Please advise me on which chess software to buy.

Hello my chess friends, I am in need of advice on buying a chess software. I do have chess arena and it does come with about ten engines that are 5+ years old. But my problem isn't even the engines but the Arena software itself. It doesn't always work, or is confusing. I wouldn't mind getting something with 3d chess board models like Fritz 13 and 14 but I am not sure whether I should get the $39.99 version of Fritz or the $70 version which supposedly thinks better.

I looked over the Rybka site and I am confused about it as well. Do they just sell the engine and you are supposed to find your own software to run it? Or does it come with full featured software in which to analyze games?

If you have other suggestions please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

It sounds like you should just buy the latest Fritz and use that.  I can't correlate your stated prices with Fritz versions. I recommend the current version, Fritz 14.  The engine isn't the strongest, but it's plenty strong enough.  You can add Stockfish (free) if you want more strength.  Forget about Rybka.

There are other, free alternatives, but I'm assuming you want a simple solution.  With Fritz you'll get a good interface, a strong engine, an openings book and a database.  It's a pretty good package and you can add as many UCI engines as you want.

Don't demand too much from Fritz as a database, it can't even sort the list and you need Chessbase to do that, its more money out and two big programs opened at the same time. Think about "Hiarcs Chess Explorer" or "Scid vs PC" or "Chess KIng". At present I am using "Scid vs PC" and "Chess King".

Sound advice, Fritz is more than adequate for the average player and Fritz 13 would be sufficient if you want to save a few dollars.

Referring to post #3, you can in fact sort the games in the database, by position, player, ECO etc.

I have Fritz 13. You can't sort the games in the database. In fact I bought a license of Chessbase 12 just to do that. Later I gave up on both.

Filter games dialog from Fritz 13 ---->>

Filter is not the same as sort. If you don't need to have the games sorted, that's fine with you. By the way, "Chess King" can't sort the game list either. For a single chess programme I could live happy with "HIARCS Chess Explorer" or "Scid vs PC" but never with "Fritz" or "Chess King". Imagine you manage a big library, or book shop. With filter you can obtain the book or books you search for, but without sort you can't have the books organized in the shelves, or even in your working desktop, by any criterion.

I'd suggest Komodo from chessbase, I've had Fritz and Rybka but Komodo is my fav. If you buy it from chessbase you also get a few additional features like livebook and a playchess membership, which you can also use to share and read up comments in your analyzing with the engine.

For openings, I'd suggest the (free) version of ChessPositionTrainer. Your entire repertoire ordered in the way you like. Very easy to work with. 

You can always download the free ChessBase reader at http://en.chessbase.com/pages/download and complement it with the free Stockfish engine at https://stockfishchess.org/download/

I wish I had known that before buying Fritz 14. Of course, I'm happy with it, but it cost 70 more euros!

Not sure what you mean by "sort"?

What information can't you get from the Fritz "filter games" function?

Drawgood: I get the impression you aren't looking for the latest, greatest, most powerful chess software, but something reasonably strong with a decent, reliable interface.

I got Fritz 12 on sale a couple years ago and I'm still satisfied. I see that Amazon offers an open box version of that for $20.00. You can pay more for the later versions, but unless you are expert strength or above, I doubt it will make much difference.

As others have pointed, Fritz is not the top of the line either when it comes to managing large game databases. However, I don't get the sense you are looking for that.

Summary: Get a cheap version of Fritz, use it a while, then if you find it limiting, get something more powerful.

Thank you everyone for the useful advice. A number of suggested options and alternatives to arena sound like a pretty good deal. I will probably get Fritz because it is on Steam and I use that for other games too. But before that I will try the free options mentioned in some posts.

you have to ask yourself if you want a database soft or no ?

i don't know how is hiarcs but i hate chessbase. I hab bought a cb, when my computer break i had ask for the serial number to unstall on my new computer and they didn't want. It seems i am alone to have this kind of trouble.

I have schredder classic and i like a lot. (and scid for db)

I had a similar problem with Chessbase, that serial number thing is a pain.  I don't mind having to verify on install, but limiting installs is annoying.

Had a computer hard drive fail, then a few months later the mother board failed.  Bought a new computer and the serial number would not work.  I had to contact Chessbase... took a few days, but they adjusted my serial number allowing me to install again.  Very annoying!

Well, thanks to the mentality of people like cheeseskates in post #8 above, software companies have to do something to protect their software. It is unfortunate but necessary.

Why buy at all? U can get  "Scid vs PC" for free. If you want something more get "Lucas Chess" also free! If u wamt a good database with millions of games in it you can go online to "365chess." The best things in chess are free!

I strongly disagree.  There are better ways of handling this.  Annoying paying customers is foolish.

Disagree all you want. That is why it is being done. Whether you think you can do it better is a moot point, it is not your company. If you feel you can do it better, start your own chess software company.

(Note - I also did not say this was a good way to do it or not, I was merely pointing out that the mentality of "don't pay, just steal" is the reason it is being done. So I am not sure what you are actually disagreeing with, do you disagree that is why it is being done?)

There is no stopping fool's that use hacked software.  They risk much more than they think they are saving...  They are the "low-hanging fruit" if you will for hackers and cyber attacks, their computers are most likely controlled by a remote hacker.

Annoying paying customers... just foolish.

There are legitimate FREE options if you like or cannot spend what the commercial companies are asking.