Review of the latest Chessbase software programme

Chess player now cannot do without the chess programme/computer -as what current World Champ Vishy Anand has said recently. Majority of tournament players at all level now used various chess programme such as Fritz, Rybka, Shredder, Hiarcs , Chessmaster etc.etc. For the chessbase family programme ( Fritz, Rybka, Hiarcs, Junior and Shredder,). However, there's a deep version of each engines which is stronger then the "non" deep version.

Actually, i never really understand what the different the multiprocessor can produced but after reading Andrew Ooi brilliant review, now i know better. The Deep version of Fritz 11 or Rybka 3 is designed for computer that used multiprocessor and it will performed slightly better then the "non" Deep version . However the main different is of course ...the price... which is quite significant.

My personal opinion is if you want to compete in engines tournament, the Deep version is logically the one to pick but if you are using the "beast" just for analyzing or key in your games, database etc...so the normal version should do. By the way, if you happen to have extra money to spent and don't know what to do with it..so why not...:)

Another interesting review about the beast can be read at chessbase.com recent article which describe about their new "adopted daughter" - Rybka 3 . The article really struck me especialy regarding the capability of engines ... 4 of them actually - Chess, Human , Dynamics and 960 . The main feature is you can pick the correct engine for different circumstances.

Below are excerpts from the article :-

Chess

The engine is the standard computer chess engine. It does the thing you expect from a chess computer: plays strong moves and a very tough game. It tends to play the way a computer plays: favoring tactical play at the expense of ignoring subtler positional nuances. It tries to evaluate as many positions as it can as quickly as possible, sacrificing chess "knowledge" for raw speed and power.

Human

The engine tends to play chess more like a person would play the game. More positional chess knowledge is built into the engine's evaluation functions. Because it has to run down a sort of "checklist" of positional evaluation criteria, it will assess positions somewhat more slowly than the other two, more tactical, engines, but will tend to be better at finding positional (even "thematic") solutions to problems encountered in a chess game.

Dynamic

The engine is a tactical monster and is, in many ways, the exact opposite of the Human engine. The Dynamic engine is best at finding compensation for sacrificed material, so it's a great engine for evaluating middle game positions arising from gambit openings.


Chess 960

The engine is a variant of Fischerrandom chess. If you start a Chess 960 game in the Fritz/Rybka GUI, the Chess960 engine will be selected automatically by the software as a default.