Fritz 12 (PC DVD)

 

 

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To be honest I'm a pretty dreadful chess player: one who's used to Chessmaster's slick interface, often uses the 'take back move' functions and makes extensive use of tutorials. According to the Peshk@ software, Chessmaster and the Fritz tactics training I'm about 1500 ELO, but I have a suspicion that they're just being kind.

When I came to have a go on Fritz 11 last year, largely out of a need for something with an wide range of tutorials available, I found the interface rather opaque and illogical in places and eventually gave up and went back to Chessmaster. I had a lot of questions about the new Fritz 12 program when I heard they had updated it. This review therefore just covers the issues (largely related to interface and usability) that I was curious about before I bought the game, and I submit it here in the hope that it will prove useful to others in a similar position to me.

If you're a real pro, or a club player, and not particularly bothered about the UI or useability you may wish to skip this review. If you're considering an upgrade I hope you find it useful.

Installation and DRM

This edition of Fritz comes on a DVD. You may install Fritz 12 on up to 3 machines (e.g. Laptop, Desktop and Work), and you can deactivate an installation if needs be. I had no problems with installation or activation, but when updating the software it reset some of my GUI settings. Installing the game does not install the included tutorial vids to your hard drive though, and so you'll need the DVD in the drive if you want to view these.

Menus and Interface

The revamped interface is based around a Ribbon, a bit like the ones used in Microsoft Office 2007. It's been built to conform to Microsoft's 'Fluent UI' standard, and uses a row of tabs, beneath which all the options related to that tab are laid out in a readily accessible fashion. This means you can see a large number of related options at once. The Ribbon is, however, thicker than the usual menu strip, and if you find that the Ribbon's too clunky and takes up too much room on your monitor, you can just right-click it and minimise it. If you don't like the default Blue colour scheme, you can chance the theme to Black, Aqua or Silver (though doing this also resets the board design settings if you've changed them).

The menu interface is customisable, insofar as you can right-click on any icon in the ribbon (e.g. 'New Game') and add it to a small 'Quick Launch' area at the top left of the window. This means that if you have a frequently-used option you can pin it to the top of the window (I have the 'New Game', 'Handicap', 'Sparring' and 'Help' options up there). Seriously, I cannot emphasise enough how useful this is, and for me this is the one feature that has made Fritz 12 far, far more useable than it's predecessors!

Also welcome is the ever-present 'Help' icon at the top right. The included HTML help files are more extensive in detail and scope than the printed manual that's included with the DVD, so it pays to make use of it when you get stuck.

'Save layouts' is a very useful function. Once you've moved your windows around to your satisfaction, you can save the arrangement. I have one saved layout for using with the Fritz Media system DVDs, and another one for just playing chess. The panes themselves are the usual boxy Windows panes, though this time round they're fully dockable around the edges of the screen, and you can leave them free-floating if you prefer (although you cannot save a floating layout).

For me these changes made a real difference to my enjoyment of using the program, and my appreciation of just how powerful it is. It still takes time to learn in order to get the most out of it though, so do make sure you set aside a little while to fully read the manual (preferably the 'Help' manual installed with the program) and explore the options. If you want to see how the interface works for yourself without risking your money, you can download a demo of Deep Fritz 12 for free from the Chessbase website.

Fritz is still rather eccentric in a couple of ways though. For example, in the messy bit at the bottom of the application menu, 'Main menu - Customise' just allows you to change keyboard shortcuts, not customise the layout, use of engine or board appearance (those options are elsewhere). It really should have been named just 'Keyboard Shortcuts' as the Tooltip indicates, but minor niggles such as these suggest that usability testing may not have been 100% rigorous.

Selecting 'New Game' when using Opening Training or Endgame Training just resets the board to the same Opening/Endgame you've just played. You have to go back to the training option and 'turn it off and on again' in order to change the opening/endgame you are practising to a different one.

Choosing to play White or Black is a bit different to most chess games. Here it's a matter of starting a game, and immediately moving a White piece if you want to play White, or hitting 'Space' to make Fritz move first if you want to play Black. There's no 'Do you wish to play Black or White? (B/W)' dialogue box or anything. I actually quite like this touch, but I found it a mite confusing before I worked out what it was doing.

Difficulty Levels

Fritz will beat most human players even on a reasonably fast machine. Luckily it's easy to lobotomise the engine with a number of preset handicap settings, given such descriptive names as 'Careless' and 'Moron'.

Stick the Handicap icon in the quick bar, and Fritz suddenly becomes pretty much pick-up-and-play, allowing a beginner to set up a game of 'beatable' difficulty in two mouse clicks.

Help and In-game training

You can activate a virtual Coach who'll give you advice on what to play and what to avoid doing. If you're about to muff something up, a window with a picture of a grizzled old boy in a hat, smoking a cigar, will pop up and give you some sagely advice. Sometimes it can be rather bizarre advice, especially durung the endgame or if used during a training session, and so I've found that sometimes it pays to use one's discretion with this feature (especially if you're using something like the Danish Gambit).

You can set up another chess engine to 'Kibitz', i.e. play alongside the game. Attempting this caused a crash the first time, however subsequent attempts worked fine.

There's also a useful 'Spy' function, which shows you what Fritz is thinking. I haven't used this feature much, but it can provide an interesting way of finding weaknesses in one's position that have been overlooked.

The 'Hotness' dial and the Mate-O-Meter are nice touches, if a trifle paranoia-inducing.

Playchess.com

Selecting the Playchess.com option on the startup splash screen opens a program that connects to the Playchess.com servers. Here you can play against other players around the world, watch video lectures chat, etc. Some functions here, such as tutorials, cost a small fee, using a purchasable currency known as 'ducats'. Others, such as tactics training, are free.

I have found that once logged into Playchess.com I need to log out again, back to the splash screen to play a normal game with Fritz.

Tutorial videos

Included with this edition are some Fritz Trainer tutorials. These load into the Fritz interface, and consist of little window with footage of your tutor, and the board updates automatically with pieces and arrows to illustrate whatever it is that's being taught. These work fine, and for some reason I find having the video footage of the GM tutor useful and somewhat more inspiring than the rather more impersonal approach of reading through moves and analysis from a book.

The tutorials are kept on the DVD rather than being installed on your hard drive, and so unless you've somehow manually copied them over to C:, you'll need to stick the disk in the drive if you want to access them. You'll find a Beginners Course with GM Andrew Martin, along with samples from the FritzTrainer Grandmaster Tutorial DVDs, Openings DVDs, Endgame DVDs and Tactics DVDs. These samples include lectures from such luminaries as GM Garry Kasparov.

Andrew Martin's Beginner's Course is certainly welcome, and the material covered is very accessible. There is however a huge jump in terms of audience skill-level between the beginners course and the other sample tutorials, which cover some relatively advanced subjects. There's no equivalent of Josh Waitzkin's excellent 'Art of Learning' tutorial in Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition, which bridges that gap beautifully.

In keeping with Fritz's somewhat curt presentation style, the videos just 'end' when they finish. There's no pop up to see if you want to watch the next one, or even just to let you know it's finished and not crashed on you. If you go back to the video menu window, and choose another tutorial, it opens yet another Fritz window rather than loading the media into the existing one.

It's easy to use Fritz 12 with Fritz Trainer DVDs: just open Fritz with your tutorial DVD in the drive and choose 'Chess Course'. Or go to 'Open Chess Media File' in the main menu if there's one sitting somewhere on your hard drive. You can also stick the DVD in your drive, go to 'Open' -> 'Open Database' to open the Database program, click 'Open Database' in the main menu of that, navigate to your DVD drive and open the .cbh database file. I tried opening them directly from the DVD, but only got Karsten Muller speaking German on his Endgame DVD using this method. Far easier just to use the splash screen.

Chessbase have a huge library of tutorial DVDs... Read more ›

I don't usually write reviews etc but feel the need to do so on this occasion for this product.
The CD version constantly requires the reinsertion of the CD. While this is clearly a matter of personal choice, personally - even after a few days - I've found this constant request to reinsert the cd quite irritating/annoying.
I already wish I'd bought the more expensive DVD & shall certainly go for the DVD option in future purchases of Fritz.

This is a bargain buy... you can install at home and at work (licence allows two installs) and it doesn't matter it's the single processor version. Download Houdini or Stockfish and install as UCI engines.

This turns your cheap Fritz into something even better at analysing games (or playing) than the more expensive Deep Fritz.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Less features than Fritz 11 and way weaker than Rybka. Not worth it.
I have been a long time Chessbase user all the way back to Fritz 5.32. And until Deep Fritz 12 I have been very satisfied with their product. Read more

Published 5 months ago by nobody

1.0 out of 5 stars Not For My comp
I tried to load two copies of this chess program into my computer but My comp didn't recognise the disc? my Computer far exceeds the min spec required. Read more

Published 10 months ago by B. E. Lunn

5.0 out of 5 stars Fritz Phenomenon
I was pleased to find that I could change the playing strength of Fritz. Also I could stop it talking to me during a game if I wanted. Read more

Published 13 months ago by bodger

2.0 out of 5 stars Once the best, but not any more.
I agree with Steve Martin 100 per cent. The interface is an organisational nightmare and it's full of bugs. Read more

Published 20 months ago by Jack

1.0 out of 5 stars Extremly unintuitive, no support
I've bought and installed Fritz 12, but it incesantly nags for the DVD, it doesn't seem to have installed properly, the chess course, chess database, etc, aren't available (why... Read more

Published 22 months ago by Steve Martin

5.0 out of 5 stars Fritz12 chess game.
The game itself is awsome, however it does have a down-side. To play it you have to insert the DVD, I would have thought with the size of todays HDDs, all of the data would have... Read more

Published 23 months ago by J. Carter

4.0 out of 5 stars The Old King is dead; Long live his successor!
Revised 24/12/09.

Those who have read my Fritz 11 reviews will already have a good idea what the program is about. Read more

Published on 24 Oct 2009 by P. Ruffle

5.0 out of 5 stars Great value cut down version of the #1 chess program
Firstly, Fritz is a really great program. It might not include the very strongest chess engine in the world at the moment but the difference is negligible to anyone who is not a... Read more

Published on 23 Oct 2009 by A. K. Ainsworth

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