Fritz Chess for the iPhone... but is it *the* Fritz?

Here's the iTunes store link.

When I saw this new title in the AppStore, I immediately thought it was ChessBase's Fritz, however upon further inspection it seems that this is an entirely different entity. I wonder if there's going to be some copywrite infringement case in the near future. Unless this really is the Fritz that we all know about except rebranded and with a better, more consumer oriented marketing strategy.

The game is by Gammick Entertainment. Here's Gammick Entertainment's "sub-site" for the game (not sure what else to call it). Here's the official site for the game.  It looks impressive from a graphical perspective. It's touted as being the strongest player in the world (Rybka might have something to say about that). There are versions for the XBOX 360, PS3, Wii and Nintendo DS (and of course, the iPhone, but that strangely doesn't get mentioned on the main page of the site).

If you decide to purcahse it, let us all know what your experience with it is!

Yowsa.  Actually if you look at the small print at the bottom of the official site, you'll see acknowledgement of Chessbase's copyright.  This reminds me that I was first introduced to Fritz years ago when it provided the engine to a little known PC chess app called "Extreme Chess" (which was not a Chessbase product, per se).  Apparently they aren't above licensing stuff to other vendors.

A version for the Wii too...  Eeeenteresting..  :-)

EDIT:  Thanks for costing me another $10, Gastro.  I haven't had time to really get into it, but so far, I can say that it's very slick.  I'll post more informed opinions when I get some.  Thanks for the heads-up.  :)

It looks really nice... I might buy it some day, but right now $9.99 would come dangerously close to overdrawing my bank account.  Could you maybe provide some screenshots of any particularly interesting parts? Running commentary would also be appreciated. 

Well, I'd hold on to the $10 if I were you.  It's pretty, and I assume the engine is good, but it's not as rich in features as Glaurung, Genius or Shredder.  You can play untimed, blitz or long games against a simple menu of levels (400, 500, 700, 850, 1000, 1200, 1500, 1800, 2100, 2210, & 2320 ELO).  It has the usual coaching features, and can show legal moves, threatened pieces, standard opening moves, etc.

It can't show analysis, which I find quite surprising.  It also doesn't give you any means to get a game off the device (no email, no upload).  You can't change the style of play.  It doesn't do adaptive level selection based on your play.  There's no position editor.

In short, although the ChessBase logo is on the splash screen, it doesn't feel like a ChessBase product.  I'd guess that Gammick just borrowed some version of the Fritz engine and wrapped it in a nice-looking game for casual chess-players (casual meaning they don't care that there's no analysis, board set-up, or easy way to transfer PGN).

The game does have its own selection of music you can listen to during the game, so that's something original.  You can even choose between jazz, electronic and "concentration" (whatever that means).  I haven't tried the music yet, so I can't attest to the quality of Fritz's musical stylings.  :-)

I only wanted it to have PGN, but I can tell you is clearly the better chess engine on the iphone.

It beats shredder on my iphone, with both maximum level (2320 fritz, 2400 schredder).

Love the interface, which is MUCH better than the rest of the chess games on the platform. :)

Yes, I'm not surprised to hear that (re: the engines).  I've played a few games against Fritz on the lower-rated levels, and it definitely puts up a stronger fight than Shredder does at similar level settings.

As for the UI, yes, it's pretty slick (Gammick has made some investment here because they are releasing versions of this product on all the major gaming platforms), but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  For instance, if it's sheer good looks we're judging by, I still think Deep Green is the pick of the litter for elegant visual design.

Sigh..  I still wish Fritz had more features.

So it looks like the iPhone version of Fritz is living up to its ChessBase namesake. Now if only Rybka would come to the iPhone...

Version 1.1 is now out...

It adds..

- Infinite analysis during game review

- Send PGN by email

- Resign and accept-draw behaviour configuration

- UI improvements & options

Now we're getting somewhere.

Given the strength of the engine, if Gammick keeps adding value with updates like this one, Fritz could be a real contender among the seriouser chess set. 

#1 on my wish-list is that the announce openings feature could go deeper than one move.  :)

More wish list

For Fritz: a bigger board during game review...

For any chess program on iphone:  Multivariation engine... See pgn comments...

I really think they have done a very good improvement on the product.

I bought shredder too, but definitively I feel more confortable playing fritz, because of the much much better UI and strength.

Agree with your comments about the openings, and maybe it will be better with a bigger board, not on the game review, but on the game itself.

Still I think these are minor improvements.

I´m a bit surprised. You really like fritz better than shredder? I´m not sure about which engine is better but I really love shredder´s auto strength to be equal to my level. I also put shredder style in "ramdon" so the style changes in each game.

Hi Ousland,

I only say that I feel more comfortable with fritz, because the interface is nicer to me, and all have been put more carefully on place.

I think they are both at the same level, but shredder has a little more options.

About autostrenght, I don't like it, basically.

Best regards!

thanks for the answer bigboy755

:)

I recently tried a puzzle on both Shredder and Fritz. Fritz had no problem figuring it out while Shredder went the long way around for Mate. I then tried a different problem and it happened again. Interesting how they each had a different way of analyzing the problem.

In my opinion Fritz is the strongest chess engine available on the App Store and also the most honest when it comes to its self-evaluation, as the hardest level goes up to "only" 2320 Elo points. I said honest because it's much closer to the reality compared to other similar programs out there.

Shredder for example is far away from its pretended strength of 2400 Elo, so if you play Shredder and beat it - or draw it - don't imagine you really have a GM rating. No way... In fact, this program is so easy to draw at its hardest level that I can afford to do it in the bus, while watching a movie or preparing my dinner - seriously!

Too bad I still didn't have the chance to run a Fritz vs. Shredder match - as I did before tChess Pro vs. ChessGenius (winner CG)  and ChessGenius vs. Glaurung (winner G) - but that's how I feel after playing all these engines myself. In fact, I would be even more interested to confront Fritz with Glaurung, my second favourite app. If anyone is interested in this, feel free to contact me as I cannot perform the test with a single iPhone.

Again, as I did before with Tom Kerrigan (tChess), Richard Lang (ChessGenius) and Tord Romstad (Glaurung), I managed to contact the Fritz's developer team - wonderful people eager to find out new ideas and use them in order to improve their product. If the 3 guys mentioned above only liked my ideas - but never implemented any of those - well these ones will really do it, starting with the next version 1.3, expected to come out in 1-2 weeks from now. They were so impressed that 1.3 will contain my full name in a newly created section for credits and/or special thanks.

I promissed not to talk about everything I told them, as there are some features which were never implemented on any other program yet. Some of them will come faster, while others are difficult to make and may depend on third-parties as well. But I can tell you what 1.3 will have:

- position setup, at last... (not my idea, this was an obvious must-have feature);

- listen to your own music (again, they were already preparing this);

- board auto-reverse (this is a nice one - activate the option while in multiplayer mode on the same device and the board will reverse itself automatically for the other player after each move is played);

- shake to undo/redo (you're in traffic and make a blunder, just shake the phone to take it back);

- draw recognition, finally (it was a shame not to have what all the free programs had; until now you could have repeated a position one hundred times with no draw, or play much more than 50 moves without a capture and still no draw).

Finally, I have to thank Ousland for inviting me into this team. Cheers, mate! :-)

Thanks for the in-depth assessment, ChessMasterFire! 

Thanks to you for joining this group! I´m really happy to have you here. Thank you for sharing you thoughts. All your post are very interesting (I have read them all). And thanks for telling developers all the sugestions ;)

Wellcome ;)

I am waiting for 1.3 with board setup, but I found something curious... I know that example is silly, but Be7??

Bahaha! 

maybe the engine is set to play weak level chess (very weak)