machine, and it has worked with World Champions as a clever training partner (Garry Kasparov: “I regularly analyse with Fritz”) which will entertain you with fresh and humorous verbal comments.

Whether you are a beginner, club player or professional – Fritz has everything that chess players could want: automatically adjusting playing strength, handicap and coaching functions, explanation of positions, coloured danger warnings, openings statistics, automatic game analysis, training modules for openings, tactics, endgames, and a database of one million games.

Customer Reviews

The Old King is dead; Long live his successor!
Those who have read my Fritz 11 reviews will already have a good idea what the program is about.

Periodically Chessbase rolls out their latest release in the hope it will become Christmas stocking fillers.

As always the chess engine and its opening book are strengthened and expanded.

For most of us mortals the version number at the end of each release has become less significant; for playing purposes Fritz 6 will wallop us just as heavily as Fritz 12 would and we could hardly tell the difference. It would be if you used the chess engine for analysis that improvements in chess knowledge and more efficient searches are more likely to pay dividends.

As always I tend to buy the full version which is more than twice the price of that offered here. The cheaper version as ever just offers the basic program. We have discussed the benefits of a Playchess Subscription before. Actually I think the previous reviewer is a little optimistic to think that someone could sign in as a guest and still receive their updates. Even with a longstanding membership I have still had to register my full product serial number about twice and then go through an activation process which reminded me of Passport Control before I finally got the go ahead to download the first update.

Other benefits of the full version include a one million+ database of every significant game played since Ruy Lopez himself in the 1660's, right up to 2009. This database is used to power some of the new training features such as defensive training and attacking training. Also 12 hours plus of training media is imbedded in the full version disc.

Having discussed what you won't get with this version, what you will get is the brand new interface Chessbase have developed. It has been modernised to comply with Microsoft's "Fluent UI" standard; used increasingly with all modern software today. Even if you are an old hand at Fritz you will find the new ribbon layout strange to start with. However, if you are familiar with Office 2007, for example, the navigation is very similar.

I still refer back to the Fritz 11 menu whilst still getting my head around the new one. Don't worry too much if you do too.

Great value cut down version of the #1 chess program
Firstly, Fritz is a really great program. It might not include the very strongest chess engine in the world at the moment but the difference is negligible to anyone who is not a Grandmaster. Fritz also has great modes even for players just starting out, so it really is suitable for everyone. There are masses of different playing and training modes to try out and the price is very good considering what you get. Highly recommended for anyone interested in more than a casual game, but see below to see if you might want the 'full' retail version instead.

For existing owners considering upgrading, a big improvement with Fritz 12 for a hobby player like me is in playing 'rated games' at the lower levels. Fritz can now play at a lower strength without the hassle of switching engines (down to ELO 1000), and the play at these levels seems more realistic - in previous versions Fritz didn't make big blunders in rated games no matter what the strength was set to. The 3D graphics continue to improve, and I now play all my games using the 3D view, which I think is better for improving real life play.

In spite of all the good stuff, I've nearly knocked one star off Fritz for it's slightly poor menu structure. A key example: when you start a new game, it should be obvious how to choose a chess variant, a time control and an opponent strength/type. It isn't, instead the controls for these things are spread around the ribbon bar just like they used to be spread around the menus. Also doubling in rated games should default to off (or the whole gambling idea should be tossed out). These issues make getting started with Fritz a bit more painful than it needs to be.

Note that Fritz 12 is also available in a green box at a significantly higher price: with previous editions this was because the cheaper version did not include 1 years full membership to the online playchess service, and with Fritz 12 this is now premium membership. Even with the cheaper version, you could still access playchess as a guest, play games and get program updates, so if you don't want to play a lot of online chess, this version offers great value for money. If you want full online access it may be worth tracking down the full retail version.