Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

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Andy Stoker
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Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Andy Stoker » Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:22 am

I'm looking for advice, please. In 2018, I returned to chess and largely stopping in the 1980s and played for a club team until the pandemic - now online, including "Daily" games at chess.com. My OTB grade was a little under 180 (sorry, haven't got my head around 4 digit grades etc). I'm thinking of buying some software that would help me evaluate positions and - ideally - give me access to a large database of games.
Two questions (1) could I expect much more than I can get now with (a) the evaluation Engines on chess.com, Lichess etc + 365chess, chessgames.com? (2) what do I need to buy - bit confused by Fritz, ChessBase and the various options in them... are there alternatives?
Thank you!

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:07 am

I have used various versions of Chessbase for a long time, which I use to store all my games and also update with real players' games. It's useful for preparation - e.g. if I know I'm playing old rival X tomorrow I can quickly find previous games where I have played him/her, and also look on the main database to see what they do against other players. It's useful to have a "me" database, a main database, I keep a separate "me" one for Chess960 games, online games, current CC games etc. I also got old scorebooks from a former Civil Service player and kept a separate database for his games for convenience, and so I could send the database to John Saunders for publication. It is fairly easy to search for games and move them about. You do find duplicates which are easier to deal with than they used to be. When I got Chessbase 3 and added a few databases, I found I had Morphy vs guys in opera box 17 times! Also you can set up the position after 12 moves in a Sveshnikov Sicilian and see what people do next. So that's useful after a game as well, "what should I have done?"

Fritz is useful to analyse positions but you need to run these things for a while to get sensible assessments. I think the Lichess and chess.com software only runs for a few seconds? (Maybe you can change that? I'm sure someone else will know.) I do not know if Fritz is better/worse than other packages, but it does come with Chessbase frequently. You can import databases with Fritz.

So, yes, get something. Other packages are available - this is not an advert for Chessbase!

Wadih Khoury
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Wadih Khoury » Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:36 am

  • For evaluating, lichess is good enough (uses stockfish at decent depth). Avoid chess.com, also uses stockfish but depth throttled at 18 if I recall. You can use a front end on your desktop (chessX, LucasChess, etc..) and pair it with any of the free engines to download. This way you can use Lc0 (Leela. Requires however good graphic card) or let Stockfish run to depths of 30-50.
  • As a database, there are free options. Chessbase seems to remain the standard, but is extortionate. You can find older Chessbase versions on discount. Got Chessbase pro 13 on Steam for around £17.

Tim Spanton
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Tim Spanton » Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:45 am

Andy Stoker wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:22 am
I'm looking for advice, please. In 2018, I returned to chess and largely stopping in the 1980s and played for a club team until the pandemic - now online, including "Daily" games at chess.com. My OTB grade was a little under 180 (sorry, haven't got my head around 4 digit grades etc). I'm thinking of buying some software that would help me evaluate positions and - ideally - give me access to a large database of games.
Two questions (1) could I expect much more than I can get now with (a) the evaluation Engines on chess.com, Lichess etc + 365chess, chessgames.com? (2) what do I need to buy - bit confused by Fritz, ChessBase and the various options in them... are there alternatives?
Thank you!
I was asked a very similar question by email by a chess friend last month.
I believe my reply still holds good:

ChessBase is very useful for preparation. It is difficult to do proper prep otherwise unless an opponent only has a handful of games, in which case it's difficult to prep anyway!
I get by very happily with ChessBase 9, for which the requirements are listed as:

Minimum: Windows 98 (not Win95 or NT 3), 64 MB RAM, 300 MHz, DVD drive. Recommended: Windows XP or better, 256 MB RAM, 1 GHz or better. Modern graphics adapter for fast 3D display. Windows Media Player 9 for video lectures.

I am fairly sure I did not have anywhere near that on my laptop when I bought it 16(?) years ago, but then I only use it in 2D for storing and sorting games (and running free engines in the background).
To me the great advantage of ChessBase over, for example, just having Fritz is the massively better prep abilities in ChessBase, but it all depends on the type of opponents you face. To take two players not at random - there are 29 of your games in the 2020 Mega database that I have installed on ChessBase, so it would be easy to go through them when facing you with either the white or black pieces; but there are 923 of my games, so you would need ChessBase to go through the relevant ones comfortably.
In your situation I would be tempted to buy ChessBase 9 secondhand (currently £12.75 + £1.40 postage on eBay) and see if you like it. You will probably find it is all you need (and I would be available for any queries in case there were problems installing it or loading a database). You could always buy a current version, but really I don't see any need (updated versions of ChessBase are notoriously buggy when they first come out - in some ways I wish I still had ChessBase 6, which I was perfectly happy with).
Be aware that if you do buy ChessBase, it is just an operating system - you need to pay extra for databases of games. I always get the Mega database, which comes with many annotated games, but Big database has just as many games, albeit without any annotations. Mega is expensive when you first buy it, but after that it can be upgraded each year for about £55.

Tim Spanton
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Tim Spanton » Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:47 am

Also, once you have ChessBase you can download free engines, such as Stockfish, which are stronger than many commercial options, including Fritz.

Ian Thompson
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Ian Thompson » Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:26 pm

Wadih Khoury wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:36 am
As a database, there are free options. Chessbase seems to remain the standard, but is extortionate. You can find older Chessbase versions on discount. Got Chessbase pro 13 on Steam for around £17.
Tim Spanton wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:45 am
In your situation I would be tempted to buy ChessBase 9 secondhand (currently £12.75 + £1.40 postage on eBay) and see if you like it. You will probably find it is all you need (and I would be available for any queries in case there were problems installing it or loading a database). You could always buy a current version, but really I don't see any need (updated versions of ChessBase are notoriously buggy when they first come out - in some ways I wish I still had ChessBase 6, which I was perfectly happy with).
I agree that avoiding the latest version of Chessbase is sensible for at least a few months because it's likely to be riddled with bugs if the past is anything to go by.

For choosing an older, second hand, version, there's information here on what changed from one version to the next.

I'd say just go for the latest version you can get at a reasonable price. If you do want ChessBase 9, PM me. I've got a no longer used copy of it I could sell you.

Reg Clucas
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Reg Clucas » Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:46 pm

I got HIARCS about 7 years ago and it is adequate for my needs. Not as powerful as some available today, but do you really need all that power? I don't use it for access to games databases, there are plenty of online sources for that.

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Joey Stewart
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Joey Stewart » Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:59 pm

In terms of engines there is really little need to think about - just about all the popular ones are astronomically strong in comparison to human players so unless you are planning to enter correspondence tournaments you can just pick anything you like and know it will give you perfect evaluation.

I wouldn't want a database in fritz - they have their own weird file type which only works on their software (or at least they did for many years until I finally stopped using them altogether)

A great way to get a database is to build your own - this week in chess, 4ncl, british championship pages all have pgn files with tens of thousands of UK player games on which you can simply cut and paste together to create a gigantic database better then anything you will find anywhere else on the net and run it off something free like SCID (which takes a little time to figure out, but is a very fine little piece of work once you get used to it)

Hope that helps. If you (or anyone else) is interested I have my own uk database up to about 2017 when I stopped playing 4ncl and no longer needed it
Lose one queen and it is a disaster, Lose 1000 queens and it is just a statistic.

Paul Habershon
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Paul Habershon » Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:10 pm

Years ago I installed ChessBase 10 on my laptop, useful for 4NCL weekends and other tournaments away. Now I have ChessBase 15 on my PC but need a new laptop. I believe at least two installations are permitted. However, I am told that modern laptops don't have a disc drive for such installations.

I expect there is a simple answer. I am not knowledgeable about these things and have never got very far with all the gizmos possible on ChessBase. At least I can manage to look up an opponent and use Prepare against White/Black.

Mick Norris
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Mick Norris » Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:15 pm

The TWIC database has over 2.4m games, and is available from Mark for £30; money well spent supporting Mark's work
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Matt Bridgeman
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Matt Bridgeman » Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:20 pm

Paul Habershon wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:10 pm
Years ago I installed ChessBase 10 on my laptop, useful for 4NCL weekends and other tournaments away. Now I have ChessBase 15 on my PC but need a new laptop. I believe at least two installations are permitted. However, I am told that modern laptops don't have a disc drive for such installations.

I expect there is a simple answer. I am not knowledgeable about these things and have never got very far with all the gizmos possible on ChessBase. At least I can manage to look up an opponent and use Prepare against White/Black.
I think you could just use an cheap external disc drive off Amazon to feed into a modern laptop for installing Chessbase. They're around £15 on Amazon. Out of interest, do people get much use out of tablebase products?

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:27 pm

"I think you could just use an cheap external disc drive off Amazon to feed into a modern laptop for installing Chessbase."

Yes - I bought my external disc drive from PC World from memory (when we were allowed out) and that worked fine. In fact I'm about to use it to install Chessbase 16...

Wadih Khoury
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Wadih Khoury » Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:45 pm

Matt Bridgeman wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:20 pm
Paul Habershon wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:10 pm
Years ago I installed ChessBase 10 on my laptop, useful for 4NCL weekends and other tournaments away. Now I have ChessBase 15 on my PC but need a new laptop. I believe at least two installations are permitted. However, I am told that modern laptops don't have a disc drive for such installations.

I expect there is a simple answer. I am not knowledgeable about these things and have never got very far with all the gizmos possible on ChessBase. At least I can manage to look up an opponent and use Prepare against White/Black.
I think you could just use an cheap external disc drive off Amazon to feed into a modern laptop for installing Chessbase. They're around £15 on Amazon. Out of interest, do people get much use out of tablebase products?
Lichess gives free access to a table base (7?).
You also download them for free, but need to configure your engine

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:55 pm

Matt Bridgeman wrote:
Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:20 pm
Out of interest, do people get much use out of tablebase products?
You can download an app for Android systems that looks up the Lomonosov tables. That's probably a practical way of using the tables for studying. You play through the game on your PC or laptop and look up the endgame on the phone or tablet. You can see how suspect your endgame technique is, when it tells you that it should take 30 moves to win a position, but it told you the same 10 moves earlier. Alternatively it might wobble between win and draw.

Andy Stoker
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Re: Fritz, Chessbase and the rest

Post by Andy Stoker » Fri Dec 11, 2020 6:13 pm

I really appreciate all this advice - very grateful to everyone for taking the time to chip in - thank you.

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