Fritz (chess program)

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Fritz
Basic data

developer ChessBase
Current  version 17
(November 2019)
operating system Microsoft Windows , Personal Digital Assistant
category Computer chess
License commercially
www.chessbase.de

Fritz is a commercial chess program from ChessBase , whose chess engine (the game program in the narrower sense, which can usually also be used under different user interfaces), programmed by Frans Morsch and Mathias Feist, has been one of the top programs for many years. The multiprocessor version is called Deep Fritz .

Surname

The name Fritz was an idea of ​​young "advertising people" (M. Feist), originally the program should be called Brutus . This name was later used by ChessBase for another project with Christian Donninger , which eventually resulted in the Hydra program .

The Fritz chess engine appeared in some computer tournaments under the name Quest .

Versions

The first version of the program appeared in 1991, ran under MS-DOS and was written in the C programming language. For use under Windows that are data structures redesigned, and there was a switch to the programming language C ++ . Fritz 3 won the World Computer Championship (WCCC) in Hong Kong in 1995. As early as 1994, Fritz won a strong blitz tournament in Munich, tied with Kasparow , who was then able to prevail in the playoff. In the game with tournament time, the program was able to draw matches against Huebner (2001, result 3: 3), Kramnik ( Brains in Bahrain 2002, result 4: 4) and Kasparow (2003, result 2: 2). The versions were marketed professionally, making Fritz one of the most famous chess programs. Most chess players no longer stand a chance against chess programs and use them primarily for training and analyzing games.

A speech component has been integrated in Fritz since the fifth version (1996, Fritz5). The mostly humorous comments are spoken by Matthias Deutschmann . Since version 7 (2001), foreign chess engines can also be used via the UCI interface under the Fritz user interface. In 2003 the so-called Chess Media System was introduced in version 8 , which enables the playback of videos synchronously with the representation of moves on the chessboard, for which the Windows Media Player is required.

Version 10 of the program was released in November 2006, version 11 in November 2007, version 12 in October 2009. These also master the chess variants Chess960 and Robber's Chess . There is also a multi-processor version ( Deep Fritz ). The program runs under Windows , the graphical user interface is functionally well developed. Since May 2007 there has also been a version for mobile phones under the name Fritz mobile .

Stefan Meyer-Kahlen (developer of Shredder) and Axel Fritz, at the Chess Classic 2001, where Pocket Fritz competed.

No Fritz engines were used for the Pocket Fritz programs for Pocket PC : Version 1 (2001) and 2 (2003) used Shredder , programmed by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen. Versions 3 (2007) and 4 (2009) used HIARCS .

The long-term supremacy in the area of ​​skill level has now passed. Fritz has had competition from engines like the much more powerful Rybka and Houdini engines and the open source engine Stockfish .

In December 2008 it was announced that Fritz would be working on implementations for the Nintendo DS, Wii and PlayStation 3 game consoles, with April 9, 2009 being announced as the release date and adhered to for the Wii and DS versions. The version for PlayStation 3 was released on July 24, 2009.

Fritz 13 was released in October 2011, initially as a single processor version. The multi-processor version Deep Fritz 13 followed in June 2012. In version 13, functions based on cloud computing concepts were introduced.

Deep Fritz 14 appeared in November 2013. Gyula Horvath, who previously participated in several computer chess world championships with the Pandix program, is named as the author of the newly developed 64-bit engine, which supports up to eight CPUs . Versions 15, published in November 2015, and 16, published in November 2017, are from Vasik Rajlich .

Version 17 was released in November 2019 and is supplied with two engines: One comes from Frank Schneider, who had previously appeared as a programmer of the Ginkgo chess engine , and uses the conventional alpha-beta search . The other, called Fat Fritz, is based on Leela technology and was trained with the help of a neural network . In order to exploit their potential, a graphics card that was "very powerful" as of 2019 is required.

LiveBook, Let's Check and Engine-Cloud

At Fritz 13 a server-based opening book for chess programs was implemented with the "LiveBook" . It is maintained with games from current tournaments. A special feature is that the users can also expand the book with their own additions, analyzes and evaluable comments. When the chess program plays with it, however, it relies exclusively on statistics from the tournament games it contains.

The "Let's Check" introduced with Fritz 13 represents a new development in computer chess . All computer analyzes of the users are saved on servers so that they are available to other users. A replacement algorithm prefers longer calculated variants. Let's Check allows you to make your own engine available to the general public so that other users can use it to do analysis tasks more quickly. Because Let's Check is open to all engines, variants and ratings from different programs are mixed up. When analyzing live matches, a kind of competition arises between Let's Check users as to who is the first to "discover" a position and who is allowed to permanently associate his name with it.

The so-called "ChessBase Engine-Cloud" was introduced with the subsequent version, Deep Fritz 13 . Users can bring their computer capacity or their engines into an online pool, where other users can rent them - free of charge or against the server currency “ducats”. The users then have almost the same control over such clouden engines as they have over an engine running locally on their own. The service can also be used privately, for example to analyze the chess performance of a stationary desktop on a notebook while on the move.

Server access

With the purchase of Fritz you get limited access to Schach.de , a German chess server - however, early editions of the Fritz 8 version included serial numbers that also allow unlimited use. Players of all skill levels meet on this server, and there is also a machine room where you can test your engines. You can play there for free. The fight for unofficial, internal rating numbers based on the Elo system as well as most of the extended functions such as communication with other users are chargeable. Participation in live audio commentary or the retrieval of archived training programs as part of "Premium" access is also subject to a charge.

World Chess Challenge 2006

From November 25th to December 5th, 2006, Deep Fritz played six games against the reigning world chess champion Wladimir Kramnik in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn . Kramnik got an entry fee of 500,000 US dollars and should get more $ 500,000 in case of victory. It was agreed that Kramnik would receive the program in advance so that he could familiarize himself with the way he played, and that he would be able to take a look at Deep Fritz's opening library during the games. The program ran on a system with two Intel Core 2 processors, each with two processor cores, and calculated eight to ten million positions per second. The comparison finally ended 4: 2 for Deep Fritz.

In the second game, Kramnik overlooked, unusual for a world champion, a mate in one move, which Susan Polgár commented as "blunder of the century" (although it was not yet six years old).

Fritz & Fertig - chess for children

Fritz & Fertig - Schach für Kinder is a chess program series for children aged eight and over, which the children's book author Jörg Hilbert designed for ChessBase in collaboration with the chess trainer Björn Lengwenus . There are now four programs in the Fritz and Ready series: learn and train chess , chess in the black castle , chess for winners and chess for aliens .

Hilbert invented a story about the game of chess in which the royal couple White wanted to go on vacation and commissioned Prince Fritz to represent his parents on the throne. His cousin Bianca is supposed to help him with this. Just as they have made themselves comfortable, they reach the challenge of King Black to a duel. In their distress, they wander through the kingdom and meet King Bunt, who makes it clear to them that it is not a question of life or death, but merely of prestige. Now Fritz, who wants to represent his father in a dignified manner, is ambitious and wants to learn to play chess. Later he and Bianca also get to know the sewer rat Fred Ready. Fred turns out to be a chess master and trains Fritz and Bianca from there. The rules of chess are taught in various mini-games , different game situations are trained and what the various chess expressions mean.

In the second part, Fred is kidnapped by King Black and Fritz and Bianca drive to his castle to save him. They get caught in a trap by King Black and are locked by him in his basement with Fred Ready. They could only go up by an elevator, but for this elevator they would need more elosophila, also called brain flies, which are attracted to brains. So they use König Schwarz's chess machines to train their brains and to be able to operate the elevator.

In the third part, Fritz and Bianca are at the fair. There they meet King Black and later learn from King Bunt that he has stolen the cuddly toys from all the kings who are also at the fair. Out of pity, Fritz and Bianca decide to go from stand to stand at the fair to find enough cuddly toys for the kings. Later they even meet Fred Ready, who is also at the fair with his flea circus.

In the fourth part, Fritz and Bianca are asked for help by King Schwarz. King Black has stated on the internet claiming he is the best chess player in the universe. Then aliens noticed him and want him to prove it. When Fritz and Bianca want to come to his aid, they are kidnapped together with King Black and brought to their planet Chessbase by the aliens. There they should prove that King Black is the best chess player in the universe, otherwise they would have to stay on Chessbase forever. Later they even meet Fred Ready, who is on vacation on Chessbase.

The software has been awarded several prizes, including the TOMMI 2002 children's software prize . Three sequels and several print products have now been published.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartmut Metz: Adams' and Leko's opponents out of your pocket - Pocket Fritz brings fun, but also danger to TeleSchess
  2. ^ KARL (Ed. Harry Schaack): Das Kulturelle Schachmagazin , Issue 2/2011, p. 38, Eric van Reem: Silicon Chess City Mainz , ISSN  1438-9673 .
  3. ↑ http://www.gamezone.de/news_detail.asp?nid=69285
  4. ↑ Presentation on pc-magazin.de , accessed on January 6, 2013.
  5. ↑ Chess Programming Wiki , accessed June 22, 2014.
  6. ↑ New: Fritz 17 with neural Fat Fritz engine . Presentation by ChessBase, November 11, 2019. accessed on November 13, 2019.
  7. ^ Susan Polgar: Blunder of the century? Biggest blunder ever?