Fritz 8

by Viva Media

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000959L9
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 11, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,255 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Play better faster with Fritz 8. Your coach, mentor and opponent, Fritz 8 brings players of all abilities a true chess challenge. Fritz 8 has the features you need to improve your skills at every playing level, from Beginner to Grandmaster. Discover the secret of Chess Champions worldwide as you improve your game with Fritz 8's cutting edge technology. Experience the Game of Kings as King of the Game.

Special features:

• Easy to Use & Fun to Play
• Amazing "Photo Realistic" 3D Graphics
• Tilt and Zoom Functions
• Complete Introductory Course for Beginners
• Comprehensive Tactical Advice for Advanced Players
• Opening, Middle and Endgame Training
• Intelligent Commentary on Board Events
• Let Fritz Tell You (Or Click the "Shut Up" Button)
• Spy, Hint and Threatened Squares Functions
• Analayze Your Game
• Learn from your Mistakes to Avoid Future Blunders
• Giant Openings Books
• 500,000+ Database of Games

Product Description

This software is BRAND NEW. Packaging may differ slightly from the stock photo above. Please click on our logo above to see over 15,000 titles in stock.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

95 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For anybody past beginner level, July 25, 2003

By 

C. Dunn "independent thinker" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fritz 8 (Video Game)

If you haven't heard of Fritz, search the web. This is serious chess software.

For a beginner, ChessMaster has a nice interface, and its tutorials are useful. For anybody else, ChessMaster lacks features.

Fritz is great for lots of things...

* Analysis: Whereas ChessMaster shows only the current line, Fritz can show as many lines as you want. It can even show a small chessboard in an analysis window.
* Annotation/Training: If you enter one of your games into Fritz (and you can save them all in a database) Fritz can automatically annotate it, and it can even come up with training questions for you at tactically critical positions.
* Sparring: This is a feature unique to Fritz. It will attempt to play at your level by ocassional giving you some free material, and then mercilessly regaining it. It keeps track of your level over several games.
* Friend mode: Fritz will play its usual game (with whatever personality and level you choose) but it will sometimes make a tactical error. The depth of the combination will be appropriate to your own level of play. In case you miss it, Fritz will flash a little red light at you optionally to tell you to look for something.

Other features:
+ A very nice, useful database. You can search for games from amongst millions by game, player, position, opening, etc.
+ An opening book. I like the way that ChessMaster names the opening as you play it. Fritz does that almost as well. What it adds is a full opening tree, which you can view while you play. It tells you the possible responses and their win percentages in high level play. (This is not really useful unless you are a very good player, but it is still interesting.)
+ Can play Shuffle Chess (piece positions swapped randomly) although it cannot strictly play Fischerandom.
+ Lots of timing modes, including Fischer time (bonus seconds per move).
+ Several personalities and playing styles. I prefer ChessMaster here for the weaker personalities, but Fritz does have a wide variety of settings.
+ Extremely strong and fast chess engine. (ChessMaster has this too. Most programs are well above master level these days, since computers have become so powerful.)
+ Nice user interface. I think ChessMaster is better to look at. The Fritz 3D board is playable, but not really necessary. Its 2D board is attractive enough. Its the GUI that's easy-to-use in Fritz. (Other programs with nice GUIs include ChessGenius, ChessPartner, and ChessAssistant.)
+ And there are plenty of features which are just too complicated to explain.

If you're a beginner, stick with ChessMaster. If you want more, try this. Great bargain. This software used to sell at a much higher price.

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stronger than Deep Blue, and friendlier too!, October 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Fritz 8 (Video Game)

The Fritz program has been setting the standard for computer chess for over a decade now. It is, simply put, the greatest chess program ever written. World Champion Gary Kasparov himself admitts to using Fritz extensively for analysis. And why not? At an elo rating of, conservatively, 2720+, Fritz is the strongest grandmaster you're likely to meet and is in an elite club of chessplayers with only about twenty flesh-and-bones grandmasters in the world. In addition to its bona fides as perhaps the greatest silicon chessplayer in history, Fritz can teach you to improve your game. Fritz's fantastic "friend" mode determines the strength of your play and plays to your strengths and weaknesses gradually increasing the difficulty of play as you get stronger. Fritz's coach can watch you play and make suggestions, Fritz can rate your play, analyze your games or those of top grandmasters, and you can use Fritz to connect to chessbase's online playchess server and play with human opponents of all skill levels any time of day or night throughout the world! Imagine having a top chess grandmaster at your beck and call for lessons, friendly games, or game analysis all for a *one time* cost of under fifty dollars. Strong enough to take on the world's greatest *with success* (Fritz recently tied current world champion Vladimir Kramnik in an eight game match) yet patient enough to play with and teach your ten year old daughter when she comes home from school. Need I say more?

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT ONLINE GAME PLAY, December 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Fritz 8 (Video Game)

If your searching for the perfect computer chess program, there isn't one. I own Chessmaster 9000 and Fritz 8, both are very nice computer chess programs, and both could learn from each other. If your looking for a tutor, Chessmaster 9000 rules! The multimedia approach for teaching chess is excellent for both kids and adults! I would have to give Chessmaster extra points for it's multimedia approach to game analysis as well. In addition, Chessmaster 9000 will analyze your game, just as well, in a fraction of the time, compared to Fritz 8. Both programs have an excellent game play interface, but I would have to rate Fritz slightly higher for it's 3D graphics, and 3D interface... Chessmaster still needs a little work in this area. However, I'll give Chessmaster extra points for user friendliness, it is much less complicated to use in comparison to Fritz, in my opinion. Where Fritz blows the competition away, is in it's online game play. If playing against a computer grows old, Fritz comes with a one year membership to playchess.com... if you want to play other people online with a nice chess program, Fritz 8 is the program for you! However, if your looking for a tutor to learn the game of chess, even if you know absolutely nothing, Chessmaster 9000 is the program for you!