I recommend using engines for analysis of your games against human opponents. I have not seen computers that play "real" chess at lower settings. Usually what I see is a computer is programmed to allow certain things at lower settings that it would avoid at a higher setting... Computer hard on here for example allowed me to win a piece for a pawn by forking bishop and knight repeatedly when I was able to press my pawns forward in the center. This does not mean that I am doing well by beating the computer or even learning, just that the computer has been programmed with a deficiency that no human opponents I will face at 1900+ will allow me to do. A one move pawn advance to win a piece supported by another pawn will be seen. Good luck. To improve quickly I suggest looking at the games you play immediately after playing them. If you lose go back through the game asking questions after each move. "why did I play bishop g4?" What were my opponents threats when I played this... Also, after each of your opponent's moves ask what weaknesses were created by the move they made and what attacking ideas do they have? Then after all of this "on your own" analysis. Allow the engine to think after each move your opponent played. See where your moves differed from the PC's and if you do not have a strong case to support your move and/or if you see the evaluation decline greatly for a move... then and only then consider using the computer's "Advice" for improving your game. Check our my blog if you are interested in watching videos of games I have played in tournaments with video analysis: ChessCoachFortuna.BlogSpot.com Good luck!
Chess software
Jake421 gives good advice
However, in answer to your question, Shredder is the best for this I believe. You can download a trial version free, but in my opinion it's worth purchasing a full license if you can.
Also, Fritz on "Sparring Mode" is quite good for this.
Another (free) option is Lucas Chess - this includes lots of older and weaker engines, so you're not playing a "dumbed-down" engine that you know could rip your head off at any moment if it felt like it.
I'm not sure. My guess would be either HIARCS, Shredder, or Delfi Trainer.
Ok so I got another question then. Does the GUI matter? I noticed Shredder can be bought in the fritz user interface or the shredder user interface. If i got the fritz user interface with the shredder engine and i try to use the tools on the fritz user interface to lower the strength will it communicate that with the shredder engine as efficently as the shredder interface will?
Ok so I got another question then. Does the GUI matter? I noticed Shredder can be bought in the fritz user interface or the shredder user interface. If i got the fritz user interface with the shredder engine and i try to use the tools on the fritz user interface to lower the strength will it communicate that with the shredder engine as efficently as the shredder interface will?
I can't really answer your question, as I don't know anything about the Fritz GUI that comes with the Chessbase Shredder version. The big issue in my mind is whether the Chessbase Shredder engine is UCI protocol or the proprietary Chessbase protocol (eng file extension). I would want the engine to be in UCI format so I could also run it in other GUIs, but I don't know if that's the case. (Knowing Chessbase as I do, I suspect not.)
I have the Shredder 12 UCI GUI, and I generally like it. It does have a couple of shortcomings, though. It only imports UCI engines, and if you try to run a dumbed-down engine in a tournament, the Shredder GUI will only run the engine at full strength. (You can play against a dumbed-down Shredder engine with no problem - just not in tournaments.)
As far as difficulty of play at the low end of the elo scale, HIARCS tends to be a tough opponent, and Shredder tends to be an easy opponent. (One quirk I noticed is that at the lowest elo setting, HIARCS knows how to perform the basic mates (KR-K, and KQ-K), while Shredder is clueless.)
Thanks, I guess its just perhaps better off not to take a chance with trying the shredder engine in the chessbase format but just get the shredder gui that i know will be compatible with it.
IpswichMatt had a good suggestion...You can download a free 30-day demo of the Shredder Classic 4 GUI to give it a test run. It's basically the same GUI as Shredder 12, except that the engine is a little weaker.
I have seen alot of chess software that when set to play at .. say a rating of 1700. The software pretty much plays full strength and then makes one or two big blunders and goes back to playing full strength.
My question is Which chess software does the best job of playing at a lower rating setting? In other words which chess software plays most realistically at lower ratings? Fritz 14, Houdini 4, Hiarcs, Junior, Shredder? You comments and
Answers are much appreciated.