TyranusBonehead
Bound & Determined
Which is best? I've only played Chessmaster, and am thinking about getting the 10th edition game soon. I've heard a lot about Fritz too. Which do you guys think is best? Thanks.
ChessMaster vs Fritz
- Thread starter TyranusBonehead
- Start date
SanPellegrino
Wanderer
In terms of pure playing strength, fritz is better, but, well what does that mean for amateurs like us. but the playing server is also quite good, especially I like that they track down cheaters by a clever software that runs in the background and analyzes some games.
I have both Fritz 8 and Chessmaster 9000. Both are good but personally I like Chessmaster better. I think Chessmaster has a better interface and lets me do what I want without going through 7 menues looking for stuff. I haven't yet figured out if Fritz has more content or just more menues and settings.
I rarely play against the computer, mostly I analyze my games with it. If I had to pick one program or the other, the reason I would pick Chessmaster over Fritz is its "Mentor Lines" function. If Fritz has something exactly like this, I haven't found it yet. This is a window where the program for the current position display the best moves it has found so far. I hope Ubi Soft won't mind me showing you what the window looks like:
(I had to cut a little on the right to make sure it fit on this page).
As soon as you make a move it starts evaluating the new position. I find this tool to be much more useful than the long process of letting it auto-annotate the games. You can check different variations very quickly this way.
Chessmaster 9000 also has a number of annotated (in audio) games by Josh Waitzkin. Those are easily alone worth the cost of the program. I'm not sure what's included in later versions of Chessmaster. As for Fritz, you get a 1 year subscribtion to playchess.com which is very nice.
I believe Fritz is considered sligthly stronger but since both programs beat 2500+ playes with ease I'd say it's not so important (I know for a fact that Chessmaster on my system has beaten a 2300 player every time he has played so far
). I have used both programs for a number of lengthy analyzes of games (where the computer was given 30ish hours to analyze the games and I also spent many hours checking variations) and while they were not always agreeing 100% I can't say that I found Fritz's ideas to be any stronger.
I rarely play against the computer, mostly I analyze my games with it. If I had to pick one program or the other, the reason I would pick Chessmaster over Fritz is its "Mentor Lines" function. If Fritz has something exactly like this, I haven't found it yet. This is a window where the program for the current position display the best moves it has found so far. I hope Ubi Soft won't mind me showing you what the window looks like:
(I had to cut a little on the right to make sure it fit on this page).
As soon as you make a move it starts evaluating the new position. I find this tool to be much more useful than the long process of letting it auto-annotate the games. You can check different variations very quickly this way.
Chessmaster 9000 also has a number of annotated (in audio) games by Josh Waitzkin. Those are easily alone worth the cost of the program. I'm not sure what's included in later versions of Chessmaster. As for Fritz, you get a 1 year subscribtion to playchess.com which is very nice.
I believe Fritz is considered sligthly stronger but since both programs beat 2500+ playes with ease I'd say it's not so important (I know for a fact that Chessmaster on my system has beaten a 2300 player every time he has played so far
). I have used both programs for a number of lengthy analyzes of games (where the computer was given 30ish hours to analyze the games and I also spent many hours checking variations) and while they were not always agreeing 100% I can't say that I found Fritz's ideas to be any stronger.
punkbass2000
Des An artiste
Yeah, Waitzkin is great.
Narz
keeping it real
Yeah, Waitzkin is cool. Did you know he retired from chess and is now a champion at Push-Hands? Pretty sweet, eh? Just following his bliss like that. I thought it was so cool I wrote him an e-mail about it. But he never wrote me back. The bastard!
punkbass2000
Des An artiste
I had no idea.
Narz
keeping it real
Yeah, me neither until recently. After watched that "Searching for Bobby Fischer" movie I decided to look him on (on the almighty Google) to see if it still played and found out he got into Tai Chi and push hands. I remember thinking how cool it was that he became the push hands champ. I imagine it's take a lot of self-mastery to be the best at something like that.
punkbass2000
Des An artiste
He seems like he has the character for that sort of thing, though. I recall the one game where discusses how he takes a month off chess every year to go fishing.
TyranusBonehead
Bound & Determined
I tried tai chi for a while, but got bored with it quickly. I guess I have too much of a mid-western philosophy to buy into such oriental concepts.
Narz
keeping it real
He finally wrote me back past Narz, don't cry!Yeah, Waitzkin is cool. Did you know he retired from chess and is now a champion at Push-Hands? Pretty sweet, eh? Just following his bliss like that. I thought it was so cool I wrote him an e-mail about it. But he never wrote me back. The bastard!
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
(albeit, not to just me, er us)Josh Waitzkin said:
