Help finding the best chess engine to help a lower rated player?

I am looking a chess engine that will help a 1400 elo rated player get better. Or is Stockfish the best we have when it comes algorithmic simulated lower rating chess strength!?

I mean I appreciate the advancements in chess technology as much as the next millennial. I mean there's no way I'd be a 1400 elo right now without the help of computers. I'd have to read books to get to 1400 and that would take allot longer..... But please could someone, somewhere work on making the Stockfish engine better at playing in a human fashion at the lower levels. Rather than just programming it to make obvious and tedious blunders to compensate for level loss! I mean seriously '1600' ! NO just no. A 900 wouldn't have played so poorly. Maybe someone knows of a better engine for lower rated players like myself that simulates the play style of lower rated players better than stockfish? I'd really appriciate the help thank you

http://hiarcs.com/

Seems to fit your needs.  I have it and it does seem more human than other engines I've played against.  There's a pretty sweet DB search function too where you input a position and HIARCS finds games where it occurred.  The only caveat is that DBs take forever to load.  Hope that helps...

Fritz is actually quite good for this, if used properly. If used improperly, like any tool, you can make a mess of it. But it has functionality in it that will help players your level. If I was to buy it right now, I would purchase the Komodo version of it.

I will also say, that if you want a free product that is also quite good, simply get yourself a copy of Lucas Chess. It comes with a large number of free engines including Stockfish. Again, used properly, it will be a help for your level.

Are you looking for a better engine? Or a better GUI? Fritz GUI is really better than freeware GUI. 

https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fritz_16_english

Graphic User Interface, or is it Graphical?  Anyway, it's what you use to interact with an engine.  The commercial ones are quite polished, the free ones maybe not quite so much...

I bought Fritz 16 for christmas. I haven't used it too much yet. But there is different levels you can play against it. I think 5 or 6. I wish it was more levels. The hobbylevel (2) is too easy and there is a big gap up to the Clublevel (3). But it finds a way to handicap itself at level 3 too. Most of the time it will come a bit behind in the first 15-20 moves or so. It will then tell you a Elo like for example 1920. If you play worse it will drop to 1800, 1600 etc. But it's pretty strong.

It is true Fritz only has a limited number of levels to start with. BUT, if you play in friend mode, it will dynamically adjust its strength to how well you are playing. More importantly, the real reason to get Fritz is the GUI. Then you can use it with other engines like Stockfish as well. Stockfish has 20 different levels.

After I play against it I will analyze, but I struggle a bit. Sometimes it will only analyze 25 of the moves. And it's so slow. We're talking 20-30 minutes here. I will look for the friend mode. Blindfold mode is fun too.

When you use Fritz to analyze the game, when you push the full analysis button, it will come up with a dialog asking how long to spend on each move. It will also recommend a value based on the machine you are running. What is it recommending, and what value are you using? I actually use more than the recommended value because I don't mind it taking a while.

(I actually do my analysis in Chessbase but the principle is the same and it has a very similar dialog. The picture above is doing it within Fritz).

Just y .02 on this....

Engine use should be reserved for nothing but Blunder Checking (Tactics)

There is a reason engines dont play like humans.  The dont get tired, dont get sleepy, dont have bad days, have no ego, dont play emotionally, dont worry about finding a job, dont get to a tournament low on gas, they dont fight with their spouse, they dont lose their glasses, they arent affected by things we are.  All you can hope for is an engine that randomly blunders.

Yeah, the worst that can happen is the programmers suck at making them, they can probably crash because it's still a program, get infected because it's a program, and the "gas" would be electricity. 

While I mostly agree with IMBacon on this, blunder checking is still a valuable thing to do. Knowing you messed up at a particular spot though isn't the end of it. You still need to ask yourself why you blundered. Was it that you didn't recognize the weakness? Was your mind on the Ferrari that you want to get? Were you thinking about the beach? Did you know the line you took was dubious but you played it anyway, etc.

One thing that is often true at least in my games is where I think I lost and where I actually lost are not necessarily the same thing. Again, engines can show you that. Again, you then need to ask why you didn't notice you were lost, or why you didn't find the hidden resource.

These are some great responses guys thank you very much for all of your input on this one.

GinaRook This is a fair point. But I already receive a fair bit of coaching and attend 4 chess clubs a week. It's more for those times when I don't have access to the internet or a stable connection like when i'm on the train. Using stockfish on my phone to have some fair competition but it never seems that way... It always seems way too easy or far too hard! I'm like Goldilocks's I know. Just a spoilt millennial looking for perfection I guess!

baddogno, bong711, 2late4work, madratter7, I will sure take a look at Fritz 16, I know our club champion Jamie uses it allot so it must have something going for it  and http://hiarcs.com/ looks like a great place to start looking too, thank you. 

IMBacon you of course make a very fair and valid point. But I thoroughly disagree about the 'most we can hope for' part! I think it should be possible to program a computer to make more 'Human'esque mistakes!? Granted a great deal of effort, time and intelligence to achieve an algorithm that simulates human error differentiation, at a set of difficulty gradients. But certainly within the realm of human programming capabilities.  I'm just trying to ascertain if there already IS a good 'human error' engine out there, or if it has yet to become a reality. 

I'm sure at some pint in the future we will have chess engines that will play like humans.  I just dont think we will be around then.  At least i hope im not...thats how the terminators took over.

And another plug for HIARCS; I took this from their help section:

IMBacon lmao We don't want the next Olympiad to be the coincidental setting for the next Robo cop film!!!! Dead or alive you're playing D4! 

Thanks Baddogno  I will definitely check it out, it sounds like exactly what I need

I disagree.  I enjoy playing with people or with computers.  Playing a human is more stressful, and more exciting, but sometimes I want to play without the stress.  I'm trying to play a little chess 960 now, and the computer is a good way to get some experience first.  

I also like playing "with tutor" mode in Lucas chess, where you play against the engine and it will evaluate your play after every move and show you the better options after your moves. 

I too enjoy playing against a computer and use Fritz.  What I like about Fritz is that I can play what it calls a "rated game" where I can set its Elo rating and the time control.  I usually set its rating at 1800 Elo and play a 60/10 time control.  I've yet to beat it at that rating but the games are enjoyable and I feel I'm keeping up so to speak, until a stupid blunder on my part.

As I have read somewhere Leela Zero plays like a human even at lower ratings. So, maybe you should give it a try.