Hello,

I am curious if anyone who has a few of the following (Fritz, Shredder, Junior, Hiarcs, etc), and has used them for full game analysis: what do you think of the quality of the analysis they provide?

I have Fritz 7, and was curious about how the newer versions compare to each other for analysis. Does one present better analysis than the others? Have they improved much since Fritz 7?

For Fritz 7, I like the application of rating symbols in the analysis (! !? +/-), the commentary provided, and the alternative variations presented.

Can you post the names/versions and what you think of them?

I have Fritz 10 with the Shredder package, and it is by far my favorite. I also have Chesspartner with a ton of different engines, but it came originally with Gandalf 6.0. Nowhere near as strong as Shredder or Fritz, and not as easy to use, but it connects to the Internet which is nice.

For a cheap upgrade, Chessmaster 10 is like 20 dollars at most places!

I have tried testing two engines (Chessmaster and Rybka) move by move on full Grandmaster games. I find Rybka to be generally better than Chessmaster in most tests. However the overall performance of both chess engines is poor in my opinion. You'll be lucky if the text move is amongst the computer's top 5 choices. Often not even in top 10 (even after many hours of search). This is especially true if the positions are very strategic in nature.

I use Chessbase Light 2007 for researching openings in my CC games and compiling databases. For analysis I used Fritz 6 running the free Rybka 2,2n2 engine.

I’ve also tried Chess Tiger, Shredder, Rybka Dynamic and Rybka Human engines. I think the Rybka 2.2n2 version plays the soundest chess. I have used all these engines in CC events at IECG/Lechenicher SchachServer where engine use is legal and have not had much success…scoring slightly under 50 percent. The reasons are probably threefold: 1) I have an older, slower computer 2) I did not let the engines run more than 2-3 minutes when determining a move. On occasion I played moves other than the engines first choice if I felt its move was not going to lead anywhere. 3) most opponents were using either Rybka or the latest version of Fritz.

I did recently purchase Fritz 10 which appears to be the strongest of all. It has a bunch of color coded arrows that shows “plans” and “key squares” which I found annoying and of little use so switched them off. No engine is going to be of much help in showing you strategy and plans nor will they be perfect in the ending unless you are using table bases. Even he slightest tactical error will be punished though.

All things considered my preference is CB Light for research and db work and Fritz 10 for analysis and printing out games.

As I said, most players at IECG either run Rybka or Fritz 10 (or 11) and they are the engines of choice for CC GM’s and IM’s who routinely use engines for game analysis. The trick for being successful at that level is knowing when engine output is incorrect…something that is beyond the ability of all but the strongest players.

this post is just plain ridiculus, the engine's moves are poor?! You go ahead and try and beat it! (the playchess engine room is the best place for a fair match-- played there myself a bit and I haven't lost or drawn a single game againts a human, not even the self-proclaimed anticomputer experts.)
you know why the grandmasters move isn't among the top five moves? Becouse it isn't one of the best moves. (and VERY rarely the reason is that the position is just beyond the engine's grasp)

On the other hand modern GMs very often make moves that are like by computers, and its not just becouse of preparation, chess has changed, nowadays the old masters like staunton, morphy, steinitz would hardly get into the top 100.

PS: and I should add something about the statement about my playing in the engine room- I use a SINGLEcore computer, do you know how good engine get when you put then on a respectable nahalem setup?

All I'm saying is that in some positions (closed and strategic) the engines can perform very badly. In very tactical positions the engines are super-human in strength. Of course the engine moves are all very good, but I honestly don't think they list the best move as top one or two on their list every time. Let me get it straight: I'm not saying the computer moves are bad, only you shouldn't trust it to find the best move every single time (of course GM's don't always make the best moves either). Not to mention that computers can't tell you anything about strategy or what plans to adopt in any given position (imagine a scenario where Black has a big material advantage but all his extra force is stuck defending a pawn on the Queenside, whereas White has his forces excellently placed for attacking purposes..a computer might judge this position as clearly winning for Black even if any GM can see that the opposite is true.) ..all I'm saying is don't expect the computer to give you a correct analysis each and every time. As an example: in some of the games I have analyzed where the center has been closed and the players have had to rely and various pawn moves and breaks the computer has often been unable to find the pawn moves. Not even in top 15 or 20. And this might be a move that annotators have given an exclamation mark for excellence.

NB: I'm also basing my reasoning on the book 'Modern Chess Analysis' in which the author (forget his name) discusses the pros and cons of computer assisted analysis.

When I say the engines are poor I don't mean to say they can't find the the best or good moves, only they don't always list it as the first or second choice.