Has anyone bought the new Rybka 3 powered chessbase?  I'd really like to get a chess program but not sure where to put my money if I do.

Just get Chessmaster.

If you haven't had experience with a chess engine before, I'd recommend starting with the free version of Rybka (v2.2c2), which is about 200 ELO weaker than the 3.0 version.

If you're unsatisfied with the search depth/efficiency of free Rybka, then go ahead and purchase Rybka 3.

Yes, I have Rybka 3 and ChessBase 10.

And so what are your thoughts on them?

why do you need rybka 3?? Any free engine like Crafty or Anaconda will beat you easily :))

Rybka's depth is unrivaled.

But it makes her very difficult to understand, because of so many subtelties in her analysis.

Staggerlee: I like Rybka 3 and ChessBase. I am an OTB player so I keep a database of my games and use Rybka to help analyze them. The interface is much like the Fritz series so I can use it. I also use Rybka to help me study the middle games for the openings that I play. An example may help. I looked over a recent game, Fritz 6 (a while back!) analyzed a position and came up with the same move I played. When I ran Rybka, it gave 3 other moves with a higher evaluation. Interesting. By the way, the reason I bought Rybka rather than a less expensive or free engine, was not to play it, rather to use it as a tool to help me study. Consider what you are going to use your engine for before buying one.

Staggerlee I see you already have CM11. I think it is the best "all in one" solution but not necessarily the best in other aspects of chess study. The best as far as the strongest engine is Rybka 3. It is even stronger if you use the Rybka 3 opening book by Noomen. There are many free engines and free interfaces as well so if you wanted to go the route of least expense you could do just fine. I have Fritz 11 and I use the Deep Rybka 3 engine with the Fritz interface. This is very near and similar if not exactly the same as the Rybka 3 Chessbase version you are inquiring about. The Chessbase Rybka 3 version is a great tool for analysis. I think it's the best. It is very powerful for digging in deep so to speak. If I were going to recommend any 2 chess programs I would recommend ChessMaster 10 or 11 (which you have) and then I'd recommend Rybka 3 with the Chessbase interface. Rybka has its own new interface called Aquarium which I have no experience with so I can't opine about that one.

Chessbase 10 is a database that is an excellent tool for study and reference but I don't think it is the best for pure analysis like Rybka3. The Chessbase 10 does come with a database of >3.5 million games and it does have an earlier version of the Fritz engine as well as Crafty. It is relatively pricey compared to CM and Rybka 3 but there is a TON of information in there. If I were to add a 3rd purchase to my chess studies it would be Chessbase 10. It really depends on how much $$ you want to invest and how deep you want to go in your pursuit of chess knowledge and study.

Hope this helps

To change the question a bit, has anyone used Aquarium, the interface that comes from Rybka's programmers, instead of the Fritz/Chessbase interfaces? It sounds like it has some features that Fritz doesn't have, but I've also heard that it's kind of flaky to use.

Gyr,

You might want to start a new topic for this one... anyway, I do not have experience with Aquarium.