Best chess engines of 2010

I was thinking of purchasing a good chess engine to analyze and explore my games with.  My question is which one out of these five are the most ideal for that purpose:  Deep Rybka 3, Rybka 4, Fritz 12, Shredder 12 and Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition.  Any comments are appreciated.

I like Chessmaster Grandmaster because when game analyzing it gives a short explanation after maneuver not just a variation; also, it let's you set the level of opponent's strenght to more level.  The main draw back may be that you'll need to use the the CD to run the game. By the way I own both Fritz 11 and ChessBase 10, which offer more features then Chessmaster, but they cost more. Lastly, I think engine for engine they are almost the same because when I analyze a middle game position the engines give the same variation in most position, but I think Chessmaster is a little weaker in endgame positions.

Hope this help you

thank you for your helpful comment.

Of the engines you listed, Rybka 4 would likely be the strongest, but also the most expensive.

Rybka 2.2 is free, but you'll see a slight reduction in playing strength.

Actually, On wholesalechess.com it's on sale for $49.00 until may 30th!

Thank you for your help though.

Hi

Just try Fire 1.2 it is currently strongest engine until May 2010 , rated

~ 3400 much better than well known Rybka 3. It is also free. Try from chesslogik.com

Good luck

thanks, I will download this immediately!

I can recommend both Firebird and Stockfish as very good free engines. There's a Firebird 1.3 which has so far only been used in last week's tournament in Thüringen, but which will be released shortly.

Here's a link to a recap of that tournament.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/engine-tourn--rybka-30-wins-fireb-2nd

www.stockfishchess.com

I like Shredder 12 because it is less "machine like" than some other engines I have tried, and I feel like I am playing a human player....

noone, Rybka 3 is stronger than Fritz 12, and so is Fritz 11. So you might want to replace your idea of Fritz 12 with Fritz 11

hello,

i 've recently made a test between rybka 4 w32 and fire 1.31 w32.

And here are the results :

- in 5mn blitz, 2 matches : 2 wins for fire 1.31

- in 25mn semi-long, 2 matches : 2 wins for fire 1.31

No doubt fire is the best engine ever.

great job to fire's team.

but where could we find the source code, please ?

thank you

faithdully