Fritz or Shredder

Shredder shreds up its positions.

@Ziryab

Why do you need the ChessBase version? I was trying to find out what the differences between the ChessBase version and the cheap version of Fritz are, so I googled and found this advice from the redhotpawn forum:

"They are identical, except the more expensive one you get a premium membership to playchess.com, and thus get the playchess.com premium content. With the cheaper one, you can still play on playchess.com, but you have to pay for any premium content you might want. It appears that the premium content is mainly training stuff.

Recommendation: If you are going to be on playchess.com a lot and interested in the training presentations (usually by GMs) which are quite good I think, I would get the more expensive Frtiz. Otherwise, I would go with the more cheaper Fritz (black box). That's what a friend of mine did, and he is happy with it."

Which led me to think I'll go with the cheap version if I upgrade. Is this advice not correct - is there some other difference?

I am not sure about this for the non-Chessbase version, but with the Chessbase version, the Fritz 13 program I have has been updated many times.  I bought the download version and installed it about three months ago.  It was build 5.  Since then it has been updated several times to the current build 18.  I'm not sure what those updates entail, as there is no visible change to the interface that I've seen.  If you buy Fritz 13 from another source, you may not be eligible for the stream of updates.  Anyone know ??  You usually get what you pay for.

I was also wondering about the difference between ChessBase Fritz and ChessBase Deep Fritz. I believe the only difference is that the Fritz engine in Deep Fritz will make use of multiple processors if your hardware has them.

However, if you install, say, Houdini 1.5 as your engine, and you have shallow Fritz (i.e. not Deep Fritz) the Houdini engine can be configured to use multiple threads anyway ? So Deep Fritz has no advantage over Shallow Fritz unless you use the Fritz engine?

Where's that Steve Lopez bloke when you need him?

Perhaps that would be a question best asked of the Chessbase people.  According to the information on the web site, the only difference is the ability to engage multiple processors with a claimed 60% increase in speed.  No big deal unless you are playing computer vs. computer.  I leave my Fritz on overnight to analyze my old games so speed is not a factor.  And, yes, if you use other engines (any UCI engine will run under Fritz 13 such as Houdini 1.5a 64-bit) you can engage multiple cores.  Is that a big deal?  Depends.

Thanks for the responses Mr Davis.It would seem that Deep Fritz has no advantage (to me) over Fritz.  And although it may be the case that Chessbase Fritz will auto-upgrade, I think the cheapo Fritz will do for me.

You need the Fritz GUI (that's how I should have phrased it). Some engines are packaged with other user interfaces. These all offer features that some find attractive, but all that I've read suggests that no other interface measures up to Fritz.

As for CB vs. generic with the Fritz GUI, I had the cheap version of Fritz 7. It gave me access to Playchess, and the only difference between it and the genuine Chessbase product that I could detect is that it took longer to open because a company logo had to load first. It cost $10.

Thanks Ziryab, that makes sense. I have an old version of cheap Fritz (v10), and I like the Fritz GUI too. (I wouldn't bother upgrading at all but I'm getting a new computer and I've lost my Fritz CD!)

@ziryab

What do you like better on your iPad shredder or hiarcs? Which one would help a lower rated player like myself? I notice on hiarcs it has a "coach" mode with different colored dots for suggested moves. I have shredder and it coach mode is ok when a window will pop up and says and show why " I think your last move was a mistake"

Thank you

I mainly use Shredder for the 1000 tactics problems. These problems are useful for players at most levels. When I want to analyze a position, I use Hiarcs. I also load databases of games into Hiarcs and play through them, sometimes observing how the opening compares to moves in Hiarcs opening book.

Even so, I do play rated games against Shredder from time to time.

Occasionally, I have played out positions from games against both engines. Hiarcs seems stronger on the iPad.

@Ziryab has a good point, and one that is not clearly addressed in the advertising.  Are you getting a UCI with that copy of Houdini 3, or just the engine?  The advertising expounds on the features of the engine but nothing is said about any UCI.  I doubt it includes Fritz since the price wouldn't cover the cost of both Fritz 13 and the premier engine, so I'd guess you would need to install another UCI to work with it, but I don't know.

I do think the default engine in Fritz 13 is plenty strong enough for game analysis, and since I'm not playing against other chess engines or computers, I don't need to spend the extra $$ to add the very latest and greatest Houdini.

An example of why I prefer Hiarcs 14 over the Houdini 1.5a engine that I also have:

I was reading in Silman's Reassess Your Chess 4th edition and there was a game in which Topolov chose to exchange off his bad bishop for his opponent's good bishop (an imbalance consideration). Hiracs 14 liked that move as it's top chose, but Houdini ranked it third, preferred two other moves better. Houdini may very well have been correct, but the move Topolov chose was a move that I could make sense of. Houdini's top two choses may have been the better moves but it was not apparent why. This is just one example of many I've noticed and is why I use Hiarcs 14 to review my games and not Houdini 1.5a despite Houdini 1.5a being stronger. 

I think @nimzovitch2013 makes my previous point about the use of chess engines for analysis.  If we do not know why an engine thinks one move is better than another, then how does that help us?  If the engine is searching 20 moves into the variation, then its "best" move is dependent upon the opponent having found the same thread and playing precisely that variation, which never happens OTB.  If something else is played as defense, then perhaps the "best" move might be reconsidered.

Another point is that, while one engine may be shown to be better under certain conditions, it may not always win, and it may not be as strong under alternate conditions.  For example some engines are stronger at short move times than others, or under other restrictions such as ply depth.  To say categorically that one engine is "the best" also assumes that all engines being compared are using the same number of CPU cores, the processor speed, the same amount of RAM cache, the same opening books, the same endgame tablebases, etc.

In short, if we do not understand the result, does it have much value to us unless we are playing our computer against another?

Be careful when considering the Fritz interface vs. the Shredder interface. If you're strictly a Windows user I would go with the Fritz interface because you can use any engine including shredder *and* you can make use of all the opening books from ChessBase. Shredder shafted the linux user community by stripping out all the book functions that were present in the Windows version of Shredder. The linux version neither lets you create an opening book nor utilize any ChessBase opening book, but it cost just as much as the Windows version. The performance is great, probably better than under windows, but for opening books we have to content ourselves with whatever .bkt files are on the web. There is a Rybka.bkt that is mediocre, but nothing better. If the opening book is important to you then stay away from Linux Shredder (or the Shredder GUI in windows).

I read that Houdini 1.5 is stronger than Rybka 4

At Elo levels below 2700, what difference does it make?  Most people do not use chess engines effectively since setting move times of over two minutes results in an overnight analysis by the engine even on faster computers.  Any of these engines can beat master-level players.  If one engine does not agree with another, it will likely be 20 moves down the line, far beyond what human players can analyze, and on a decent computer, the engine is running over 20 plys even at 30 seconds/move.  The best move based on a 20 move analysis may not be the best move unless your opponent also responds with the best moves in that line.  One deviation and the next "best move" may well change which renders the difference between engines irrelevant.  It's a bit like using a scale accurate to one gram to weigh an elephant.

In the choice between Fritz or Shredder I always pick Houdini xD

If your going to buy a program just to play through games. Most will work. What if your idea is to have a chess course built into the chess program then maybe Fritz or Chessmaster is the way to go. You can always load games from any tournament played into Fritz Computer book. You build onto your database with say games from the current tournaments from top players they will get into the next Fritz anyway. Just depends on your application for the chess program your buying.

Sherdder is user friendly & auto align playing strength based on user.