Fritz 15 coming in november

Ok, thanks for confirming. I've submited this to support (interestingly, F15 is not yet avialble in the support form ;)).

And yes... I truly feel like a beta tester. To anyone considering buying Fritz 15, I suggest you hold on a little bit...

@little_paw

your right, when I unchecked "enabled training" the stars and the underline goes" (I didn't realise what those meant, as the manual online help wasn't clear) (so basically, it was only showing moves to the end of the last training question, that makes sense now. so yes, unchecking enable training fixes that.

as for taking back moves, and playing as the other side, I was refering to the friends mode, as there is no "force move" I took back a few moves, and the AI didn't seem to be working, even hint and suggestion were greyed out. the problem with the friends mode, it doesn't tell you if the engine is running or not, I just wish you could control what windows are available.

as for the Analysis Board' bug, I can certainly confirm that one. you need to close fritz completely for the Analysis buttons to be enabled again.

Still, I still really wonder if the purchess was really worthwhile, as a user of fritz 14, I'm thinking it isn't.

@stolowski

agreed, it feels like the program got rushed, and we are the beta testers, so yeah, better off holding off, to anyone who is considering getting 15.

my biggest disappointment is, when they claimed the new friend mode will rate our play at every stage of the game, i was expecting some reports after each game. Even old chessmaster was giving better feedback

Yeah agreed, I suspect that is the graph you see when you start a new friend's mode match, yet I have to agree, it really doesn't tell you much. the more I think about it, fritz 15 really isn't what was promised. They said a new engine, which technically isn't the case, just a repacked old one. friends mode not really as ground breaking as I thought it would be.

in all honesty, I really wish I had held off from getting fritz 15 now.

another thing, anyone got any idea what it means by

Improve your conversion technique

could that the adding text to the notation? as that was present in 14 as well, so I don't really understand what is means by that?

It means technique of winning won positions

I think Fritz excels at being an analysis interface. IMO, it's far better than SCID, or anything else out there. They key is to use the keyboard shortcuts - once you get those going, you can really navigate and annotate really well. 

It's just as good as Chessbase, imo. Chessbase just has more database features, but I rarely use those anyway.

I actually load Stockfish as the engine as it seems to calculate a little faster than Fritz.

But as a 'trainer', or even sparring partner, I'm pretty underwhelmed. In fact, I much, much more enjoyed Chessmaster's personalities as opponents from 400 to 2500+ than the much more sterile feeling of playing the engine set to a certain level. 

@little_paw

thanks, but my question really is, what has this to do with fritz 15 in general? what does fritz 15 offer that the previous versions do not have? unless that is the "enable training" feature and friends mode? because chessbase makes a deal out of this. but if its nothing more then what fritz 13 / 4 can do, then to me, I feel that chessbase is missleading customers.

I mean take the elo rating thoughtout a match, technically not true. so is chessbase doing some missleading advertising here? as the new feautres in 15 aren't all that great. to me, it feels that 15 has gone sideways rather then advance forward.

Well although i am trying to be optimistic and even considering its 28 euro price (reducing other things we got with purchase) i cant say i am fully satisfied, at least they have some new things.

Honestly, I have felt that Fritz 5 (a decade+ ago!) was just as useful as Fritz 15 or Fritz whatever number they have today. Back in the day with Fritz 5, CPU calculation speed was actually an issue, as you'd have to wait at least a minute for more complex situations, but now, engines are so good and CPUs so fast that its <10 seconds, and usually <1 sec for most moves. 

The interface with Fritz5 was just as good as the current-gen one, imo. I would have kept using the old one, except that with the Win7-10 OS, I was forced to upgrade as the old Fritz got broken by the new OSs. 

The only benefit for the new Fritz's IMO, is the engine improvements, which at the incredibly fast/strong levels today, are totally irrelevant for nonGM players, who can just use Stockfish (free) which is just as good.

Odd, Fritz 5.32 worked on my Windows 7 laptop. I haven't tried installing it on my Win 7 desktop, though. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's broken in Windows 10, but then, I might not ever upgrade to Windows 10.

I've not upgraded to win 10 either, and not interested in doing so, then again MS seem to have messed up with win 10, especailly when it comes to privacy concerns.

Still think if you have already got a version of fritz, then 15 is a hard sell, then again, unless 16 has some REALLY MAJOR enhancements, I won't be getting that or anymore. to me, chessbase is just running out of steam and ideas on how to sell a program that doesn't really change much.

It's clear to me that Chessbase is trying to come up with cloud-based features like Let's Check that can be tied to a particular Fritz version with a subscription that expires after a period of time. That way, if you like the feature and want to continue using it, you're forced to upgrade to a new version of Fritz.

I will add one thing -

On amazon, you can buy  a cheaper version of Fritz , which is "Fritz for Fun"

http://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Chess-Fun-13-Download/dp/B00HK32TFE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448827555&sr=8-1&keywords=fritz+for+fun

As far as I can tell, it's got all the features of typical Fritz, without the playchess subscription.

The big gotcha on it to me that seems really backhanded and turns me off to it (despite the fact I still use it) - it automatically turns on the "donate engine" feature, which means if you leave your computer on without closing out of Fritz, after some amount of time, it will automatically start using your CPU cycles to do 'cloud analysis'. And as far as I can tell, at least on this cheaper version of Fritz, there is no way to turn it off. If someone actually can do it, lemme know! 

If I could turn it off, I wouldn't mind, but at least in this version, it feels more like a trojan than anything else, and it really gives me a bad vibe. I use Fritz a fair amount, and it irks me to see my CPU running hot enough to run the fan on my laptop ALL DAY AND NIGHT when I forget to close out of it and leave it unattended.

Ha ha, the Chessbase botnet. I love it!

I dont know that version but even if you are out of your ideas, you can turn off wireless. Actually you should test it without internet does it still do that ?

Of course, if you turn off internet, it stops. It easier to just close the program though =) 

I found a manual for Fritz 13, and there's a "Contribute" button that you can toggle on or off for contributing analysis to the cloud. So there isn't a "Contribute" toggle on Fritz For Fun? If not, you'd think Chessbase would pay you to take the program.

The "CONTRIBUTE" button is greyed out when I'm actively using Fritz for Fun - it doesn't toggle on or off.

Unfortunately, that means it's off while your actively using it - if you let Fritz for fun sit unattended for some time, it'll turn itself on, and the greyed out contribute button suddenly becomes 'live.' 

Just like a Trojan malware would do. I suspect the 'real' version of Fritz (not the Fritz for Fun version) actually leaves the contribute button off when it's off.