Fritz 15 coming in november

Yup, there is zero logic to buying Fritz for the Fritz engine, now that Stockfish is free and so strong. 

Buy it for the analysis interface.

I actually like playing against Fritz, shredder, hiarcs much more then playing against stockfish, houdini, rybka etc. Neutral for Komodo. Today i played against 1650 Elo Fritz 90+30 match and i forgot i am playing against an engine. But he didnt use much time until he was way worse, his style was like dangerous patzer i believe, i found some only moves at some moves otherwise game could turn into uncertain easily. It made an aggressive move in opening turned out to be a strategic error after i sacrificed a piece (incorrectly but still had great compensation) he tried to defended it the obvious way (not the way komodo pointed out after the game) and i had activity all the game, he never managed to finish its development but struggled 33 moves with a piece up. (for quality and activity)

I've just got a reply from Fritz support confirming this issue:

"we have informed the programers about the problem and it will be fixed with the next update, which will be published probably at the beginning of next week."

Let's Check' and Contribute Engine is also bugged. After each time the engine stop when it is supposed to analyse new positions. It was not patched in version 4, - Strange behavior.

An update for Fritz 15 has been released and this problem has been fixed.

I cant connect to cloud after the update

I think I got another bug, this time with engine management, I can't seem to transfer an engine from the active to the inactive list. What is more, I've been trying to remove engines, (I deleted the files on my drive) but the dratted program seems to keep thinking they are there. and gives me errors when moving them. (The above bug is with an engine that I have installed and works)

but deleting unwanted engines is a right pain in the backside, it should no longer show deleted engines, so where the frell is it getting the info from? as I deleted the chessbase folder from several areas, appdata/local and appdata/roaming.

why the heck do it need so many directories to begin with is beyond me.

anyone else can confirm this and got issues with getting rid of engines? and moving them from the inactive to active list (and vice versa)

Seems to be working here; I renamed my stockfish installation directory and it disappeared from the list. Also I was able to move engines between active/inactive lists. Having said that, this kind of problem may depend on the initial contents of engine list (for example, I had 2 engines de-activated before I renamed stockfish). I suggest you contact support and let them figure this out.

I somewhat managed to sort this issue out, it might have been down to my previous install of fritz 14, (I think the install script for the steam version was screwy) so it seemed to install engines all over the joint. I managed to get rid of the unwanted engines by using directory opus (it has a way better search then windows crappy one) and managed to find and delete the engines.

only downside is, I still can't move engines to and from the active and inactive list. but that is a minor issue now. at least I managed to get rid of the unwanted engines, which is what I originally wanted.

By the way, I've just experienced problems with engine management in Chessbase 13 when Fritz 15 is installed on same PC (CB13 engine list appears empty and gives error message when opened, there is no way to configure engines from CB). I reported this error to CB support and after exchanging a few emails they confirmed it and promised a fix for CB soon. So, all in all, their support is good - I managed to spot 2 issues with their software and get fixes for them in a week's time ;)

your engine management problem was the very same as the one I posted above, yet I didn''t have chessbase 13 installed. it might have been down to me having fritz 14 previously installed? but anyway, lets call this bug shared discovery and now it's fixed!!!

I can once again move engines between the active and inactive windows.

so yeah, there was an issue with that.

Indeed, looks like it had the same underlying cause. Fritz wasn't affected in my case, but patches for Firtz 15 and Chessbase 13 have been released at about the same time (I got them both yesterday), this cannot be coincidence!

Good, on more problem solved!

I think I found another bug, but not quite sure what's going on yet: I play friendly games against Fritz and after every game I use 'Blunder check' and 'Full analysis' functions. Problem is, sometimes my original moves get cut off (removed or moved into a variation); for example the game is 27 moves and ends with a mate and after using analysis functions it suddenly becomes a game of just 12 moves with score 1-0 (obviously the last move of the mainline isn't a mate anymore) and my main winning mainline gets buried somewhere in the many variations created by Fritz.

There's of course plenty of checkboxes affecting Fritz analysis, but I'd assume they shouldn't be "destructive", i.e. they only should add more variations and not touch my original moves? What do you think?

Well can anyone tell me why do they buy chess engines and how can one analyze games through an engine and lean from it when you know it isn't your thinking put into the analyses moves?

Well can anyone tell me why do they buy chess engines and how can one analyze games through an engine and lean from it when you know it isn't your thinking put into the analyses moves?

Well can anyone tell me why do they buy chess engines and how can one analyze games through an engine and lean from it when you know it isn't your thinking put into the analyses moves?

Well, obviously I do my own analysis, but engine analysis has a big value as I may be missing something subtle. I learn from engine analysis about some variations that I initially thought were bad, while they actually turn to be good.  Why do you read chess books and analysis of others games if that's not your thinking....?

I like Fritz 15, but the reworked friend mode is a bit dissapointing. The "ELO rating for each phase of the game" is nothing but a graph with no useful information. And the flashing bulb when the computer has made a blunder should be optional (I don't want to be told when he does a mistake, I want to discover it myself.) But the most annoying thing is that he never resigns. Even if I am queen, rook and 7 pawns up, he continues until he's been checkmated.

Yeah, I agree with all that. The advertised "ELO rating for each phase.." is a marketing gimmick, nothing more. I like to play against Fritz too and like many of its functions, but the shortcomings you mentioned are disappointing.