Aquarium GUI on Sale

The Aquarium 2015 GUI is on sale this week (until 7/2) for half price. It's a pretty good buy, especially considering that it comes with a huge database.  

See here ---->>  Aquarium 2015 Download 

And here ---->>  Aquarium 2015 DVD

Chessbase 13 winnar hands down

With the live book.. Chessbase 13 all the way

Are there any advantages of this over Deep Fritz 14 ?

non.. snice the computing depend on the chess engine.. they are all gui/// 

the only good thing i see is u get accesss to 7 piece endgame tablebase

You receive access to 7-piece Lomonosov endgame tablebases via the Aquarium interface or attb7.chessok.com until 31.12.2015. a yrs access .. if ur a hardcore endgame study.. then this is good..

I realise they are both GUI's, but was wondering how they compared...features, graphics, ease of use etc.

In a way, it's apples and oranges.  The sale is for the GUI only, with no premium engine included.  With Deep Fritz 14 you get the interface plus the Deep Fritz engine.

I mentioned the sale only because of the low price and the included database.  Most people using a Chessbase product will find little, if any, reason to also buy Aquarium.  Aquarium has an advanced analysis function called IDeA ("interactive deep analysis") that is unique to the product.  That function is over-kill for a duffer like me, but a lot of stronger players swear by it. 

Edit: Just to expand a little ... Aquarium was originally developed to be the preferred GUI for Rybka, back when Rybka was the top engine.  (Rybka means "little fish," hence the name "Aquarium.")  Here's a marketing excerpt from the website about the uses of Aquarium:

"ChessOK Aquarium is a revolutionary analysis, database and chess publishing tool, fully compatible with the world’s strongest chess playing engines, including Houdini 4. ChessOK Aquarium combines an easy-to-navigate interface with advanced analysis functions, game commenting, searching, powerful chess trees, playing against the computer, databases, advanced publishing options and many other features.

One of its unique features, Interactive Deep Analysis, is the most advanced chess analysis method available today. The purpose of IDeA is to analyze a position deeply and return as much information about it as possible to enable the user to get a better understanding of the nuances of any position. Its unique approach makes it an essential weapon in the arsenal of every serious player and analyst!"

FWIW

Thanks for an informative reply.

As I already have Houdini4, I was attracted by their statements :-

<<If you already own the Houdini 4 UCI engine and are looking for an appropriate interface, ChessOK Aquarium 2015 is the best you can find.

Connect Houdini 4/Houdini 4 PRO UCI to ChessOK Aquarium 2015 – and you have a fully functional product, fully equivalent to Houdini Aquarium 2015 or Houdini PRO Aquarium 2015.>>

For $17.50 it's a steal.

well stockfish is pretty dam strong and it blow houdini out of the water... u cant beat super strong and super freee.... stockfish win..

I have heard about this "Interactive Deep Analysis."  What i don't get is what is so great about it?  Every time I hear about it, I Google it, and nada... not a single review or instruction video.  I'm Puzzled???  If it was so great I would think at least one instruction or review video would exist by now... but, nothing!?!

Well, there isn't a whole lot of instruction available.  There are a few old YouTube videos that deal with it and there's a dedicated forum for Aquarium users.

Here's one of the videos ---->> Rybka 3 Aquarium Overview

Here's the Aquarium forum ---->>  Aquarium Forum at rybkaforum.net

I personally do just fine with boring old "infinite analysis."

That video is not all that impressive to me...  interface looks like kid stuff.  I just use the simple "blunder check', and then look at it from there.  I find computer analysis often misleading...  I think its best for point out mistakes quickly... even that can sometimes be a little misleading.

For someone that does not have a chess GUI program, that is a good price for commercial software.

the IDEA is pretty stupid.. u can insert a position and it goes on and on and on and on and try to find a solution there is really no fix yet .. if there was a fix i'm sure the gm will use aquarium idea to beat carlsen..

for example certain position is a draw.. inserting it into idea wont do anything beside wasting electric bill

This does not make the slightest sense, but then I guess you already know it...

I do not like IDeA simply because I can do manual branching and get the same, more or less, results at just a tiny fraction of the time I would need using IDeA. But many people are not good enough to do PROPER manual variation branching, so you cannot tell IDeA is useless. And of course all that are useful for very long time controls/ correspondence chess, and not for real OTB competitive chess. For opening analysis, IDeA is totally useless, I agree.