I need an engine

My chess rating is around 1500 - 1600 according to chess.com. I have many engines like Deep Rybka 4, Fritz 12, Deep Shredder 12, and almost  all commercially available engines ( as a matter of fact i got them all free ).i Have the lastest deep shredder 12 interface. all the engines that i have got are of no use to me because i am low rated. I want an eninge of around 1500 - 1700 playing strength or an engine in which i can adjust strength... can u name some or give some web links ? 

thanks.

You can adjust most engines to any rating you wish,just click on handicap games in fritz and it allows you to chose the grading level.

I hope this helps.

That's one thing but I would imagine it would be to actually play something you have a chance of beating. Playing an engine at full strength will certainly teach you something but is pretty demoralizing most of the time.

What would better is an engine that can easily mimic a class player, without playing super strong all the time and occassionally throwing in blunders. Seems that it wouldn't be too difficult to get collections of class level games, do statistical analysis on how often each class gets close to a certain engine move choice (say 1600's get the 6th or 7th move choice of the engine, 80% of the time and the top 1 or 2 move choices 10% of the time) and have the engine do the best move to match that statistic, with a little randomness thrown in to sometimes give a better move. Maybe have a way to make a certain class player better at endgames, some at tactics, and some at openings.

I don't think there are any good engines that play like that, though I could be wrong.

thanks .. still waiting for more comments

Actually there are engines that attempt to do that.  Both Fritz and Chessmaster have various modes with different styles and strengths.  There are modes that will make sacrifices, modes that play passive, and modes that play trappy.  The other way to control the strength of your computer opponent is control the time you give it to think.  You lower the strength considerably by not allowing the engine to think while your clock is running.  For staters I would force the computer to move within 15 seconds and not allow it to think on your time.  You can save a lot of money by not buying the latest model.  I use Fritz 7.

I knew that some engines offer features like that but from what I've read they are incosistent in how they play. Sometimes they will play perfect chess, make a blunder, then play perfect chess again. I don't have a ton of experience with anything but free engines and most of what I know is just secondhand.

If I bought a Ferrari, I would want one with various gears that allowed me to go considerably less than 65mph when convenient.

thanks for all the comments. it helped me .. now i can adjust the strength of the engine named fritz 12 ... anyways echecs06 i dont like u ... so u better SHUT UR MOUTH AND GET THE HELL OUT OF IT.

The "The King" engine can be customized very well. I don't think it's free though.

if you have a mobile device pocket grandmaster light is very inexpensive and fun to play. You'd win a few games.

good point

For me, playing a computer has no appeal.  Computers shine as tools for improvement in the role of analyzers helping you to find improvements when replaying your games.  They excell as platforms to perform tactics training lessons or to setup an endgame position you need to get practice against.  They are great for finding people to play against such as on this website here.  But in mimicking a human player they fail greatly, they can be programmed to make mistakes but the mistakes feel artifical.  With a human you can look at the blunder and usually see what they were trying to do when they moved but the computer mistakes have no reasoning behind them other than 'well it's time to blunder'.  For some reason that ruins the enjoyment for me.

can u please tell how can we improve by analysing our games ? please give some steps if possible that i can follow to analyse my games. i have heard lot about this process but never done it.

Thanks

THANK YOU very much ..... i was always been confused with these numerical values .. u made the point clear and now i think i am "fit" for analysing my games.

Getting an engine is NOT your problem.  Engine's with low strengths will only teach you how to play games as those low strengths. 

What you need is CHESSBASE (or any other large current database).  With these databases,you can put in your game, and rather than finding the best move, it will show you what grandmasters are making when they reach positions similar to yours.

Chessbase has a lot of other features like "fashionable variation", which shows current moves as opposed to most played.  Many openings are out dated.  It will also show thematic moves and other stuff.

Engines will not help you get better unless you know what you did wrong.

For enjoyment. I played against a chess computer in an OTB tournament in the early 80's, and won so easily that it wasn't enjoyable. I was given a Radio Shack chess computer about a decade later that was strong enough to beat masters, and that wasn't enjoyable either. I can appreciate the desire for something 'in between'; repeatedly being pounded with purely tactical play by something that can look ahead 10+ moves at tournament time controls might be less than pleasurable for some players.

BorgQueen: Where would you go about finding that? And how much did it cost?

Oh man. lol I'll look for it online then! Thank you!

I definitely will!