Fritz 16

 Yeah, its pretty funny!  :-)

Says stuff like:

- Are you sure you can do that?

- What's going on here, did you shutoff my book or something?

- And now, you are on your own.

- Fischer vs Spassky 1992? (in a sarcastic tone)

... and many others.

@m-p-b Thanks for posting results

I would set it to run for no more than 15 seconds.  I think you will find the test runs much faster this way.  Plus, you are going to get more useful results I think, given you are likely not going to run analysis with 180s per a move...

I have not run this test in while, good test.  I'm pretty sure it's designed not to get 100%, not positive on that.  I would run at least one more engine, Stockfish 8 for example.

Interesting that Fritz was faster, typically it was not if I recall correctly.

@m-p-b I ran a few while away from computer today, here are the results:

Processor = Intel Quad 2.66GHz
Maximum time = 15 seconds
Hashtable = 1200MB
CPUs = 3

Houdini 1.5a 64-bit Result: 193 out of 210 = 91.9%. Average time = 0.93s / 13.45

Fritz 15 64-bit Result: 192 out of 210 = 91.4%. Average time = 1.06s / 13.10

Stockfish 8 64-bit Result: 189 out of 210 = 90.0%. Average time = 1.22s / 15.59

Komodo 9.02 64-bit Result: 189 out of 210 = 90.0%. Average time = 0.85s / 14.25

Rybka 2.3.2a mp 64-bit Result: 180 out of 210 = 85.7%. Average time = 2.14s / 12.18

Deep Fritz 13 64-bit Result: 170 out of 210 = 80.9%. Average time = 1.80s / 13.32

Gull 3 64-bit Result: 167 out of 210 = 79.5%. Average time = 1.43s / 13.79

Sorry, don't have a newer version of Rybka.  As you can see Fritz has improved quite a bit.  It is now hanging with the "big boys" at the table.  Why do we use chess engines?  For me, to get quick tactical assessment, accuracy is important, but speed I think is just as important.  I think we can agree any engine scoring 90% or better with 15 seconds to solve the problem is running at GM level.  So who is a little better is not very important in my opinion.  I think what we can get from this test is what engines are operating at the "big table" and who have been sent to the "has been table".  For me, Fritz 15 and 16 are now operating in the same table as Stockfish, Houdini, and Komodo... for me, all those top engines are just as good for what I use chess engines for.

Additional tests....

Maximum time = 8 seconds

Houdini 1.5a 64-bit Result: 192 out of 210 = 91.4%. Average time = 0.77s / 13.38

Komodo 9.02 64-bit Result: 189 out of 210 = 90.0%. Average time = 0.62s / 14.11

Fritz 15 64-bit Result: Result: 189 out of 210 = 90.0%. Average time = 1s / 13.00

Stockfish 8 64-bit Result: 185 out of 210 = 88.0%. Average time = 1.09s / 15.51

Maximum time = 4 seconds

Fritz 15 64-bit Result: Result: 185 out of 210 = 88.0%. Average time = 0.94s / 13.03

Houdini 1.5a 64-bit Result: 183 out of 210 = 87.1%. Average time = 0.58s / 13.17

Komodo 9.02 64-bit Result: 182 out of 210 = 86.6%. Average time = 0.51s / 14.01

Stockfish 8 64-bit Result: 175 out of 210 = 83.3%. Average time = 0.82s / 15.13

Fritz 16 full analysis of a randomly picked recent game of mine from chess.com. Let's see how the pgn translates into a chess.com diagram.

https://database.chessbase.com/

Fritz 16 database only 1 million games?

From the chessbase website:

Stay moile with Fritz 16: With a 6-month ChessBase Premium Account included, you’re guaranteed full access to the world of ChessBase Web Apps (also for iPads, Android Tablets and Smartphones) on the move: 6,000 chess training videos, 60,000 tactical exercises, 8 million games in the Live database and, of course, the best online action on playchess.com. Fritz now also annotates and analyses as you play, immediately providing you with move-by-move summaries to replay after a game ends.

Fritz does include a database on the disc, size varies over the years.  Examples:

Fritz 8 : 511,873 games

Fritz 13: 3,400,525 games

Fritz 15: 2,022,603 games

I have premium membership.  There is no database perks for premium membership.

There is a "Live Book" you can find that on the Notation Pane.

There is the "Live Database" the link I provided.  Anyone and everyone has access to that.

Yes, you can buy the "Big Database" or "Mega Database" from the online shop and download it.

I have the premium account, I have been without the premium account as well.  Don't see any difference with the "Live Database", that I consider pretty much worthless.  If you want a functioning database program buy the Chessbase database program, currently Chessbase 14. 

Chessbase offers many add-on products, but is only currently selling two databases, as I mentioned.  Oops, seems there is one more, a correspondence database, my apologies. :-)

@coffeeand420 books are not databases... if you own Chessbase 14 you can make opening books all day, very simple to do.  You can make books with Fritz as well, just not as easy.

if you are looking for an endgame tablebase you can download that here: http://tablebase.sesse.net/

if you want a large database on your computer, search for, purchase, and download Chess King standard edition about ~$30 USD, it include the GigaBase 2017, 5.7 Million games plus another chess program.

interesting review:

https://youtu.be/egxOHBQqZQs

Fritz 16 analysis of a casual club game. https://www.chess.com/blog/RMChess1954/knight-moves 

Fritz has more or less the same features after each new version.

There are cheap bundled version available on the net such as "Echec & Mat" (Micro Application) or included in DGT products for free, or Shredder/Hiarcs based on Fritz GUI.

You can have them for a few bucks and they are full featured software. You can use the latest engines even with old versions, and they all have database and analysis options.

I think that if you are buying Fritz(any version) for the strength of the program (chess engine) that you are tossing your money away. I say that because there are plenty of free chess engines that are much stronger than the strongest version of Fritz, IE: Stockfish 8 & 9.However, if you are buying Fritz for the interface (GUI) then you are making a nice investment.

100% agree

By the way, who tried the online version of Fritz ? I found the links between database and other features very confusing...

I find that Fritz 16 at 'Club Player' level is about equal in performance to the Chess.com computer at level 6.

Sorry you feel that way. It's been great for me.

There is one feature that Fritz 16 has but Chessbase 14 doesn't. I feel that feature will be very important in Chessbase because I use Chessbase to go through not just my games but a repertoire of games. I wish that when creating a Tactical Job and you select Deep Analysis, you were able to create how many moves (PLYs) the engine will output.  I have discovered that on one computer, same position, same time, it will provide an analysis of 10 moves and on my other computer it will output 3 moves.  I like to set both to about 8 moves.  Also, I like to do the same for the length of variations when I chose variations. On one machine the variations be 42 (PLYs) 21 moves and the other machine the variation length is 8 (Plys) 4 moves.

You clearly have no idea how to put a good database to use. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of ways to get good use from a database, even at fairly low levels, such as mine.

It isn't about finding the exact position (although in the opening it does have that use). It is about finding similar positions and understanding typical plans that flow from that kind of position.

And that is just one of its uses.

I plan to buy Fritz 16. Can I use it without Chess Base?

One more concern should I download from Chessbase or buy from Amazon?